(382.3747) WISE Amsterdam - "But the big news," says another article (The Oshawa Times), "is the discovery of faults n areas where layers of rock have buckled n exposed by erosion in a river valley seven kilometers from the plant."
According to Nick Eyles, a professor of geology at the University of Toronto, "We don't know what their faults' potential is to generate earthquakes, and the fact that we don't know is the biggest problem." Ontario Hydro should "put their engineering geologists onto it straightaway," he added.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Ontario Hydro offered hollow assurances about the risk of nuclear accidents caused by earthquakes at Ontario's nuclear generating stations. According to Al Manchee, "Hydro designed the stations to withstand any kind of seismic activity... All the recent study data have not led to any alarm at Hydro."
Ontario Hydro may not be alarmed, but others are, especially when considering what the corporation's own internal reports say. For example, a January 1992 document prepared for Ontario Hydro's Nuclear Integrity Review Committee, and obtained at Ontario Hydro's Public Reference Centre by the Ontario-based anti-nuclear group Durham Nuclear Awareness, notes that: "Pickering NGS A and Bruce NGS were not designed to current seismic design standards... The AECB [Atomic Energy Control Board] has expressed concerns over this situation, primarily for Pickering NGS A as it is closest to a major population center and is the oldest plant... it is likely that continuing regulatory pressure will be exerted on Ontario Hydro to re-evaluate the safety of Bruce NGS A and Pickering NGS A in terms of their ability to survive seismic events."
The report in Geology, the monthly magazine of the Geological Society of America, is the second expert source to raise questions about the stability of the land beneath the Pickering station (940 km east of Toronto). Two years ago, the AECB reported two lines meeting at Pickering where the earth's magnetic field is different from the field in the surrounding area. A change in magnetic field can indicate a fault in the earth's crust.
Meanwhile, Ontario Hydro continues to publicly deny that a serious risk even exists. "To make matters worse," says Irene Kock of Durham Nuclear Awareness, "it is quite likely that an earthquake related nuclear accident would involve all reactors at the station, since key safety systems are shared at Ontario Hydro's multi-reactor facilities."
Sources:
- The Oshawa Times (Canada), 2 Nov. 1992
- Letter to the Editor, Irene Kock, 3 Nov. 1992.
Contact: Durham Nuclear Awareness, Box 2143, Oshawa, Ontario, L1H 7V4 Canada; tel: +1 416 725 1565; fax: 723 4366.
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