Recent amendments to the Nuclear Substances and Radiation Devices Regulations eliminated the requirement for a recall procedure for expired tritium lights that are, of course, still radioactive. There is now no requirement that tritium light manufacturers accept the return of discarded tritium lights of their own manufacture unless this requirement is now incorporated directly in a CNSC licence. In addition to relieving manufacturers of the financial burden of receiving waste lights as radioactive materials, this change to the Regulations increases the likelihood that purchasers of tritium lights will abandon these radioactive devices in ordinary landfills, even in jurisdictions such as the United States where this practice is not permitted.

For further details see letter to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission from the Canadian Environmental Law Association on behalf of Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County.

TAP asks “How do these changes enhance the protection of the health and safety of the Canadian public? How do these changes enhance the protection of the environment? If they do not enhance either, then why were these changes made?”

Documents filed for the hearing show tritium contamination at the base of SSI’s stacks has exceeded 1,000,000 Becquerels per litre. Local apples and groundwater wells are contaminated at many times higher than background levels. 

 SSI’s current license permits it to release 34,000 quadrillion becquerels of tritium. This is an unbelievably large quantity. So large it’s hard to put into words. But suffice it to say that SSI’s current license permits it to release more than the current total global inventory of tritium.

Of course SSI’s actual tritium releases are only a small fraction of their allowable limit*. But a small fraction of an enormous number can still be a large amount.

This is all eerily familiar. Citizens of Pembroke have been through this with our own tritium sign factory, SRB Technologies Incorporated. Soil and groundwater in the vicinity of SRB remain highly contaminated with tritium and nearby residents have stopped growing vegetables for home consumption. Some still grow a few veggies to use for monitoring tritium contamination every year.

Members of the Tritium Awareness Project will be intervening in the licensing hearing for SSI on June 10th. Members of the public who are interested in intervening must contact the CNSC  by May 13th. Details for intervenors are available on the CNSC website at www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/

Members of the public can also sign and/or collect signatures on the TAP petition to phase out the use of tritium lights. The petition is located here.

* due to the CNSC’s strange practice of setting allowable limits more than a thousand times higher than actual releases, an approach that is contrary to guidance from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Various American authorities have recently posted detailed information on the internet about responsible management of  tritium EXIT signs. Authorities in the United States appear to be way ahead of their Canadian counterparts in addressing the serious problems created by use and disposal of  these signs, many of which are manufactured in Canada.

In the U.S.,  the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health and Environmental Protection Agency all have prohibited use of tritium signs. Here are two informative web resources created recently by American authorities.

1) Responsible Management of tritium EXIT signs - excellent on-line training module from the Environmental Protection Agency that includes information on health risks, a key to identify tritium signs, recommended alternatives, and safe procedures for disposal.

2) Bureau of Radiation Protection, State of Pennsylvania - detailed webpage with much information about the problems with tritium exit signs.

TAP asks “Where is Canada’s information on responsibly dealing with tritium exit signs”?  

Besides being hazardous during manufacture and disposal, tritium lights and products containing them are hazardous during use. The tritium contained in a single exit sign, if fully oxidized and inhaled would constitute a lethal dose of radiation. Incidents have occurred in the United States where lights have been accidentally or intentionally broken, thus requiring expensive emergency measures including evacuations and decontamination operations.

This and other problems are described in the TAP fact sheet “Problems with tritium exit signs” available in PDF format for download in the documents section of this website.

Disposal of waste exit signs can seriously pollute groundwater. Tritium lights become much more hazardous to the environment as they age; the glass tubes act as sponges for tritium, converting it into its more hazardous and soluble oxidized form. Information linking high levels of tritium oxide in landfill leachate to discarded exit signs, has recently come to light in Scotland, South Africa, Italy and several states in the U.S. Regulators are grappling with the issue of how to ensure that used tritium exit signs go to monitored, radioactive waste storage facilities (1,2). Although no Canadian data are available, the situation may be worse here because regulations allow for disposal of used exit signs in ordinary landfills.

References:

1) Study of tritium in leachate from Scottish landfill sites
2)  State of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

SRB  was licensed by the Atomic Energy Control Board (now the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) in 1990  to market a radioactive waste byproduct of CANDU reactors called tritium — a radioactive form of hydrogen. SRB makes self-illuminating signs — they glow in the dark because they are filled with large quantities of radioactive tritium gas.  

Over the years. SRB has contaminated the environment in Pembroke with high levels of tritium. In some years, more tritium was given off into the environment by the SRB plant than by all of Canada’s nuclear power reactors combined.  Meanwhile, SRB is exporting tritium contamination problems around the world because there is no effective control over the ultimate disposal of these radioactive signs. 

This story is replete with patent examples of regulatory incompetence, murky questions about nuclear weapons and international security risks (because tritium is also used as a nuclear explosive material) and salt-of-the-earth folks being treated with disregard and exposed to high levels of radioactive tritium for  almost 20 years with no end in sight.  Please see also the “personal stories” category for more about this.

TAP feels that the marketing of radioactive wastes like tritium should be banned in Canada, and the SRB plant should be permanently shut down. 

Radioactive rhubarb has been found growing in Pembroke, Ont., near a factory that makes glow-in-the-dark signs from nuclear waste.

The rhubarb, apparently thriving downwind of the sign factory owned by SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc., contained about 1,000 times the radioactive tritium found either in rain water in Ottawa or in a rhubarb sample taken from a garden about 45 kilometres away.

“It was unusually large rhubarb, but I don’t think it was mutant or anything like that,” said Ole Hendrickson, a resident of the Ottawa Valley community who helped collect the samples.

The Atomic Energy Control Board, the country’s nuclear-safety agency, said the radioactivity from the rhubarb carries little risk, but Mr. Hendrickson said residents should not have any involuntary exposure to a potentially dangerous radioactive substance. He said regulators “should be targeting for zero level” of exposure to radioactive material.

There are no other known sources of tritium in Pembroke, such as atomic power stations or nuclear-weapon-manufacturing facilities, making fugitive emissions from the sign plant the only likely source. The company makes signs that are illuminated without electricity, such as airport runway markers and exit signs.

The tritium concentrations were about 19 to 75 times the average levels found in plants growing around Ontario’s three nuclear stations. The generating stations are far larger than the sign plant, which is in a small industrial building on the outskirts of Pembroke.

The AECB views the radioactive rhubarb as safe enough to be baked in pies or made into jam.

Sunni Locatelli, a board spokeswoman, said consuming the rhubarb would deliver a weak radioactive dose far lower than that from a chest X-ray or from living in a brick house, two other things that lead to small extra doses of radiation.

The emissions from the rhubarb are “well below the public dose limits,” she said.

The company said it is in compliance with all the conditions of its operating licence. “We meet the guidelines set by the Atomic Energy Control Board,” SRB executive Stephane Levesque said.

Mr. Hendrickson had the rhubarb sent to a laboratory at the University of Waterloo, which detected the high concentration.

The laboratory then refused to analyze a second plant sample — of an aspen leaf from a tree growing next to the sign factory — because of concern over the tritium levels in the rhubarb.

University officials were worried that if a worker accidentally broke a sample containing such a high level of tritium, its laboratory would be contaminated.

The Waterloo lab specializes in checking for minute traces of tritium in groundwater, which typically has radiation amounts about one-thousandth those of the Pembroke rhubarb. Staff were worried that an accident would irradiate instruments and undermine the accuracy of future test results.

A spill in the lab “might cause us a lot of grief,” said manager Robert Drimmie, adding that he did not refuse the second sample because of worries over the potential health risk.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen used mainly to make thermonuclear bombs. But it can also be used in glow-in-the-dark signs.

Tritium is produced as an unwanted byproduct of Canadian-designed nuclear reactors. SRB makes its signs using tritium from Ontario Power Generation Inc. and from tritium recycled from old glow-in-the-dark signs.

Canada has no standards for tritium contamination in food, Ms. Locatelli said, but regulators try to minimize exposure to all sources of human-caused radioactivity because it is a carcinogen and causes genetic damage.

There is no safe radiation dose, but the new federal regulatory standard for public exposure to human sources of radioactivity accepts as a safe risk nuclear contamination that causes 50 additional people in a population of one million to die of cancer.

The AECB says the sign plant is well within this safety standard.

SRB conducts its own testing for radiation in vegetation around the plant, but Mr. Levesque declined to divulge the results.

The rhubarb Mr. Hendrickson sent for analysis contained 2,000 becquerels per litre of tritium. A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity.

The Ontario drinking-water guideline for tritium is to allow no more than 7,000 Bq per litre. In the mid 1990s, a provincial advisory body recommended a more stringent safety standard of 100 Bq per litre, but the proposal was never adopted by the government

Turns out that a passerby in downtown Ottawa noticed three boxes in the middle of Bank St. with radiation symbols on them. She called the police and several blocks of downtown Ottawa were cordoned off while the boxes were dealt with by emergency services. Personnel from SRB in Pembroke were called to retrieve the material, compressed tritium gas and lights bound for an undisclosed destination in the United States.

This could have been a disaster if the boxes had been run over and the contents released to the environment. Questions in our mind, such as why was SRB shipping compressed tritium gas by Purolator to the United States were never adequately answered by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Hearing about this left us shaking our heads. We had spent hours and hours on research, consultations with independent scientists, preparation of logical arguments and interventions and what had it got us? A deaf ear was turned to our concerns by the CNSC. SRB was rewarded with a five-year license and days after receiving it, their sloppy practices led to a large quantity of radiation being dropped on the street in downtown Ottawa.

Several years later we learned that the year 2000 was one of the two recent years on record when SRB Technologies released more radioactive tritium to the environment in the City of Pembroke, than all of Canada’s nuclear generating stations combined.

Lynn Jones, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, Pembroke

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved a shipment to Iran last year by a Canadian company of about 70,000 glow-in-the-dark lights containing tritium, a radioactive gas that can also be used as a component in hydrogen bombs.

The amount of tritium approved by the nuclear regulator for shipment to the volatile Middle Eastern country was about 10 per cent of the quantity considered necessary for making one nuclear weapon, although the company selling the lights, SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc., said it sent less than it was allowed.

The sale to Iran was confirmed by the CNSC after The Globe and Mail obtained heavily censored e-mails originating from the federal nuclear watchdog about the transaction. Another e-mail that discussed SRB indicated the federal bureaucracy didn’t want any atomic sales that would lead to Canadian complicity in programs by either Iran or North Korea to develop weapons of mass destruction.

“We must be particularly vigilant to ensure that Canada does nothing that could assist, directly or indirectly, the nuclear programs or WMD capabilities of either country,” Marc Vidricaire, then a senior disarmament official at the Department of Foreign Affairs, wrote in an e-mail sent to his counterpart at the CNSC.

The names of the countries were originally deleted by the CNSC in the version of the e-mail it made public, but Foreign Affairs identified them in a written statement to The Globe. Mr. Vidricaire, who subsequently left the federal government to become chief spokesman for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, also wrote that the CNSC shouldn’t have approved the tritium export by SRB Technologies without first seeking the views of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Vidricaire refused to comment on his e-mail, but Jim Casterton, a senior CNSC official, said in an interview that the agency approved a shipment by SRB of lights to Iran in 2005. There were no indications in the records of any dealings with North Korea.

The delivery to Iran was made in three batches between May and July. At the time, there were widespread international fears about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and EU states were warning that any resumption by the country of its uranium conversion efforts would end negotiations linked to trade and economic issues.

The CNSC said the shipment was allowed to contain a maximum of 0.4 grams of tritium, but refused to comment on how easy or difficult it would be for the tritium sent to Iran to be diverted for a bomb.

Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, is a so-called dual use item, meaning it has both peaceful applications, such as making glow-in-the-dark lights and the illuminated markings on watches, and a use in atomic bombs. Regulators monitor it closely, keeping track of even minute quantities, because only four grams, or about the weight of a 25-cent piece, is considered enough to make a plutonium-based nuclear weapon.

Federal tritium export guidelines have been developed to reduce the possibility of successful weapons production by rogue nations. The guidelines stipulate that countries failing to abide by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons can’t be sent more than a gram of tritium annually in products such as lights, from any one exporter. Any amount can be sent to countries abiding by the treaty.

According to the e-mails and to Mr. Casterton, SRB also sought permission to send lights to Iran in 2004, but later withdrew the application for the sale. Mr. Casterton said this earlier application was for just less than a gram of tritium.

Canada is one of the world’s biggest sources of tritium because Candu reactors generate large quantities of it as a waste product. Ontario Power Generation extracts about 2.5 kilograms of it a year. Tritium is one of the world’s most expensive substances, selling for about $25,000 a gram.

The lights were made by SRB in Pembroke, Ont.

The company declined to identify its Iranian purchaser for commercial reasons, but said the buyer was an optical company.

SRB president Stephane Levesque said the quantity of tritium shipped to Iran was less than the amount permitted in its licence, at about a quarter of a gram. He said the purchaser used the lights to make compasses that can be read in the dark.

SRB makes items including emergency signs, and Mr. Levesque said the company’s products are designed to save lives.

“We make lights that glow in the dark, to illuminate various products for life safety, nothing else,” he said.

But the sale of products using tritium has been questioned by some disarmament advocates because of nuclear proliferation fears.

“The tritium trade epitomizes the risks of the nuclear industry because it has commercial applications, as well as nuclear weapons applications,” contended David Martin, a nuclear expert at Greenpeace. “It’s clear that tritium has ready and easy applications to nuclear weapons, so it should be treated with the utmost security.”

The CNSC also refused to identify the purchaser.

E-mails on the export were obtained through an Access to Information Act request made by an environmental group in Pembroke, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, seeking records the nuclear agency held on SRB.

Mr. Casterton, the CNSC’s acting executive director of international affairs, defended the Iranian shipment, saying the nuclear regulator is “vigilant” about making sure atomic materials from Canada do not contribute to nuclear proliferation.

He said federal policies on tritium are designed to “assure Canadians that these exports do not assist in any way for the development of nuclear weapons, or nuclear explosive devices.”

But this view on the shipment wasn’t shared by Mr. Vidricaire. Staff at Foreign Affairs review sensitive nuclear shipments, but in the case of SRB, Mr. Vidricaire was miffed that the CNSC approved the Iranian transaction before his officials were able to provide their views.

Although Mr. Vidricaire’s e-mail is heavily censored and Iran is not named directly, a previous e-mail exchange sent a month earlier identifies a proposed shipment to Iran by SRB as being a point of contention between the two agencies.

Mr. Vidricaire told the CNSC that it should assume the federal government would not approve future sales of tritium to countries posing proliferation risks, and he reminded the agency that then-prime-minister Paul Martin had been making speeches saying Canada had to be seen as taking a tough stand on nuclear weapons.

“In view of the foregoing, [Foreign Affairs] requests that when in the future CNSC reviews applications for the export . . . [censored] . . . for tritium, items containing tritium, or tritium-related technology, or for the export of nuclear or nuclear-related dual-use items, you do so on the basis of a presumption of denial.”

Pembroke facility shuts down operations temporarily amid
radioactivity concerns

By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
Thursday, December 1, 2005

A company that contaminated groundwater around its plant in Pembroke, Ont., with radioactive tritium says it has halted operations and will not resume manufacturing until it puts in place better pollution controls.

SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc. announced its temporary shutdown in an e-mail sent late Tuesday night to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the country’s nuclear watchdog agency. The letter was sent just before the company was scheduled to appear at a CNSC hearing yesterday into the future of the plant.

The company is a manufacturer of glow-in-the-dark signs, such as emergency-exit markers, which run without electricity. It makes the signs using tritium, a waste product taken from Ontario’s nuclear-power plants.

Last month, staff at the commission recommended the plant be closed after they discovered the company was not able to provide reliable estimates on the amount of radioactivity being released into Pembroke, an Ottawa River community of 15,000.