Waste Management, Decommissioning and Environmental Restoration: Regulatory Developments and Issues

Notes for a Speech by
Linda J. Keen, President and CEO, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

to the Canadian Nuclear Society
Ottawa, Ontario

May 9, 2005

Introduction

Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today.

I would like to congratulate the Canadian Nuclear Society and this conference’s organizers for having the foresight to plan this conference in this exciting and challenging period in nuclear waste management in Canada. As I will stress in my speech, these challenges arise not only from historical and legacy practices but also from new projects on the immediate horizon.

The interest in this subject is evidenced by the attendance in this room and the scramble by hotel services to find more chairs for this morning’s participants.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) will be very active at this conference over the next few days.

The CNSC’s active participation in this conference is a continuing sign of our commitment to being one of the best nuclear regulators in the world with strong independent oversight and openness and transparency in the regulation of Canada’s nuclear activities.

I am joined here this morning by Mr. Barclay Howden, who is the Director General of the Nuclear Cycle and Facilities Regulation who will address the challenges associated with the licensing of long-term radioactive waste management facilities. Mr. Robert Lojk, who is the CNSC’s Director for Waste Management, will be discussing regulatory requirements and policies related to the management of radioactive waste.

Before continuing, I would like to note that I will not be discussing two issues that are very important to the nuclear regulator in terms of waste management, namely safeguards and nuclear security.

As regards safeguards and nuclear non-proliferation, I trust that this audience appreciates, as Deputy Minister George Anderson also mentioned in his remarks, that Canada’s international obligations respecting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy applies not only equally but to greater degrees to waste management facilities. As serious concerns remain around the world, the CNSC continues to work with the IAEA in the application of safeguards on waste management facilities, to hold industry to account for its regulatory responsibilities and to explore the development of its national safeguards system through the concept of “integrated safeguards.”

As regards security, all 4000 of the CNSC’s licensees underwent security enhancements on a risk-informed approach following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. These security enhancements are permanent regulatory requirements and they affect waste management facilities.

I will not, however, be discussing these issues in my speech this morning.

This morning, I would like to address four larger policy questions. They are:

• An environmental scan of waste and decommissioning issues that we foresee emerging in the next 10 years;
• The CNSC’s approach to these emerging challenges;
• The CNSC’s perspective on how industry should be responding; and,
• The importance of international obligations and benchmarking.

Assessment of Emerging Work in the Next 10 Years

We are entering a new era as we begin planning for the long-term management of radioactive waste. At the same time, new initiatives for the cleanup and environmental restoration of historic sites are ongoing.

As was mentioned on the CBC Radio News this morning, the CNSC has recently completed its regulatory assessments and issued a waste facility operating licence for the decommissioned Beaverlodge uranium mine and mill site in northern Saskatchewan. In completing this regulatory assessment and others like it, the Commission - and I am now speaking as “President” of the CNSC’s administrative tribunal charged with approval of regulatory policy and licensing - is stressing the need for early life cycle planning. The Commission is always asking its licensees, “What would you have done differently? How would you have planned for end of life if you had had the chance 30, 40 or 50 years ago?”

Well, the industry has that chance now. As new projects are being undertaken, they have the ability to plan early, in the design stages, for the ultimate decommissioning and end of life of the facility. And the Commission is encouraging them to do just that.

For example, the Commission did exactly this when it traveled to Lac LaRonge in northern Saskatchewan last year for the consideration of the first ever modern decommissioning of a uranium mining facility at Cluff Lake. It is also doing this in terms of approaches to effluent treatment at operating uranium mining facilities.

As it conducts its regulatory and licensing assessments of facilities, the Commission simply wants to assure Canadians that industry is not permitted to fall back into old habits of planning too late for decommissioning.

Over the next few years, we will see serious decisions on some large waste management and decommissioning related projects - with environmental restoration implications - that will place heavy demands on regulatory planning and oversight.

As the previous speakers from the Department of Natural Resources have already reviewed these projects, I will not repeat them here. I would, however, like to pick up on the theme of societal acceptance. I believe that it is true that not enough attention was paid in the past to social acceptance and citizen engagement in the consideration of long-term waste management. For its part, the CNSC modern nuclear regulatory regime under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act (NSCA) is far more open and transparent.

However, I would caution that we not allow the pendulum to swing too far to where scientific and technical assessments are not given their proper role. The participants in this room, many of whom are scientists and engineers in the field of waste management, should attest to this important fact.

We must also recognize that nuclear installations are aging and that the possibility of permanent shutdowns and decommissioning is on the horizon.

Regulatory authorities will need to establish an appropriate regulatory environment for the safe decommissioning of a wide range of nuclear facilities.

With regard to decommissioning activities, I was particularly struck by the seven main themes that emerged as being of importance during the 2002 IAEA sponsored conference on safe and proper decommissioning of nuclear facilities, in Berlin, at which I chaired a session.

The first, as I stressed earlier, is early planning. Planning for decommissioning should start as early as possible, ideally at the design stage of the facility.

There is now a shift towards immediate dismantling, as opposed to delayed decommissioning, and the IAEA is planning to introduce a new safety standard which will identify immediate dismantling as the preferred option. Of course, there will always be a saw-off between the benefits of immediate decommissioning, in terms, for example, of knowledge management, against the available financial resources.

Throughout these processes, both industry and the regulator must be aware of attendant social issues. The negative social and economic effects of decommissioning can be minimized through early involvement of the public, community leaders, work forces and interest groups in the decision making process.

It was also noted that the availability of national radioactive waste repositories would be of great benefit to decommissioning. However, the absence of a repository should not be considered as an obstacle to early dismantling.

The long-term retention of knowledge must also be addressed. This involves both people and records. One advantage of early dismantling is that it can take advantage of the knowledge and expertise acquired during the operation of a facility.

Delayed decommissioning would require a strategy to preserve the expertise and knowledge for later use.

Record keeping should start at the design stage of a facility and continue in the long-term after decommissioning.

Another important point was the necessity of financial guarantees.

Provisions should be made to ensure that sufficient funds will be available to carry out the decommissioning activities. An appropriate funding mechanism should be in place before a facility is licensed to operate.

Finally, there is a need to develop consistent criteria for the removal of regulatory control from sites, buildings and materials. This would allow the recycling or reuse of materials from decommissioning and greatly reduce the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of in a repository.

The CNSC’S Response to Emerging Work Pressures

For our part, the CNSC is responding proactively to these emerging work pressures.

As will be explained by Mr. Howden and the participating staff of the CNSC, we are actively developing clear regulatory policies and other documents to strengthen the regulatory framework for activities including waste management, safety assessments, financial guarantees, clearance levels, and more. These documents will be reviewed by stakeholders including licensees, via our established consultation process.

We are working within the government’s Smart Regulation initiatives to be more effective and efficient in the implementation of current requirements. In this regard, I would like to cite two examples.

First, we are continuing our implementation of the MOU that we have with the Province of Saskatchewan for the more efficient inspection and regulation of uranium mining activities in northern Saskatchewan.

Second, the CNSC is very privileged to have been delegated the authority by Environment Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to be the competent authority in the implementation of the Environmental Protection Act.

With respect to the upcoming release of the draft report of the NWMO, the CNSC has assembled a Standing Review Team to review the recommendation of the draft report.

The CNSC will be reviewing the Report, keeping three critical questions in mind:

• Are there any safety-related issues that are not adequately considered?
• Are there any impediments to obtaining a licence that can be identified? and;
• Are the CNSC and its regulatory oversight portrayed accurately?

We look forward to the release of the report as we feel it is an important step forward.

I would expect the NWMO report to properly describe the current regulatory environment for high level waste, and reasonable expectations for the future.

I believe that it is important for the Canadian public to be aware that presently:

• The Canadian industry is doing a good job in their current management of radioactive waste and spent fuel; and
• High-level waste is being handled properly under the current regulatory regime which will continue into the future.

Regulatory Perspective on Industry's Response

As for the regulatory perspective on how industry needs to respond to the emerging pressures, as I had mentioned in my speech to the Canadian Nuclear Association earlier this year, the CNSC expects industry to respond to these emerging pressures in a coordinated fashion, and to take ownership of a long-term cradle-to-grave approach to waste management, as is expected of us under our international obligations.

While good progress is being made in this area, Canada is not yet meeting it international obligations to the fullest extent possible.

For example, as Chair of the Canadian Delegation to the First Review Meeting of the Joint Convention, I am intimately aware of its Summary Report which calls on Contracting Parties to develop “…clear, integrated plans on how spent fuel and radioactive waste will be managed to ensure continued safety into the future.”

Integrated planning – covering government and industry across all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle from waste from hospitals and radioactive sources through uranium mining and power reactors – on how spent fuel and radioactive waste will be managed is necessary in order to ensure continued safety into the future, to meet best practices, and to meet international obligations.

I believe that key industry leaders share my view that the initiative to create and implement an integrated waste management strategy must be taken by industry, in cooperation with Natural Resources Canada.

Simply, more can be done in working together in order to have a clear and comprehensive Canadian approach to waste management.

Importance of International Obligations and Benchmarking

Finally, as Mr. Barclay Howden, CNSC Director General of Nuclear Cycle and Facilities Regulation prepares to be the Head of the Canadian Delegation to the Second Review Meeting of the Joint Convention, to be held in May 2006, it is important to remember that only through good preparation now and good follow-up after the meeting next year will we be in a position to report positive advances in the development of our integrated approach to waste management.

The CNSC is now engaging others to rewrite our National Report and prepare for peer reviews.

The obligations of the Contracting Parties include, among other things;

• The obligation to establish and maintain a legislative and regulatory framework to govern the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management;
• The obligation to ensure that individuals, society and the environment are adequately protected against radiological and other hazards by appropriate siting, design and construction of facilities, and by making provisions for ensuring the safety of facilities both during their operation and after their closure; and,
• The obligation to take appropriate steps to ensure that disused sealed sources are managed safely.

The Joint Convention provides the opportunity for Canada, including the regulator, industry, and government, as a Contracting Party, to benchmark ourselves against our international peers and our obligations under the Convention, to identify best practices and to identify areas for improvement.

Canada needs to become more active in benchmarking itself, especially Canadian industry. Industry should be doing this on their own accord, not only to ensure obligations under the Joint Convention are being met, but also to identify best practices for cradle-to-grave management of spent fuel and all radioactive waste in Canada.

Conclusion

The growth in nuclear activities and emerging regulatory issues with respect to waste management, decommissioning and environmental restoration that I have described to you today poses significant challenges to the CNSC, industry, and all levels of government over the next 10 years.

While the CNSC will be addressing its pressures, it is an extremely vigorous and challenging agenda for the CNSC.

We have identified that these pressures cannot be adequately attended to with our existing resources, and we are actively working resolve this issue.

The CNSC exists to protect the health, safety and security of Canadians, to protect our environment and to ensure that Canada’s commitments on the peaceful use of nuclear energy are respected.

This is our mandate – and it’s a commitment that we will never lose sight of, whatever new growth or new challenges arise in the future.

We are a world-class regulatory agency, and we are prepared to implement international standards, prepared to commit to effectiveness without equivocation, and maintain clear objectives of transparency, efficiency and continuous improvement.

As for the role of industry, once again, a coordinated effort is required to address these emerging pressures and to create and implement an integrated waste management strategy, with industry taking the lead.

This is what Canadians and the international community expect of all of us, and, in the next few years, we will all be measured against our respective international peers and against public expectations.

This should be embraced as an opportunity for self-assessment and self-improvement, and to demonstrate to the international community that Canada is “best in class.”

Thank you.

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