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Test results show that the alpha contamination incident at the Bruce Nuclear site was not as bad as initially thought.

The incident occurred in November, 2009, in Unit 1 during the Bruce A restart project, and was reported in January, 2010, to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The site was contained and affected employees continue to be tested.

John Peevers of Bruce Power communications says the initial bioassay sample gave the company raw data and from that calculations were made based on some assumptions to try and define the dose.

"We're now learning that some of those assumptions were worst-case scenarios and we're finding through other tests that things are much better than we thought for one individual," says Peevers. That individual is being subjected to more testing to confirm exactly the level of alpha contamination which occurred, he says.

"At this point, we know it did not exceed the CNSC-prescribed limit so that's really good news," says Peevers.

Bruce Power is working with a United States laboratory to speed up the testing, Peevers says. 

"I think we have test results back for about 60 of the 94 employees affected," he says. "The results are starting to come back a little more and with the use of this U.S. lab, we're trying to accelerate the process and give everybody as much confidence as we can. The time lag is not good for anybody. Unfortunately, that's the reality we're stuck with. We're pulling out all the stops to put this to rest as soon as we can so people can get the comfort they need."

He says all the employees involved in the work on Unit 1 are being tested. "If anyone has concerns, we want those put to rest as soon as we can."

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Thursday, April 01, 2010