FARE's contributions to Port Hope

STATEMENT/PRESS RELEASE    March 23, 2011

Families Against Radiation Exposure, Port HopeIn the relatively short period that FARE has been in existence it has achieved major milestones in improving safety in Port Hope. FARE was formed in 2004 to raise questions and provide education to the public about the proposed down-blending of enriched uranium on the flood plain of the Ganaraska River. The strategy was to get a full panel review (highest level of environmental assessment) or to get Council to call for a so-called "peer review". (It should be noted that the term "peer review" is used differently by scientists on the one hand and by some members of the public on the other. Here the term is being used in the non-scientific sense that the Port Hope Council uses. See below for the scientific usage.) Council called for the "peer review" and the rest is history. Our community is safer as a result. After Cameco abandoned its proposal for enriched uranium, FARE continued to work towards its goal of minimizing radioactive emissions in the municipality. Much of this was done without publicity. Our achievements included:

• Making the Canadian Nuclear Safety Council (CNSC) aware that Cameco and (the former) Zircatec lacked the training and equipment to respond to a radiological fire at their facilities. The CNSC ordered them to correct that, and they have.
• Detecting neutron radiation on drums stored in public areas of the company`s facility. The company now monitors its workers for neutron radiation (which it didn`t before).
• Demanding greater accountability on emissions. The company now reports its emissions publicly in language the public can understand.
• Protesting the secrecy of the Low Level Radioactive Waste Management Office(LLRWMO). Thanks to our intervention, anyone can now request and receive the full radiological history of any property in the community. Only a few residents have done so (it is not advertised) and more than one has told us "If I’d been allowed to see that, I wouldn’t have bought this house."
• Informing the LLRWMO about 36 public locations in Port Hope where soil samples showed elevated levels of uranium, arsenic and other toxic metals. The testing was done by Cameco and filed with the CNSC’ but the municipality was not informed for four years. The municipality's "peer reviewer" has promised that they will be cleaned up.<!--break-->

Peer Reviewed Studies on Port Hope’s radioactivity problem

In 2008, the Mayor of Port Hope repeatedly stated in public that Council was in possession of "Peer Review Studies" that proved that there has been no negative health impact from radioactivity in Port Hope. Since the Mayor had on these occasions used the words Peer Review in the context of the word Study it was believed that she was in this case claiming to use this phrase in its scientific sense. In science, a Peer Reviewed Study is one that has been published in an official, recognised scientific journal, after it has been scrutinised and its acceptance for publication has been recommended to the journal editor by anonymous referees, the choice of referees being unknown to and not determined by the author(s) of the study. Science journals are ranked for excellence; those that publish excellent science are known as "prestigious journals". Only articles that have been through this arms-length refereeing process are considered by practising scientist to meet acceptable standards for rigorous scientific reporting. Reports that have merely been reviewed by the authors’ colleagues or acquaintances, and then copied and circulated by the authors, are non peer-reviewed studies and are not considered to be equivalent in scientific validity. This usage of the term peer review is quite different to the everyday, non-scientific usage that Council and others employ in non-scientific situations. FARE requested the office of the Mayor to provide copies of the Peer Review(ed) Studies that the Mayor had mentioned. We were given a computer disc and told that the relevant material was on that disc. FARE obtained the voluntary assistance of a medical geneticist and asked him to review the content of the disc. The medical geneticist reported that the disc contained 11 files. Of the eleven, none were Peer Reviewed Studies. Five were not studies at all, but merely opinions that had been publicly expressed or solicited by the Council and which provided no new information on the issue of the safety of Port Hope. The remaining 6 files were non-refereed, non peer-reviewed reports of the type described above as being not equivalent in scientific validity to Peer Reviewed Studies. However, all 6 of these reports nevertheless suggested that there were indeed negative health impacts in Port Hope, contrary to what the Mayor had indicated. FARE attempted to bring this information to the attention of the Mayor and Council, and through them to the citizens of Port Hope, but this effort was thwarted. Following this, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) released a so-called "Synthesis Report" which gave Port Hope a clean bill of health and stated that no further studies were necessary. This conclusion was also found by our medical geneticist to not be based on peer-reviewed science. FARE submitted a letter of concern to the CNSC. This letter was posted on our website, at http://www.ph-fare.com/index.php?article=159, and was turned over to the municipality. This, too, had no effect.

Where do Port Hopers get their "scientific" information from?

The episode described above is indicative of the problem that we believe Port Hope faces. The information that Port Hope citizens receive on the health effects of radiation come mainly from Cameco, the Mayor and the Town Council, CNSC, Health Canada, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. These are respectively a component of the nuclear industry; a municipal government of elected officials; and agencies, staffed by civil servants, of provincial and federal governments. All of these support nuclear power. None of these institutions is staffed by MDs or practising medical scientists with expertise in the effects of radiation on humans, and all of these bodies are, because of their support of the nuclear industry, in a conflict of interest with respect to the issue of nuclear safety.The citizens of Port Hope are not being informed that independent science (i.e. science independent of nuclear industry funding and independent of pro-nuclear government agencies) does not agree with the information that Port Hope citizens have received about the safety of radioactivity in Port Hope. The citizens have been and are being misled by the very government agencies that we should be able to rely on for our information. Contrary to what citizens have been informed, there are no comprehensive publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals that show Port Hope to be safe from nuclear radioactive contamination. Those few, out-dated and incompletely rigorous studies that do exist suggest the opposite. And medical scientists state that there is no safe does of radioactivity. Unfortunately the agencies that are dispensing misleading information are also in possession of overwhelming financial and media resources, thus increasing the difficulty of FARE’s role as the "watchdog"that tries to keep all parties honest.

"Clean-up"

Port Hope is set to undergo a so-called "clean-up" of "historical" radioactive waste, the declared objective of which is to remove the perception of stigma of radioactivity in the town. FARE is concerned that there are serious unanswered questions concerning this planned process. The "trial remediation" that was to have occurred in several locations this Fall revealed, in the first site examined, a far greater amount of contamination than anticipated, and we have now been informed that no other sites will be examined before next Spring. The planned clean-up process will put a large amount of contaminated material into the air; transport waste through the streets of Port Hope, over a period of many years, from one site in the town to another site in the town; deposit it in a wetland area that drains into Lake Ontario; and construct, of all things, a children’s playground on the new radioactive dump site. All this will proceed while Cameco will continue to produce new radioactivity at the harbour. It is not clear how this process can remove the perception of a radioactive stigma. Mayor Linda Thompson has said "public awareness"is key to the clean-up. She added on CTV`s Canada AM:. "They (members of the public) continue to ask questions, which is great, and it's made the community and regulatory authorities more accountable to make sure we are a safe and healthy community." We agree with her, but question how much the municipality has done to foster that dialogue. For the past six years, FARE has been the main organization raising questions about nuclear safety in Port Hope.

Visit of Dr. Helen Caldicott

On November 15th & 16th, 2010 Dr. Helen Caldicott, an internationally recognized medical expert on the effects of radiation on humans, visited Port Hope, in part sponsored by FARE through funding received for Vision 2010. Prior to her arrival she had said, in a widely publicised interview, that ,SHE thought that the citizens of Port Hope should be moved, at the government’s expense, to another location. This viewpoint, which has never been, and was not, a component of FARE’s agenda, attracted much negative attention and unfortunately obscured the informational message that Dr. Caldicott was here to deliver. However, FARE supported Dr.Caldicott’s visit in order for citizens to hear from an expert on the biological effects of radiation. Unfortunately, likely due to the sensationalism of the Toronto Star’s article,and the reaction from local officials and some citizens, FARE thought it prudent to move the location of the presentation to Oshawa, where in spite of the extremely poor weather, over 250 people attended her talk.

FARE’s plans for the future

We in FARE love this municipality as much as anyone else in the town does, and as documented above we have proven our commitment through the positive contributions we have made to Port Hope’s welfare. It is our belief that we and the citizens of the town now need to spend some time in contemplation. For our part we in FARE plan to assess how we can now best move forward with constructive suggestions for the betterment of Port Hope’s situation and image. In the meanwhile we urge the citizens of Port Hope to contemplate the information we provided above, and to seriously consider whether the town’s traditional sources of information on the radioactivity issue are reliable. Following Dr. Caldicott’s visit there have been statements in the press by the various officials and private individuals, claiming that there is documentation to support the opinion that there is no radioactivity problem in Port Hope. FARE invites any person in possession of or knowing of scientifically peer-reviewed research studies published in prestigious journals that support this claim, to bring these studies to our attention. Until such time as any such study becomes available, we remind citizens that independent scientists believe there is a problem, and we urge the public to consider that where there are differing opinions it is better to rather err on the side of caution. When it comes to human health, and especially that of children, it is better to be safe than sorry.