Operators of Canada’s oldest nuclear reactor knew of contaminated water leaks for 35 years before a 2009 accident forced a costly shutdown, says a report by Blacklock’s Report..Management of the Chalk River, Ont. plant by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is detailed in Court records in an insurance dispute..“This was monitored over a 35-year period,” wrote Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Julie Thorburn..Leaks of contaminated water caused corrosion that plant operators had dismissed as insignificant..The Court cited Freedom Of Information documents obtained by insurance lawyers that the leak “was known by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited since 1974” but never corrected. By 2009 the leak had grown to 8,000 litres of contaminated water a day..“For some time Atomic Energy of Canada knew of light water leaking,” wrote Justice Thorburn. The leak was “causing generalized corrosion.”.“This corrosion did not cause concern as AECL did not believe it affected the safe use of the reactor,” wrote Thorburn..The leaks in fact were “serious” and a “major event,” the plant’s chief nuclear officer told the court..The Chalk River plant was then one of the world’s leading producers of medical isotopes. It closed for 15 months at a cost of $70 million, causing an immediate shortage of isotopes for cancer treatment and prompting then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper to state Canada should get out of the business..“I anticipate Canada will be out of the business,” Harper told reporters at the time. “We can’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars and not produce any isotopes.”.Details of Chalk River operations were obtained by lawyers in a dispute between MDS Canada Inc. and its insurer, Factory Mutual Insurance Company. MDS had contracted the Chalk River plant for isotopes “to be sold worldwide for cardiac imaging, cancer treatment and sterilization of medical products,” the court was told..The plant shutdown cost MDS $121.5 million..“The radioisotopes from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited accounted for 45 percent of MDS’ worldwide income,” the court was told. “There was no alternative supplier in Canada or elsewhere. As a result MDS suffered substantial financial losses.”.Expert witnesses in 2009 testimony at the Commons natural resources committee predicted the shutdown would have “a lasting effect on patient health, the practice of medicine in Canada and across the world,” according to the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine..“It is not an understatement that the credibility of Canada in its ability to build up nuclear reactors to produce medical isotopes has been thoroughly shattered,” testified Dr. Jean-Luc Urbain, then-president of the Association..The Chalk River plant closed in 2018.
