'No safety concern' with seepage at Pickering station

Water 'sucked' into duct
Fri Jul 20, 2007
By Keith Gilligan

PICKERING -- Ontario Power Generation says there "never was a hole" in a duct system at the Pickering nuclear station.

A published story Thursday noted a hole in a pressurized duct system hadn't been repaired, even though it had been detected more than a month ago.

But, OPG spokesman John Earl says, "There wasn't a hole. There never was a hole. It was seepage of water."

The pressure relief duct, which runs between the reactors and the vacuum building, operates on negative pressure, meaning air is pulled in rather than out.

"It's a huge long duct. Along the length, there are joints. There's construction seal, a special seal that holds the concrete together," Mr. Earl says. "At one of the seals, an employee saw water on the floor. The seal allowed for some seepage.

"All the pressure is to pull inwards," he adds.

"There's no hole. We inspected it. We went so far as to test the joint. We even changed the pressure," he noted. "Our follow-up looked at the (duct's) performance. The duct performed well within its performance design specifications. I want to assure the community there was never a safety concern," Mr. Earl says.

A positive pressure environment is designed to push air out or to stop it from getting in. A large refrigerator unit operates on positive pressure, trying to keep warm air from entering when a door is open.

Air is sucked out of the reactors and the units sealed off so it can't get back in.

Mr. Earl likens negative pressure to working at a higher altitude, where there is less pressure.
Mr. Earl notes every 10 years all the Pickering reactors are shutdown and the vacuum building and all the components are tested.

Former Pickering Regional Councillor Maurice Brenner questions OPG's handling of the situation, saying the City and its residents are being "kept in the dark.

"This is beginning to look like a repeat of 1997, at which time Pickering 'A' was up for re-licensing and there was a deliberate attempt by the former Ontario Hydro to keep the host community in the dark," Mr. Brenner says. "Today the silence is deafening and one cannot help but to draw the similarities, only this time Pickering 'B' is up for re-licensing."

For the past 10 years, OPG worked with the community and Pickering council to ensure open communication, he notes, adding he was part of the "formation of the task force put in place by council to ensure that both council and the community would be informed when potential concerns and issues arose, not after the fact.

"The people of Pickering are informed, educated and are entitled to know the facts, they do not deserve to be kept in the dark," says Mr. Brenner, now referring to himself as a community advocate