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A committee of the Ontario
legislature will, this summer, in-
vestigate safety at the province’s
nuclear power plants. With a load
of documentation on hand, the
select committee, made up of the
three political parties of the legis-
lature, is at present agonizing
over how much of the documen-
tation to make public, and how
much to keep under wraps in the

. interests of corporate secrecy. __
On the other hand, a call for a

moratorium on nuclear power
development, .and a. public in-
quiry, has gone out from the
Communist Party of Canada to
ensure the protection of both
workers in the nuclear industry
and the public.

On the basis of evidence from
information leaks and indepen-
dent investigation, such propos-
als merit increased support.
In Ontario, the nuclear power-
house of Canada, in one month,
revelations of lack of-safety and
proper controls, inadequate train-
ing and procedures, and faulty
equipment reinforce the view.

There is also a vast credibility

. gap, with Ontario Hydro, the

Tory Davis government, and nuc-
lear suppliers on one side, and the
public on the other. Only at the
end of April, Hydro warned of
serious electricity shortages if the
proposed Darlington plant near
Bowmanville were not built at

“once. Now there is a glut of elec-

tricity. How to be so wrong?
Licence to Make Profit
The accusation has been

leveled that nuclear power de--

velopment is a license to make
profit for favored corporations,
despite the government
“‘ownership’”’ tag. And one glar-
ing example bears that out.

At the Pickering nuclear
generating plant there are 36
faulty boilers, not yet used,

bought without tender from Bab- ©

cock & Wilcox Canada Ltd. The
repair bill will be $35-million, and
if the company. and the
‘impartial’ Ontario Government
have their way, Ontario Hydro,
that is, the taxpayers will foot the
bill

‘The same company charged
$21-million in 1971 for 32 boilers
for the Bruce plant, unit A. Three
years later the same,equipment
for unit B cost $70. 3-million! But
there’s more. In the proposed
Darlington plant, just 16 boilers
(again from Babcock etc.) are
priced at $38-million.

To make it worse, we are told
that contract loopholes which
permit Babcock to slough off the
$35-million repair bill at Picker-
ing, remain in this contract.

Hydro’s attempts at cover-up
have been obvious. A report pre-
pared by Hydro on mishaps at the
Bruce plant, near Owen Sound —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 8, 1979— Page 6

friend or foe?

a rolicall of blatant inadequacy
and indifference to health and
safety — was withheld even from
the select committee studying it,
for 10 days after its completion
May 15.

The report shows that workers
received impermissible amounts
of radiation, there were no con-
trol stations to check their dura-
tion at high radiation levels,
equipment was lacking, co-
ordination and planning insuf-
ficient; and procedures sloppy. |

The report arose from an acci-
dent April 28 in which two work-
ers received radiation reported
equal to a year’s maximum. Cre-
dibility? Hydro’s Dr. Don Wat-
son compared it to the dose re-
ceived in a swallow of barium be-
fore an x-ray.

Many people are now con-
vinced someone is lying, and that
it may take a moratorium on nuc-
lear development to determine
who and why, and what should be
done about it.

’ But the Ontario Government

takes an opposite stand, and in
fact, on May 29, against the urg-
ing of the select committee, or-
dered the continued operation of
a nuclear plant in Renfrew Coun-
ty, near Pembroke, despite a
widespread protest by residents.
So-called safety features have
been added bit by bit to this oldest
of nuclear plants since it was
found unsafe by the Atomic
Energy Control Board in 1976.
This, in the face of seven different
incidents at the newer Bruce plant
where deuterium (heavy hydro-
gen) concentrations have reached

Twin towers on the damaged reactor at the Three Mile Island plant

near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. —

27% compared to an allowable
level of 6%, and where a
deuterium explosion occurred in
March 1978.

Bill Taves, former Hydro nuc-
lear employee, who leaked infor-

mation under the name of ‘‘Mr.-

Shultz,’’ warned that Candu de-
sign faults could result: in
“radioactive releases ... more
substantial than those encoun-
tered’’ at Three Mile Island, if a
similar accident happened here.

Amid this monumentally im-
DIODE a use of power by govern-

ment — two kinds of power d
which allows its agencies

vored corporations to get av
with potential mass murder, it®
little wonder that protests
larger, that the call for ?
moratorium and a public igi
is becoming implacable.

It is also a matter of obligato
to point out that this misuse %
what we know as the ‘‘peace™
use’”’ of nuclear enérgy, only aot
to emphasize the living horrof ©
leaving nuclear mass annihilatio!
weapons in the hands of that sam
ruling class.

Nuclear plant backlash mounts

The United States Nuclear
Regulatory Commission last
week froze all operating licences
and construction permits for nuc-
lear power plants for three
months while assessments are
being made about the accident at
Three Mile Island. The freeze on

construction affects some 94 was that such accidents are uke

plants presently in construction
or planning stages.

A. 15-member investigative
team is still sorting through the
lessons from the March 28 acci-
dent in Pennsylvania. One of the
findings of a congressional team

Moratorium, public inquiry
on nuclear power, says CPC

TORONTO — The Com-
munist Party of Canada has
called for -two decisive
government actions in respect
to nuclear power production —
an immediate moratorium ‘‘on
any further expansion of nuc-
lear power production,’ and a
public inquiry commission ‘‘to

. establish the degree of protec-
tion presently existing.”

In a statement issued April
11, the Communist Party also
urged the Canadian Govern-
ment to seek international
agreement on the destruction
of all stockpiles of. nuclear
weapons.

oh * ” *

‘The nuclear disaster at the
Three Mile Island nuclear
power plant near Harrisburg,
Pennyslvania underlines for
Canadians the deadly threat of

the ever-present possibility of

its happening here,’’ the
Communist Party states.
“‘The potential for a nuclear
disaster of truly massive prop-
ortions in the production of
nuclear power can no longer be
tolerated,’ it argues.
‘Measures have to be~found
for ensuring that such a disas-
ter shall never take place.
‘‘And most importantly,”’ it
goes on, ‘‘the deadly threat to
- all humanity embodied in the
existing stockpiles of nuclear

bombs and warheads must be
eliminated once and for all.
“That is why Prime Minister
Trudeau’s cynically inhuman
statement in Vancouver, April
8, that ‘‘there’s no technology
which doesn’t have some
danger,”’ relating the threat of
nuclear disaster to the inven-
tion of the automobile and the
deaths caused each year
through automobile accidents, .
deserves the condemnation of
the whole Canadian society.”’
-Hands of Corporate Elite
In the opinion of the Com-
munist Party, ‘‘protection
against nuclear power disas-
ters cannot be left any longer in
the hands of the corporate elite
. for whom the prime minister
speaks, the Atomic Energy
Control Board or the various

provincial agencies such as -

Ontario Hydro. The public
must assert its sovereign right _.
and vigorously intervene.
“The federal government
and parliament must be com-
pelled to fully meet their ©
sibiliti the Com-
munist Party declares, ‘‘by
immediately instituting a
moratorium on any further ex-
-_pansion of nuclear power pro-
duction, pending the findings
of a public inquiry commission
to establish the degree of pro-
tection presently existing for

. profits,”’

convinced that *‘to fully ensure

people and the environment
from nuclear accident in nuc-
lear plants already in produc-
tion. Such inquiry to take fully
into account all Canadian and
international experience
gained to date.
Human Factor

“‘The inquiry,’’ the Com- |-
munists urge, ‘“‘must also be
empowered to investigate all
power alternatives available to
Canada to meet the country’s
energy needs, in order that a
sound determination can be
made whether Canada’s own
energy needs require produc-
tion of nuclear power.

“‘The determining factor in
such public inquiry must.be the
human factor, not corporate
‘the statement says.

‘Only when the findings of
such inquiry have been com-
pleted, publicly declared and
discussed, should any decision
be made by government on the
future role of nuclear power in
respect to Canada’ S energy
requirements.”

The Communist Party is also

public safety, the stockpiles of
all nuclear weapons must be
destroyed and further produc-
tion banned on a world scale.

Reprinted from an earlier
edition of the Tribune.

to recur and that mechanical
technical, not human, fac
were involved. The team ;
ported that operators were unabl f
to stop the accident because ®
faulty instrument readings. _ p
The Three Mile Island accidet!
was front and centre at a hu
rally in Washington May 6 whe
some 100,000 people Geman te
‘‘No More Nukes’’ and
moratorium on nuclear plant om
struction. Speaking to thé
nation-wide -gathering, actre>
Jane Fonda attacked Energy S&
retary James Schlesinger:
“Putting Schlesinger i in c
of nuclear power is like puttin
Dracula in charge of a bl

_ bank,”’ Fonda said. Plugging so}

energy as an alternative pow’

-source, Fonda had this to S4

fact .

about the nuclear industty

- “They say we can’t live with

nuclear plants. That is fiction:
There i is an alternative and that is

Rally officials said that mo¥
protesters not only favored f

‘moratorium on construction ?

new nuclear plants but wanted
present plants shut down.

Other nuclear plant proble
also began surfacing. In W
Germany, radioactive leaks were
found in a reactor near Munié
and traced to an open valve.
Netherlands’ only nuclear pow
station was closed down fou!
weeks ago ‘following a turbi
pipe leak. It has since beet
reopened. Seepage was also fou™
at Britain’s Windscale plant.

The U.S. nuclear plant acc!

dent has also renewed interest ®

and attention to the plight of some
366,000 Japanese still suffe
the effects of the 1945 atom bomb
ing of Hiroshima and Nagasalt:
Japanese studies show many
radiation-related diseases in
affected population and today $
interest centres on possible | ef:
fects to humans from radiatio?
leaks at power plants in of
countries.

a So seal