Following the Fukushima…

Following the Fukushima disaster, Japan’s nuclear regulator observed: “A general lesson learned from the Fukushima accident, as well as the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, is that there was an implicit assumption that such severe accidents could not happen, and thus sufficient attention had not been paid to preparedness for the accidents by the operators and the regulatory authorities.”

Let's not make the same mistake in Ontario. Wishful thinking will not prevent a serious accident at a nuclear facility in Ontario. If the Ontario government remains committed to nuclear power, then it must meet or exceed international best practices for nuclear emergency response planning and preparedness wherever feasible.

Post Fukushima the Ontario government must be ready to protect Ontarians in the event of a worst-case nuclear accident on the Great Lakes.

Ontario should match the best practice set by Switzerland and put in place emergency plans to protect the public in the event of an a level 7 accident on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

Switzerland is preparing plans for large-scale evacuations and the need to care for evacuees for long periods of time. Ontario should too.

Ontario should be able to protect drinking water supplies in the event of a nuclear accident at any of the twenty-five reactors that line the Great Lakes.

Ontario’s nuclear emergency response plan should be reviewed regularly and transparently.

Emergency plans need to be adapted to meet the special needs of vulnerable communities, such as the elderly or hospital patients.

Planning for major accidents means Ontario needs to expand emergency planning areas. Ontario should expand its evacuation zones to at least 20 km around each nuclear station to match real-world experience and the best practices set by other countries, such as Switzerland.

[Original Comment ID: 210594]