More than 200 workers at Ont. nuclear station may have been exposed to radiation

OTTAWA - As many as 217 workers may have been exposed to radioactivity at the Bruce nuclear power station in Ontario while refurbishing a reactor in late November.
But the company operating the station, Bruce Power, says preliminary tests show the exposure level was not even close to the regulatory limit set by Canada's nuclear safety watch dog.
According to a notification report filed Tuesday by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, up to 217 workers may have been exposed to alpha radiation - a cancer risk if inhaled or ingested - while working on the re-start of the Bruce A nuclear power station on the shores of Lake Huron.
All of the radioactivity was contained in the station. There was no danger to the public or releases to the general environment around the plant.
The Nov. 26 incident will be among those discussed by the regulator at a meeting of its board on Thursday. The watchdog says it has given notice of the topic because the incident is one that may receive "substantial media coverage or that has a high public visibility."
The CNSC report says preliminary dose calculations, done last month, "were conservatively interpreted as a potential indication that an action level for inhalation of airborne radioactivity may have been exceeded."
The watchdog has set a regulatory limit of 5,000 millirems of radiation per year.
Steve Cannon, spokesman for Bruce Power, said preliminary tests on the workers thought to have faced the greatest exposure have found dose levels "not even approaching the regulatory limit."
Cannon said those involved were working in a reactor vault that has been empty for 15 years. They did not expect to find any alpha radiation, which is normally associated with defective cladding on reactor fuel bundles.
Because the alpha radiation was unexpected, he said the company took the incident "very seriously," reporting it to the CNSC and conducting tests on the employees.
Bruce Power is Canada's only private nuclear station operator. It leases two generating plants from the Ontario government, known as Bruce A and Bruce B.
The company is currently refurbishing the Bruce A station, a multi-year, $5.25-billion project that is one of the largest construction undertakings in Canada outside of the oilsands.
The overhaul of the station includes repairs to two reactors that are already about two years behind schedule.