Canada’s nuclear regulator has released its first-ever report on the state of the country’s uranium fuel cycle facilities.
Before now, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission chiefly looked at power plants when completing this particular paper.
However, it is now including information from uranium mines and mills.
The report summarized data from 2011.
It looked at things like radiation protection for workers, potential exposures to the public, accidents and releases into the wilderness.
Jean Leclair is the director of the CNSC’s uranium mines and mills division.
He says no workers came close to exceeding their radiation safety level.
As well, he says they studied the case of a caribou that had gotten stuck in a collection pond at Key Lake and verified there wouldn’t be any problems with it being hunted:
“We independently verified and checked to make sure that there weren’t going to be any issues with that caribou — both with regards to its safety, or if someone were to hunt it and consume it — that there weren’t going to be any problems for them.”
He adds the frequency of accidents in uranium mines also was lower than a lot of other mining sectors:
“Overall, the report was a very positive report. Radiation results were good. Releases to the environment were the same or better than previous years. The accident numbers were low.”
He adds, as a regulator, the CNSC won’t be resting on its laurels and will be looking to the companies to do even better in the future.