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OTTAWA - After 30 years of pleading, residents of Port Hope are finally going to be tested for radiation damage from the uranium refinery in their midst.
The price they have to pay is continued pollution from the Cameco Corp. plant, which yesterday received official approval for two more years' operation from the Atomic Energy Control Board, the federal nuclear safety watchdog.
Board experts told a public hearing here that uranium contamination of the soil in the Lake Ontario community continues to rise as the refinery's smokestack daily rains down radioactive dust.

Yet the increase is so slow, said board environmental scientist Patsy Thompson, that it would take another two or three decades for the soil contamination over-all to reach levels of potential concern.

But board member Chris Barnes, an oceanographer from the University of Victoria, said board officials should investigate what was happening in known "hot spots" where the soil was already heavily contaminated. "It may well be less than several decades to create an unacceptable impact there," Barnes said.

The board's tentative health studies include the first-ever attempt to directly measure the effects of radiation on Port Hope residents, by looking at kidney function.
Other studies will examine over-all mortality rates and attempt to track down 150 residents from the 1950s.

Local residents complained once again that the control board was not properly probing the long-term effects of this radioactive contamination on human health. The board has repeatedly turned down a request from a local activist group to fund a $250,000 epidemiological study that would survey residents about their health.

So instead the Community Health Concerns Committee has gone to federal Health Minister Alan Rock for financial help, committee head Fay More told the hearing. More also said that the board and the community group remained far apart on how other promised health studies would be carried out.

The residents object to any involvement by Health Canada, arguing that federal agency has failed for decades to protect them from radiation hazards. Suzana Fraser, a staff epidemiologist with the board, defended the use of government health expertise, citing the "solid reputation" of the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control.

But that same federal centre came under fire for poor performance this week from the auditor-general, with particular reference to foot-dragging in investigating cancer risks from various environmental hazards, such as radiation.

At a hearing in October, residents claimed that the refinery's radioactive emissions and waste have left the community with abnormally high rates of cancer and genetic illnesses.

This article was published on Dec 17, 1999,
in the Toronto Star.

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