On June 29, 2018 Pippa Feinstein delivered these remarks on behalf of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Swim Drink Fish to the CNSC hearing on the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station licence renewal application. Check against return.

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Good morning President Binder and Commission Members,
Thank you for the opportunity to address you all today – especially at the end of this very intensive
and demanding week. For the record my name is Pippa Feinstein and I am representing Swim Drink Fish
Canada/Lake Ontario Waterkeeper which has been granted intervener status in this hearing concerning the
Pickering Nuclear Generating Station’s (PNGS) licence renewal.
Waterkeeper is a non-political registered charity that uses research, education, and legal tools to
protect and restore the public’s right to swim, drink, and fish in the Lake Ontario watershed. It has been
involved in decision-making processes for the PNGS and Pickering Waste Management Facility (PWMF)
for many years, and has developed considerable expertise concerning the site’s adverse impacts on local
lake water quality and aquatic ecosystems.
Waterkeeper was provided with participant funding to examine three things: 1) the adequacy of
public information disclosure by OPG; 2) the impacts of the PNGS on local aquatic species and habitat; and
3) the impacts of the PNGS effluent and other liquid releases to local groundwater and surface water. I will
summarize some of our findings and recommendations for you in my presentation, but due to the limited
time, hope to be able to discuss these things in more depth during the question period for this intervention.
First and foremost, Waterkeeper opposes a 10-year licence renewal for the PNGS at this time.
There is insufficient information on the public record in this matter to demonstrate that the Station could
operate without significant impacts on the environment, and what little information our organization has
found on the record seems to indicate that there may be significant impacts and a lack of regulatory
oversight to ensure the facility’s compliance with relevant environmental law. As such, Waterkeeper
recommends a temporary interim licence of no longer than two years over which time OPG, CNSC staff,
and other regulators should collect and disseminate information that can demonstrate the facility’s ability to
make adequate provision for the protection of the environment. Such a decision would be consistent with a
precautionary approach which is affirmed and codified in Canadian law as well as international legal
instruments to which Canada is a signatory.
OPG and CNSC presented to the Commission on Monday, indicating that there were three robust
avenues by which members of the public could obtain information concerning the PNGS: 1) questions and
information requests during licence hearings; 2) formal Access to Information processes; and 3) OPG’s
website. I would submit each of these avenues are currently insufficient, and I will explain why.
In terms of information requests pursuant to the licence renewal hearing, our written
submissions can attest to OPG’s obfuscation and CNSC’s staff refusal1
to assist with this process. We were
1
In our May 7th
submissions, we requested CNSC staff assistance in providing the information we had
requested, It is unclear whether staff assisted with this or to what extent they may have tried to help. CNSC
staff has informed us that they require OPG’s consent to release information about the PNGS facility and
that it is better to seek to obtain information directly from the company.

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almost unable to fulfill our obligations under our funding agreement after being denied crucial information
we required for our review, including groundwater monitoring reports, maps showing liquid discharge lines
from the Station, Fish Diversion System (FDS) net failure events, and cooling water temperature spikes.
None of this information was provided, nor were any reasons provided for these refusals, despite
the fact that OPG is required to provide annual impingement and entrainment reports as well as
groundwater monitoring reports to the CNSC, and the requested sampling data would have already been
completed and stored at the facility, so I would have expected these things to be provided in a timely
manner.2
This issue of insufficient disclosure at public hearings is not a new one: the Commissioners
recommended that OPG disclose more monitoring data in your last PNGS relicensing decision in 2013, as
well as your more recent PWMF relicensing decision last year. The Commission also directed staff to take
on a more active role in assisting intervenors requesting information from regulated facilities in your
PWMF decision. It is frustrating that your recommendations and directions have not been acted on.
In response to OPG’s and CNSC staff’s instance on using formal Access to Information
processes to obtain information on the PNGS, current timelines for public interventions in licence
renewal proceedings preclude this. Information requests can take several months, if not longer. Further, as
Shawn-Patrick Stensil noted to the Commission yesterday, sometimes ATIP processes can site these licence
proceedings as grounds for denying information, insisting these proceedings are the proper avenues to
obtain information about nuclear facilities.
In response to OPG’s assertions that it proactively publishes comprehensive information on
its website concerning the environmental performance of the PNGS, this is not the case. The
Environmental Risk Assessments and annual and quarterly compliance reports from OPG contain repeated
assertions that the PNGS is operating within its licence conditions and that any exceedances are not
environmentally significant, however insufficient data is provided to demonstrate the veracity of these
claims. These reports contain virtually no disaggregated data concerning any environmental monitoring
within the PNGS site boundaries. What limited data is reported concerning off-site impacts of the PNGS is
often provided in annual or quarterly averages and even then, it is inconsistently reported from year to year.
Further, monitoring methodologies employed by OPG are not comprehensively explained, frustrating
attempts to assess the significance or adequacy of sampling results that are provided.
Even with the extremely limited information available on the public record, our two scientific
experts were able to identify several areas of concern and make recommendations for their
improvement.
2
Note: Greenpeace and Northwatch had also requested copies of OPG’s groundwater monitoring reports in
February 2018, after an OPG stakeholder meeting and were only informed in May - the week our written
interventions were due – that OPG would not provide this report. No reasons for this refusal were given.

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With regard to the impacts of the PNGS cooling water system on aquatic species and habitat,
Dr. Henderson found that there may be cause for concern. The PNGS cooling system extracts and
discharges a massive amount of water: up to almost five and half Olympic-size swimming pools per
minute, or what Dr. Henderson calls the flow of a small river. The plant, prior to the installation of a Fish
Diversion System (FDS) in 2009, was responsible for killing millions of fish, larvae, and fish eggs each
year due to impingement and entrainment. In 2008 the Commission directed OPG to reduce impingement
by 80%, however upon reviewing impingement data since 2010, Dr. Henderson found this 80% reduction
was only achieved in three out of the past seven years. Even the years in which OPG’s data indicates the
80% reduction was achieved, Waterkeeper urges caution as the 2003 baseline against which this reduction
is measured excludes the round goby, a fish species that has become increasingly abundant in Lake Ontario
over the last decade – Waterkeeper also cautions against the use of a single year as a baseline which is
problematic given the significant variability of certain species of fish populations around the PNGS from
year to year.
Dr. Henderson’s review of impingement data also raises concerns with OPG’s ability to comply
with its new DFO authorization. The authorization requires OPG to discuss additional follow-up
requirements if the PNGS impinges more than 3619 kg of fish in two consecutive years. Given
impingement values from 2010/11 and 2014/15 Dr. Henderson believes it’s highly likely that this 3619 kg
limit will be exceeded for two consecutive years in the future.
Further, despite high levels of entrainment, and past Commission directions to OPG to mitigate
these losses, no mitigation has taken place nor is it planned – despite the availability of sonar diversion and
the installation of full or partial closed-cycle cooling for the PNGS. OPG asserts entrainment impacts are
offset elsewhere via habitat restoration for Northern pike and Salmon restocking initiatives. However, these
offsetting measures cannot be considered appropriate as they do nothing to compensate for the loss of
species actually entrained by the PNGS, including round goby, alewife, or Diporeia.
Dr. Henderson found that elevated temperatures of discharged water at the PNGS can have adverse
effects on phytoplankton productivity and macroinvertebrate growth, adversely impact fish migrations, and
result in a loss of aquatic species diversity. He also found that spikes in thermal discharges at the PNGS are
close to thermal death points for many larger fish species in Lake Ontario.
With all this in mind, Waterkeeper is concerned that the PNGS will not be able to comply with the
current authorization. Waterkeeper is also deeply concerned that facility was permitted to operate for
decades without a permit until January 2018 – this seems like a clear violation of the Fisheries Act. Further,
Waterkeeper is concerned about the exclusion of invasive species in the current DFO authorization seems
inconsistent with the Fisheries Act protection of fish that support fisheries recognized by the Act (e.g. round

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goby are a significant fish of prey in Lake Ontario, comprising 86% of the food by weight consumed by
lake sturgeon).
With regard to environmental impacts of effluent and other releases to groundwater and
surface water, our other scientific expert Mr. Ruland found that there may be cause for concern.
Despite the fact that his review was limited by OPG’s refusal to disclose groundwater and stormwater
monitoring reports or data, Mr. Ruland found evidence of extremely contaminated groundwater blow the
PNGS – at one point as high as 3.96 million Bq/L of tritium – over 565 times the Ontario Drinking Water
Standard of 7000 Bq/L. This is down from the 30 million Bq/L measured underneath the PNGS between
2001 and 2005. These elevated levels of tritium are due to a series of historical leaks of the contaminant
into groundwater: a product of a significant backlog of repairs and lack of proactive facility maintenance.
While OPG claims most of this backlog has been cleared, Waterkeeper is concerned that CNSC staff may
have failed to require full remediation of this contamination, instead approving a site-specific
contamination limit of 3 million Bq/L for tritium non-potable groundwater. All of these concerns pertain to
tritium, however Mr. Ruland cautions that elevated contamination levels may be present for other
contaminants beneath the PNGS – due to OPG’s and CNSC staff’s refusal to provide groundwater
monitoring information it is impossible for Waterkeeper to know more on this point.
When examining stormwater discharges from the PNGS, Mr. Ruland found that monitoring was
sporadic and that since 1990, there appear to have been regular monitoring gaps of between three and eight
years. When monitoring was done, it did not appear to have been performed on all stormwater discharge
lines, and when it was done it often failed to take into account seasonal variation and it failed to include
follow-up monitoring in instances in which elevated contaminant levels were discovered.
This last point is particularly important legally as repeated failures of toxicity testing at specific
stormwater catchment locations may constitute another violation of the Fisheries Act. Failed toxicity tests
at these locations prove that the water tested was lethal to aquatic life. For the limited tests Mr. Ruland was
able to find sampling values for, measured zinc levels in these locations were up to 17 times higher than
Provincial Water Quality Objectives (PWQOs), copper values were over eight times higher than PWQO
limits and cadmium levels also surpassed PWQO limits. Significantly, certain stormwater catchments
contained tritium levels as high as 39,000 Bq/L which Mr. Ruland identified as possible evidence that
contaminated groundwater is leaking into stormwater infrastructure constituting an unintended pathway of
contaminated groundwater into Lake Ontario via stormwater outfalls. If this is in fact occurring, such
discharges could easily violate the Fisheries Act.
Due to time constraints, I will end my presentation there, but look forward to answering any
questions the Commission may have, and hope to be able to aske several questions of my own on the
record. Thank you.

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Closing statements:
The Pickering site in located in an ecologically stressed, but resilient, part of the northern shoreline
of Lake Ontario. Recently, this area has been the focus of increasing remediation and conservation efforts –
especially concerning various ecological features in this area that are unique in North America. The
Pickering site is surrounded by parks to the west and north, wetlands to the east, and the lake to the south.
Conservation areas, beaches, fishing and paddling spots, and trails also surround the site. As well as Ajax’s
drinking water intake which is located just west of the site. Of the 90 aquatic species present in Lake
Ontario, 60 have been found in the vicinity of the PNGS, including species at risk and of concern such as
sturgeon, American eel, and Atlantic Salmon.
As urban populations around the PNGS continue to rise, members of the public will become
increasingly dependent on the lake and the lake’s shoreline for sustenance and recreation.
I should emphasize, again, there is a lot of uncertainty concerning the PNGS’ impact on the
local environment – due to lack of information on the public record. The federal government’s open
data initiative – which extends to the CNSC and explicitly seeks to promote greater transparency in the
energy sector and scientific fields – requires proactive disclosure of data in accessible formats, recognizing
this is in the public interest. Access to information, including environmental monitoring data, is also a
crucial prerequisite to Ontarians’ rights to a healthful environment and Lake Ontario, as recognized in the
province’s Environmental Bill of Rights and Great Lakes Protection Act. Further, as Commissioners, the
dearth of available objective, evidence-based, and supportable information concerning PNGS’
environmental performance impacts your ability to meet your due diligence obligations. Waterkeeper
implores the Commission to require (rather than simply recommend) more disclosure from OPG and CNSC
staff in order to facilitate accountability, transparency, and the level of public scrutiny we all deserve.
The Commission has the opportunity and the duty to protect this area. You have heard extensive
testimony regarding the public concern for the environment in different kinds of hypothetical accident
scenarios. These are important to keep in mind, but just as important are the real concerns over the
environmental performance of the PNGS in the here and now.
We request a licence period of no longer than two years, over which period OPG and CNSC staff
and others should be ordered to collect and disseminate information, including raw sampling data, that can
demonstrate the facility’s ability to make adequate provision for the protection of the environment. This
additional material must be made publicly available and subject to a fulsome relicensing hearing that
facilitates public comments on the merits of OPG’s application – something that has not been possible
under the limitations of this current proceeding.

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Summary of all Waterkeeper recommendations
Recommendation 1: That OPG be granted a licence under the terms of its current licence, for no longer
than two years, during which time OPG, CNSC staff, the DFO and ECCC can monitor and publicly report
on the PNGS impacts to Lake Ontario’s water quality and local aquatic environments, and ensure a future
hearing to consider a longer PNGS licence on a more comprehensive evidentiary record.
Recommendation 2: When considering the current licence renewal application, the Commission Tribunal
must do so while keeping in mind the growing importance of the lake for swimming, drinking, and fishing
as well as cumulative adverse environmental impacts of lake water quality and the health of local aquatic
ecosystems.
Recommendation 3: that CNSC staff and the DFO review the use of 2003/4 data as the benchmark against
which impingement mitigation is measured, instead selecting a broader period of time that also takes into
account the current characteristics of Lake Ontario’s ecosystem.
Recommendation 4: that OPG, CNSC staff, and the DFO examine the likelihood of the PNGS exceeding
the 3,619 kg threshold for two consecutive years and publicly report their findings, including any proposed
follow-up activities.
Recommendation 5: that OPG make publicly available its monitoring reports concerning impingement
rates and net performance, including net failure events.
Recommendation 6: that entrainment monitoring commence immediately, rather than 2021.
Recommendation 7: that OPG and CNSC staff immediately develop entrainment mitigation measures to
decrease entrainment rates at the PNGS.
Recommendation 8: that OPG, CNSC staff, and the DFO consider and implement measures to ensure that
offsetting activities more effectively compensate for actual species impinged and entrained at the PNGS.
Recommendation 9: that OPG, CNSC staff, and the DFO consider and implement measures to mitigate
thermal pollution by the PNGS, taking into account the projected impacts of climate change on lake water
temperature in Lake Ontario.
Recommendation 10: that OPG makes its ECA compliance reports public, by posting them to the OPG
webpage with other compliance reports.
Recommendation 11: That OPG and CNSC staff make public their responses to the four ECCC areas in
which more information was required concerning potential adverse impacts of the PNGS on local water
quality and aquatic biota.
Recommendation 12: that an explanation from the DFO concerning the PNGS’s historical compliance
with the Fisheries Act be shared with Waterkeeper, and put on the record of the current proceedings, in
advance of the public hearings from June 25 – 29
th
, 2018, including references to any regulations or
Ministerial Orders exempting the PNGS from the application of the Fisheries Act.
Recommendation 13: that all species impinged and entrained by the PNGS be considered and added to the
DFO s. 35 permit for the PNGS, including but not limited to alewife and round goby. This approach would
be more consistent with the Fisheries Act.
Recommendation 14: that the DFO s. 35 permit itself be amended to ensure that offsetting activities
properly compensate for actual species killed by the PNGS. This approach would also be more consistent

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with the Fisheries Act.
Recommendation 15: that OPG be required to publicly disclose the annual compliance reports required by
the DFO permit by posting them to the OPG webpage with all other PNGS compliance reports.
Recommendation 16: That OPG and CNSC staff immediately release the following information on the
public record in this hearing process:
• a complete set of borehole logs and monitor installation details for OPG’s full network of groundwater
monitoring wells and sampling points;
• up to date and useable groundwater level and groundwater quality monitoring data for the full network
of groundwater wells and sampling points;
• recent annual groundwater monitoring reports for the PNGS; and
• a map and inventory of storm sewer lines for the site, including estimates of flows and a list of how many
of these lines are being monitored on a regular basis and the monitoring results (for radiological
and non-radiological contaminants).
Recommendation 17: If not already included, Waterkeeper recommends that coper and zinc be included as
COPCs for groundwater below the PNGS.
Recommendation 18: that OPG and CNSC staff publicly confirm whether a site-specific groundwater
tritium limit of 3 million Bq/L is in effect for the PNGS.
Recommendation 19: that if there is a site-specific groundwater tritium limit of 3 million Bq/L for the
PNGS, OPG and CNSC staff must publicly report: 1) when and how it was developed; the scientific basis
for its development; the extent to which it has been formally adopted by the CNSC and reasons for its
exclusion from the current and proposed licence and Licence Conditions Handbook for the PNGS; and 4)
whether any public consultation was conducted prior to establishing this elevated contamination limit.
Recommendation 20: OPG must conduct quarterly monitoring of every stormwater collection line which
is discharging to the forebay, the outfalls, or directly into Lake Ontario,
. h) As a first step, an inventory of stormwater collection lines needs to be developed and flows of water in
those lines need to be metered. Particular attention needs to be paid to any lines which are always
flowing, as this should not be occurring in a system which is collecting only stormwater.
. i) Toxicity testing should be done on every line for every sampling event. For lines which are
consistently showing zero mortality, the frequency of toxicity testing can be stepped down to
annually after 3 years of passing test results.
. j) The parameter lists being used for stormwater monitoring are reasonable, however in the event of
failed toxicity testing results the scope of the testing should be increased to include: - volatile
organic chemicals(VOCs);
- polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs);
- hydrazine and morpholine;
- additional radionuclides.
. k) Adverse test results and in particular failed toxicity tests should prompt immediate further
investigation, with the goal of remediation of the issue(s) which are allowing contaminated and/or
toxic stormwater to be discharged to Lake Ontario via the stormwater collection system.
. l) This information (including disaggregated data showing the results of this testing) should be made
publicly available in OPG’s quarterly or annual compliance reports.

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Recommendation 21: Additional water quality sampling of Lake Ontario is recommended, with samples to
be taken at Beachfront Park, Frenchman’s Bay West Park, and Squires Beach and tested as follows:
-quarterly testing for copper, zinc, morpholine, and hydrazine;
- annual testing for the full list of parameters presented on Table F.1 of the 2017 ERA Report.
. h) If not being done, then it is recommended that tritium and gross beta/ gamma be added as parameters
in the weekly testing of the PNGS outfall water quality. It is also recommended that the outfall
water quality testing should be done at a point downstream of all inputs from the PNGS.
. i) Table A.3 of the Quarterly Environmental Emissions Data reports indicates that waterborne
radionuclide releases from the PNGS are analyzed monthly for Tritium, Gross Beta/Gamma,
Carbon-14, and Gross Alpha. It is recommended that the quarterly reports should provide a
transparent explanation for how the data being presented in Table A.3 are obtained.
. j) It is recommended that the CNSC order OPG to provide full public disclosure of historic and current
PNGS groundwater monitoring data (including provision of full copies of Annual Monitoring
Reports if requested), commencing immediately.
. k) It is recommended that OPG be required to fund a full, independent Peer Review of the historic and
current results of its PNGS groundwater monitoring program. The Peer Reviewer should report to
the CNSC, and their report should provide:
- an overview of historic groundwater quality monitoring results and their implications;
- recommendations on how to improve the groundwater monitoring program on a go-
forward basis;
- recommendations on how to optimize the provision of transparent and publicly
accessible reporting of the results of the groundwater monitoring program.
. l) This information (including disaggregated data showing the results of this testing, and additional
explanations of how this data was obtained) should be made publicly available in OPG’s quarterly
or annual compliance reports.
Recommendation 22: The DFO and ECCC should immediately investigate the potential for stormwater
outfalls at the PNGS to be releasing deleterious substances into waters frequented by fish in contravention
of the Fisheries Act. The results of this investigation must be publicly disclosed.
Recommendation 23: OPG should better distinguish between mandatory and discretionary reporting in its
PIP and PDP and disclose the types of events that are reported in practice.
Recommendation 24: OPG should undertake to make all environmental reporting mentioned in the PIP
and PDP mandatory for the PNGS.
Recommendation 25: CNSC staff should work with OPG to create a timeline for OPG ultimately posting
comprehensive data in machine-readable formats in real time.
Recommendation 26: The webpage for reporting incidents at the PNGS should be included as a shortcut
tab on the PNGS’s homepage on opg.com.
Recommendation 27: Each incident report must include the incident date, reporting date, an exact
description of the event including actual data of any measured releases, and any applicable DRLs or ALs
so that members of the public can understand the severity of the reported incidents.