Point Lepreau refurbishment: environmental assessment experiences and the role of the public

NB Power is planning to conduct an 18-month maintenance outage of the Point Lepreau Generating Station (PLGS) beginning in April 2008. The major activity would be the replacement of all 380 Fuel Channel and Calandria Tube Assemblies the connecting feeder pipes. This activity is referred to as Retube. NB Power would also take advantage of this outage to conduct a number of repairs, replacements, inspections and upgrades (such as rewinding or replacing the generator, replacement of shutdown system trip computers, replacement of certain valves and expansion joints, inspection of systems not normally accessible, etc). These collective activities are referred to as Refurbishment. This would allow the station to operate for an additional 25 to 30 years. Details of the project and its evolution are available in Reference-1. To store the radioactive material being removed from the reactor as part of the Retube activity, additional storage structures would be constructed beginning in the spring of 2006 at the existing licensed onsite solid radioactive waste management facility. In addition to these new structures, additional vaults would be constructed to house the low-level radioactive wastes that would be generated over the extended plant life. Additional land within the waste management area would also be prepared for additional fuel storage canisters that would be constructed later, on an as needed basis, to house the used fuel generated over the extended operating period. The proposed layout for the modified waste management area is shown in Figure-1, and a cut away of the canisters that have been designed to house the Retube waste is illustrated in Figure-2. Additional information relating to the waste characterization and design of the additional structures at the waste site are provided in Reference-2. This paper focuses on the environmental assessment process, describes the public involvement opportunities, and explores the lessons learned by looking at the actual participation of the public and how the public affected the project and the environmental assessment process. (author)