URANIUM

A Discussion Guide

Questions and Answers

by Dr. Gordon Edwards et al.

prepared for and published by
The National Film Board of Canada

to accompany the film "Uranium"
directed by Magnus Isacsson

Adapted for Australia by Gavin Mudd
for SEA-US Inc. with permission.
Still under development.

Part A : URANIUM AND RADIOACTIVITY

A.1. What is uranium?
A.2. What is radioactivity?
A.3. How far can atomic radiation penetrate?
A.4. Is radioactivity dangerous?
A.5. How do radioactive elements produce other radioactive elements?

Part B : B. URANIUM AND ITS USES

B.1. Where is uranium found?
B.2. How did Australia get into the uranium business?
B.3. How is uranium used in atomic bombs?
B.4. How is uranium used in nuclear reactors to produce electricity?
B.5. Are there other uses for nuclear reactors?
B.6. Are the peaceful and military uses of uranium incompatible?
B.7. Has Australia ever produced plutonium for use in bombs?
B.8. Does Australia still sell uranium and plutonium for bombs?
B.9. Does Australian uranium still find its way into nuclear bombs?
B.10. Are there any other uses for uranium?

Part C : C. URANIUM AND NUCLEAR FISSION

C.1. What is nuclear fission?
C.2. What are fission products?
C.3. What is strontium-90? cesium-137?
C.4. What is "nuclear weapons fallout"?
C.5. What is "high level radioactive waste"?
C.6. How are plutonium and the other transuranic elements produced?
C.7. What is plutonium used for?

Part D : D. URANIUM AND PUBLIC POLICY

D.1. Is nuclear-generated electricity inevitable? Just a matter of time?
D.2. Are the alternatives to nuclear power feasible?
D.3. Is uranium and nuclear power accepted in Australia? In the World?
D.4. To what extent has Australia invested in uranium and nuclear power?
D.5. To what extent has Australia intervened in the uranium market?
D.6. What is Australia's present status in the international uranium market?
D.7. Why is uranium mining expanding in Australia?

Part E : E. THE HEALTH HAZARDS OF URANIUM MINING

E.1. What are the health hazards of uranium mining?
E.2. How long have we known that lung cancer is caused by uranium mining?
E.3. How did we learn that radioactivity causes lung cancer?
E.3a. Which radioactive materials cause lung cancer among miners?
E.4. Have uranium miners in North America suffered from excess lung cancer?
E.5. Are there higher rates of lung cancer among uranium miners today?
E.6. Are the current levels of radiation exposure for miners considered safe?
E.7. Can the health dangers be alleviated by using more miners for shorter times?

Part F : F. URANIUM TAILINGS

F.1. What are uranium tailings?
F.2. What is thorium-230?
F.3. What is radium-226?
F.4. What is radon-222?
F.5. What are the radon progeny?
F.6. What is polonium?

Part G : G. URANIUM AND THE ENVIRONMENT

G.1. What are the greatest environmental risks from a uranium mine?
G.2. Does uranium mining cause water pollution?
G.3. What are the dangers of the tailings to humans, wildlife and the environment?
G.4. Is there a way to avoid this kind of radioactive contamination?
G.5. How long will the tailings be radioactive?
G.6. How long will it take to get rid of the hazard of uranium tailings?
G.7. Can modern science eliminate atomic radiation from radioactive tailings?

Part H : H. REGULATING TAILINGS MANAGEMENT

H.1. Who is responsible for regulating tailings management in Australia?
H.2. What do the regulations require?
H.3. Are the regulations effective?
H.4. Are the regulators independent of the industry?

Part J : J. THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF ATOMIC RADIATION

J.1. Can the human body protect itself from radioactive materials?
J.2. How does atomic radiation cause cancer?
J.3. How does atomic radiation cause genetic defects in children?
J.3a. How do we know that atomic radiation causes genetic damage?
J.4. How else can atomic radiation damage unborn children?
J.5. Is there a cure for radiation victims?
J.6. Can radioactivity be detected by human senses?
J.7. Are medical and dental x-rays free of risk?

Part K : K. THE REGULATION OF RADIATION EXPOSURES

K.1. What is an "acceptable" level of exposure to atomic radiation?
K.2. Who is responsible for regulating radiation exposure in Canada?
K.3. What is the basis for setting radiation standards?
K.4. What is "background radiation"?
K.5. Is background radiation increasing?
K.6. Is radon in homes a problem? how does it get there?
K.7. Are Australian exposure standards being made more stringent?

Part A : URANIUM AND RADIOACTIVITY

A.1. What is uranium?
A.2. What is radioactivity?
A.3. How far can atomic radiation penetrate?
A.4. Is radioactivity dangerous?
A.5. How do radioactive elements produce other radioactive elements?

A.1. What is uranium?

Uranium is the heaviest metal that occurs in nature. It is an unstable material which gradually breaks apart or "decays" at the atomic level, as described in the next section. Any such material is said to be "radioactive".

As uranium slowly decays, it gives off invisible bursts of penetrating energy called "atomic radiation". It also produces more than a dozen other radioactive substances as by-products.

These unstable by-products, having little or no commercial value, are called "uranium decay products". They are discarded as waste when uranium is mined. One of them is a toxic radioactive gas called radon. The others are radioactive solids.

A.2. What is radioactivity?

Science teaches us that everything is made of tiny little particles called atoms. They are too small to be seen even under a powerful microscope. When a substance is radioactive, it means that its atoms are exploding (sub-microscopically) and throwing off pieces of themselves with great force. This process is called "radioactive decay".

During radioactive decay, two types of tiny electrically charged particles are given off, travelling very fast. They are called alpha and beta particles. Some radioactive materials are alpha emitters, and others are beta emitters. In addition, highly energetic rays called gamma rays are often emitted. Gamma rays are not material particles at all, but a form of pure energy very similar to x-rays, travelling at the speed of light.

A.3. How far can atomic radiation penetrate?

Gamma rays penetrate through soft tissue just as light shines through a window. Beta particles have less penetrating power, travelling less than two centimeters in soft tissue. Alpha particles have the least penetrating power, travelling just a few micrometers in soft tissue, equivalent to a few cell diameters.

A.4. Is radioactivity dangerous?

Alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays can do great harm to a living cell by breaking its chemical bonds at random and disrupting the cell's genetic instructions.

Massive exposure to atomic radiation can cause death within a few days or weeks. Smaller doses can cause burns, loss of hair, nausea, loss of fertility and pronounced changes in the blood. Still smaller doses, too small to cause any immediate visible damage, can result in cancer or leukemia in the person exposed, congenital abnormalities in his or her children (including physical deformities, diseases and mental retardation), and possible genetic defects in future generations.

Outside the body, alpha emitters are the least harmful, and gamma emitters are more dangerous than beta emitters.

Inside the body, however, alpha emitters are the most dangerous. They are about 20 times more damaging than beta emitters or gamma emitters. Thus, although alpha radiation cannot penetrate through a sheet of paper or a dead layer of skin, alpha emitters are extremely hazardous when taken into the body by inhalation or ingestion, or through a cut or open sore.

A.5. How do radioactive elements produce other radioactive elements?

When atoms undergo radioactive decay, they change into new substances, because they have lost something of themselves. These by-products of radioactive decay are called "decay products" or "progeny". In many cases, the decay products are also radioactive. If so, they too will disintegrate, producing even more decay products and giving off even more atomic radiation.

Click on small image to view the full scale image.

The number which appears after the name of a substance helps to indicate its place in the list of decay products. When the numbers go down by four, an alpha particle has been emitted. When the numbers stay the same, a beta particle has been emitted. Most of the time, but not always, there is a gamma ray emitted to accompany the alpha or beta emission.

Thus uranium-238 changes into thorium-230 (in three stages), which then changes into radium-226, and thence into radon-222. The numbers keep getting smaller because the atoms are losing a part of themselves.

Part B : URANIUM AND ITS USES

B.1. Where is uranium found?

Tiny amounts of uranium are found almost everywhere. However, concentrated deposits of uranium (called ores) are found in just a few places, usually in hard rock or sandstone. These deposits are normally covered over with earth and vegetation.

In Australia (see the map below) uranium mining has taken place at Rum Jungle, Narbalek and South Alligator in the Northern Territory, at Mary Kathleen and Ben Lomond in northern Queensland, and at Radium Hill in South Australia, as well as pilot scale and exploratory development of other deposits across Australia.

Uranium has also been mined in the southwest United States, Canada, parts of Europe, the former Soviet Union, Namibia, South Africa, Niger and elsewhere.

In the early 1970s, large uranium deposits were discovered across Australia, particularly in the far north of the Northern Territory. However, due to significant community opposition and action, the Labour government, when it was swept to power in 1983, introduced the "Three Named Uranium Mines Policy" which prevented further expansion of Australia's uranium mining. However, when the Liberal/National Coalition was swept to power in March 1996, these restrictions were removed and a new phase of uranium mining is on the horizon.

In the past fifteen years, the province of Saskatchewan in Canada has become the uranium capital of the world. The richest uranium ores ever discovered have been found in the northern regions of this province.

B.2. How did Australia get into the uranium business?

Before 1939, there was no significant use for uranium. German potters used it to make a reddish glaze, and it was studied by scientists for its radioactive properties. Then, during World War II, scientists realized that extremely powerful bombs could be made by "splitting" uranium atoms using nuclear fission, which is described in section C. The uranium for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs was obtained from an old Canadian radium mine in the Northwest Territories by Eldorado Nuclear Ltd., a crown corporation specially established to supply the USA with uranium for the Manhattan Project.

After the end of World War II, the USA, USSR and the UK began developing extensive nuclear weapons programs, with many other countries attempting to follow in the same footsteps. In order to supply the uranium for it's rapidly expanding nuclear program, the British government requested the Australian government in the 40s to begin extensive exploration for uranium. in the mid-50s, the Rum Jungle and Radium Hill mines were opened and the uranium sold through the joint UK-USA Combined Development Agency (CDA).

Despite the newly developing image of the nuclear industry as a clean producer of electricity due to the nuclear power reactors at Obninsk (USSR), Shippingport (USA) and Calder Hall (UK), the primary focus of these facilities was the production of plutonium for military purposes. The uranium sold through the CDA was therefore almost certainly used for military-related activities, despite any other use it may have also been put to, such as electricity generation.

B.3. How is uranium used in atomic bombs?

The explosive in the Hiroshima bomb was a rare kind of uranium, found in very low concentrations in every sample of uranium. The Nagasaki bomb was made from a different nuclear explosive material called plutonium. But plutonium -- the most commonly used nuclear explosive today -- has to be made from uranium. In fact, without uranium, none of the current nuclear weapons could have been built.

It is thought that the vast majority of Australia's uranium sold through the CDA was used primarily as a source material for uranium-235 and plutonium in military nuclear programs.

B.4. How is uranium used in nuclear reactors to produce electricity?

In the 1960s, the nuclear fission process began to be used to produce electricity in special machines called nuclear reactors. These machines use controlled fission of uranium to generate heat in the core of the reactor, which is then transferred to a heat exchanger to boil water. The steam that is produced spins a turbine to make electricity. There are now hundreds of nuclear power stations worldwide.

Since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and especially since the Chernobyl accident in 1986, almost no new nuclear reactors have been sold. However, in 1990 Ontario Hydro (in Canada) announced that it wants to build about a dozen more. Indonesia recently announced plans for 12 nuclear reactors, but these plans were quickly postponed until 2020.

B.5. Are there other uses for nuclear reactors?

Nuclear reactors fuelled with uranium can be used to produce artificial radioactive substances called "radioisotopes" for use in industry, scientific research and medicine. Alternatively, many of these radioisotopes can be produced in special machines called accelerators or cyclotrons, which do not require the use of uranium and do not involve the generation of high-level nuclear waste.

Nuclear reactors also serve to drive the propulsion units of nuclear submarines. In addition, special military reactors are used to produce most of the nuclear explosive materials used in nuclear weapons. Nuclear power cells are commonly used in space technology to power satelites also.

B.6. Are the peaceful and military uses of uranium incompatible?

Nuclear reactors fuelled with uranium automatically produce plutonium as a byproduct. If that plutonium is chemically separated from the rest of the radioactive garbage in the spent reactor fuel, it can be used as a nuclear explosive. So, the spread of nuclear power around the world gives more and more countries the option of producing nuclear weapons at some future time.

In 1974, India exploded a bomb that was made from plutonium produced in a reactor given to the Indian government as a gift by the Canadian government. It was not an electricity-producing reactor, but a smaller machine called a "research reactor".

B.7. Has Australia ever produced plutonium for use in bombs?

Australia has never directly produced plutonium from it's research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney, NSW. However, it is well established that the sale of uranium to the CDA in the 50s and 60s resulted in the uranium being used to produce plutonium for military purposes.

B.8. Does Australia still sell uranium and plutonium for bombs?

Since 19??, Australia has had a policy of selling uranium for peaceful purposes only -- that is, as fuel for nuclear reactors. Any country purchasing Australian uranium must promise not to use it or the byproduct plutonium for bombs. This policy is complemented by an international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, as the Indian experience shows, the policy cannot be enforced; if a country chooses to make bombs, Australia cannot prevent it.

B.9. Does Australian uranium still find its way into nuclear bombs?

All of Australia's uranium is exported to countries with nuclear reactors all over the world. However, before the uranium can be used in a nuclear reactor, it needs to be enriched with uranium-235 at special enrichment plants, if which there are currently only two in commercial operation - ??, France and ??, USA?. For every seven pounds of uranium that enters the enrichment plant, less than one pound ends up in the finished product: reactor fuel. The other six pounds of uranium are discarded as a waste material having no significant civilian use.

Some of this cast-off uranium, called "depleted uranium", has been regularly used by the U.S. military in the construction of nuclear weapons. In fact, it is the raw material from which weapons-grade plutonium is created in special military reactors.

Depleted uranium is also used in the manufacture of metal components for the bomb itself, thereby doubling the explosive power of each warhead. The U.S. military makes no distinction between uranium of Australian origin and uranium of any other origin.

When Canadian uranium is enriched in the Soviet Union, Canada does not allow the USSR to keep the depleted uranium within its borders because of its military potential.

B.10. Are there any other uses for uranium?

There are other uses for uranium, but they are less important due to it's ionising radiation. Some bullets are coated with uranium so that they can pierce through heavy armour. Some tanks are reinforced with uranium to make them stronger. Uranium is used as a weight in some airplanes and in the Cruise missiles tested in the Canadian arctic.

Part C : URANIUM AND NUCLEAR FISSION

C.1. What is nuclear fission?

Nuclear fission was discovered by German scientists in 1939. They found that some uranium atoms will split (or "fission") into two or three pieces, when bombarded by tiny projectiles called "neutrons".

Click on this image to view an animation.

When fission occurs, a great deal of energy is released, and more neutrons are thrown off with great force. These extra neutrons can cause additional uranium atoms to split, releasing even more energy and more neutrons. Thus one fission can cause many more by starting a "chain reaction".

The fission process allows uranium to be used as an explosive in nuclear weapons or as fuel in a nuclear reactor. In an atomic bomb, fission takes place in an uncontrolled fashion, resulting in a gigantic explosion. In a nuclear power station, the fission process is very carefully controlled to produce a steady stream of electricity. Unlike the process of radioactive decay, the fission process can be started and stopped, speeded up and slowed down, by using special neutron-absorbing materials.

C.2. What are fission products?

All the broken pieces of uranium atoms left over from the fission process are atoms of new radioactive materials called "fission products". These are not the decay products of uranium mentioned earlier; they are new radioactive materials not found in nature.

There are dozens of different fission products, including such substances as strontium-90, cesium-137 and iodine-131. They are all lighter than uranium, because their atoms are much smaller than uranium atoms. They give off beta radiation and gamma radiation, but not alpha radiation.

Fission products never occurred in human food, air or water before the first atomic bomb explosions. Now they are everywhere, all over the earth, in small amounts. Each one behaves differently in the body. They are all dangerous.

C.3. What is strontium-90? cesium-137?

Strontium-90 and cesium-137 are two of the most dangerous fission products created inside a reactor or released from a nuclear explosion.

When strontium-90 is ingested in food and drink, it is stored in bone, teeth and milk (like calcium). Atomic radiation from strontium-90 disturbs the bone marrow and the blood, leaving the individual more vulnerable to infectious diseases. It can also lead to serious blood and bone disorders, including cancers.

Cesium-137 is stored in the flesh of fish and animals. If it is stored at high enough levels, it makes the meat unfit for human consumption. Cesium-137 also adheres to the soil and to buildings. At high enough levels, it can make contaminated areas of farmland unusable for growing crops, and in some cases it can make entire regions uninhabitable. That's why so many villages near Chernobyl had to be abandoned. That is also the reason Laplanders have been advised to refrain from eating reindeer meat.

Caribou in the Canadian arctic have more strontium-90 and cesium-137 in their bodies than other North American animals do, because they eat lichen which capture the radioactive materials right out of the air. Fish also concentrate cesium-137 in their fleshy parts. Being meat-eaters and fish-eaters, Canadian Inuit have higher levels of fallout radiation in their bodies than most other North American residents. These levels have been slowly decreasing since the 60s, when governments stopped testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere; but the Chernobyl accident caused a slight increase.

Once distributed in the environment, strontium-90 and cesium-137 remain hazardous for many decades. One part in a thousand will still remain after 300 years.

C.4. What is "nuclear weapons fallout"?

When an atomic bomb explodes in the atmosphere, fission products are dispersed into the environment. They contaminate air, water and soil, as well as plants and animals. Some of them become attached to dust particles and water droplets, and come down as rain or snow. Some are sent high up into the stratosphere; they descend very slowly for many years thereafter, all over the globe, as radioactive "fallout".

If the bomb explodes at ground level, huge quantities of earth are scooped up into the fireball. Many of these materials, originally non-radioactive, become radioactive by absorbing stray neutrons from the fission process. These new radioactive substances, caused by neutron absorption, are not fission products; they are called "activation products". They can contribute significantly to the fallout from an atomic explosion.

C.5. What is "high level radioactive waste"?

Nuclear reactors produce large quantities of fission products. These are not normally dispersed in the environment except in the case of an accident like the one at Three Mile Island in 1979 or the much more catastrophic accident at Chernobyl in 1986.

Less than four percent of the fission products inside the Chernobyl reactor escaped -- yet the consequences were felt worldwide. Four years after the accident, in 1990, reindeer in Scandinavia and sheep in Wales were still judged unfit for human consumption because of radioactive contamination by cesium-137 from Chernobyl.

If there are no accidents or leaks, the fission products will remain contained within the spent uranium fuel. Even so, the gamma radiation that they give off is so intense that a person would receive a fatal dose of radiation in less than a minute if he or she stood just a meter or so away from an unshielded spent fuel bundle fresh out of the reactor.

Spent nuclear fuel is too radioactive to be handled by human hands; it is moved only by robotic equipment. It is shipped in special flasks weighing over 50 tonnes, chained to flat-bed trucks or rail cars. This "high level radioactive waste" is unapproachable for centuries (due to the gamma radiation from fission products) and highly toxic for millenia (due to alpha radiation from plutonium and the other transuranic elements).

It would take more than twice all the water in all the lakes and rivers of the world to dissolve the spent nuclear fuel on hand by the year 2000 to the maximum permissible levels of radioactive pollution. Therefore, the material must be safely stored in a near-perfect containment system. There is as yet no proven safe method for permanently disposing of high level radioactive waste.

C.6. How are plutonium and the other transuranic elements produced?

Although plutonium is an indirect byproduct of the fission process, it is not a fission product. Inside a nuclear reactor, some of the uranium atoms in the fuel are gradually "cooked" into plutonium atoms when they absorb neutrons without splitting.

Click on this image to view an animation.

Since it is heavier than uranium, this man-made radioactive element is called a "transuranic" element.

Additional neutron captures yield other transuranic elements, such as neptunium, americium, curium and californium. Most of them, including plutonium, will continue to give off alpha radiation for centuries or even millenia.

Plutonium is one of the most toxic man-made substances there is. A few milligrams of plutonium dust inhaled into the lungs, though invisible to the naked eye, will cause death in a short time due to massive fibrosis of the lungs. A few micrograms (one thousand times less!) can cause a fatal lung cancer ten or twenty years later.

C.7. What is plutonium used for?

Plutonium, like uranium, can undergo nuclear fission. This substance can therefore be used as a nuclear explosive or as fuel for a nuclear reactor.

As noted earlier, the Nagasaki bomb utilized plutonium. For technical reasons, it is easier to use plutonium instead of uranium as a nuclear explosive. In fact, most of the warheads in the world's nuclear arsenals use plutonium as the primary explosive.

Plutonium can also be used to fuel a nuclear reactor. Some of the electrical energy produced in any nuclear reactor comes from the splitting of plutonium atoms, but there is a considerable amount of unused plutonium left over in the spent nuclear fuel. If nuclear power is to be a major energy source in future, plutonium will almost certainly have to be used instead of uranium as a nuclear fuel, because uranium supplies are not expected to outlast oil supplies. To extract plutonium, however, the spent fuel must first be dissolved in boiling nitric acid, releasing radioactive gases and vapours and creating millions of gallons of high-level radioactive liquid waste.

Much has been written about the dangers of relying on plutonium as a fuel, partly because of its extraordinary toxicity, partly because of the inherently dangerous process of extracting it from spent fuel, and partly because of the threat of nuclear blackmail. Criminals, terrorists, or irresponsible political leaders could use the separated plutonium to make crude but powerful nuclear weapons with relatively little effort.

Part D : URANIUM AND PUBLIC POLICY

D.1. Is nuclear-generated electricity inevitable? Just a matter of time?

Nuclear proponents claim that the only substitutes for our rapidly diminishing oil supplies are coal and uranium. Since coal is such a dirty fuel, they say that nuclear power will be needed. But others disagree, maintaining that nuclear plants can't replace oil because they are too slow and too expensive to build. Besides, nuclear plants only supply electricity; yet 85 percent of our energy needs are non-electrical.

Numerous studies around the world -- such as Energy Future (the Harvard Business School Task Force Report on Energy) and 2025: Soft Energy Futures for Canada -- have argued that we can live quite affluently without requiring more nuclear power, oil or coal, by investing in energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable forms of energy. According to these studies, our best hope for the future lies with technologies such as solar heating, biologically renewable fuels (methane or fuel alcohols), solar electricity, wind power, geothermal energy, ocean thermal energy, wave power, etc.

These charts are taken from Amory Lovins' brilliant book, "Soft Energy Paths", which contrasts two radically different energy policies -- two competing strategies for providing essentially the same energy services, in the form of heat, light, transportation, drive power, telecommunications, etc.

D.2. Are the alternatives to nuclear power feasible?

Through efficiency improvements alone, according to these alternative studies, we can free up more energy than is currently produced by nuclear plants. Moreover, such efficiency measures are less costly than nuclear power, and create more jobs. They reduce acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions faster than nuclear power can. They allow us to provide the same energy services (heat, light, transportation) while using far less energy to do so. The energy saved can then be used for other purposes.

According to these studies, once demand has been trimmed by efficiency (doing more with less) and conservation (eliminating wasteful uses), renewable energy sources can meet most if not all of our diminished energy needs. In general, these alternative supply technologies are portrayed as no more expensive than nuclear power, yet they are faster, cleaner, more easily sustainable, and they create more jobs. There are also cleaner coal-burning technologies that can be used during the relatively short transition period to a sustainable society powered by renewable forms of energy.

D.3. Is uranium and nuclear power accepted in Canada? in the World?

The population of Canada and of the world is sharply divided on the merits of uranium and nuclear technology. Most Canadians and Americans oppose nuclear power because of the unsolved waste problems and the links to nuclear weapons.

Since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, there hasn't been a single nuclear reactor sold in all of North America as of September 1990. Since the Chernobyl accident in 1986, millions of European and Soviet citizens have turned against nuclear power. Sweden, Austria, Italy and the Phillippines are among the countries which have decided to phase out nuclear power.

When Margaret Thatcher privatized the British electricity industry in 1989, she was unable to persuade any private investors to buy the nuclear plants. The buyers balked when they learned how much money it will cost to dispose of radioactive wastes and to dismantle the radioactive structures when the reactors outlive their usefulness.

Unlike most other countries, France is expanding its nuclear power program -- but the French refuse to separate their civilian nuclear program from their nuclear weapons program.

D.4. To what extent has Canada invested in uranium and nuclear power?

During World War II, Canada spent more on the nuclear weapons program than on all other scientific research and development activities. After the war, Ottawa decided to pursue the civilian possibilities of nuclear technology. According to a study prepared for the Economic Council of Canada, close to 18 billions of dollars (in 1990 currency) were spent in developing the nuclear power option.

Federal subsidies continue unabated to the present day. Research funding has consistently been far greater for nuclear power than for all other energy options combined (oil, coal, gas, hydro, energy conservation, and renewable forms of energy), even though nuclear power contributes only 3.3 percent of Canada's delivered energy.

D.5. To what extent has Canada intervened in the uranium market?

The federal government monopolized uranium mining, milling and refining until the mid 1950s; then private enterprise was allowed to invest. In the 1960s, when the military contracts dried up, Prime Minister Lester Pearson (the M.P. from Elliot Lake) began stockpiling uranium, at taxpayer's expense, to keep two privately-owned Elliot Lake mines from going out of business. In 1965, Pearson promised in the House that henceforth Canadian uranium would be sold for peaceful purposes only.

In the early 1970's, the Trudeau cabinet was instrumental in establishing an international uranium price-fixing cartel in collaboration with South Africa, Australia, France and the British mining conglomerate Rio Tinto Zinc. The cartel used secret quotas and phony bidding to boost world prices in apparent violation of Canadian and international laws. When prices soared, Canada financed an ambitious uranium reconnaissance program to help mining companies locate and exploit economically recoverable reserves. Meanwhile, Ottawa continued to own and operate the largest uranium refinery in the world (at Port Hope), through Eldorado Nuclear Limited.

Critics of the nuclear industry maintain that the Canadian public would have been better served if the tax money and political will that has been poured into uranium and nuclear power had been channelled into alternative energy technologies instead.

D.6. What is Canada's present status in the international uranium market?

The first country ever to mine and refine uranium on a large scale, Canada remains the undisputed world leader in uranium exports.

For about 25 years, beginning in the mid-1950s, the U.S. led the world in production, while Canada led in exports. During the 1980s, Canada has become the world's leading producer, largely because of the extraordinarily rich uranium deposits found in northern Saskatchewan. These ores are much less costly to mine than traditional ores.

The price of uranium has been falling steadily since the late 1970s, just a few years after the dissolution of the uranium cartel. In fact, uranium prices reached an all-time low in 1990. Uranium producers in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, including Elliot Lake, have been forced to shut down, unable to compete with cheap Saskatchewan uranium.

D.7. Why is uranium mining expanding in Canada?

It is unclear why Canada is expanding uranium mining activities when the price of uranium is so low and the market is glutted. The investors in Canada's uranium resources are mostly large foreign corporations who are interested in stockpiling Canadian uranium at bargain prices. In the meantime, no money is being put aside to deal with the serious environmental damage done by past uranium mining operations, or to dispose of some hundred million tonnes of radioactive waste left over from abandoned uranium mines and mills.

Part E : THE HEALTH HAZARDS OF URANIUM MINING

E.1. What are the health hazards of uranium mining?

Uranium mining is hazardous. In addition to the usual risks of mining, uranium miners worldwide have experienced a much higher incidence of lung cancer and other lung diseases. Several studies have also indicated an increased incidence of skin cancer, stomach cancer and kidney disease among uranium miners.

E.2. How long have we known that lung cancer is caused by uranium mining?

For four centuries, beginning in 1546, it was reported that most underground miners in Schneeburg, Germany, died from mysterious lung ailments. In 1879 it was shown that up to three quarters of them were dying of lung cancer, and many of other lung diseases.

By 1930, the same grim statistics were found among miners in Joachimsthal, Czechoslovakia, on the other side of the same mountain range. More than half of them were dying of lung cancer. Among the non-mining populations on both the German and Czech side of the mountains, lung cancer was all but unknown.

The ores in question were particularly rich in uranium. Men who mined other types of ores were not found to suffer the same epidemic of lung cancer as these miners did.

E.3. How did we learn that radioactivity causes lung cancer?

In 1897 it was learned that uranium ores are radioactive. By 1900 it was found that severe skin damage can be caused by prolonged contact with some of the radioactive decay products of uranium. By 1920 it was well established that chronic exposure to atomic radiation, even without any visible damage to skin or other bodily tissues, can cause cancers and leukemias, years later, in both humans and animals.

By the 1930s, scientists were convinced that the centuries-old lung cancer epidemic among German and Czechoslovakian miners was caused by the men inhaling airborne radioactive materials in the underground mines.

Decades later, Japanese atomic bomb survivors were found to have a much higher rate of lung cancer than others.

E.3a. Which radioactive materials cause lung cancer among miners?

Before World War II, it had been established that radon gas, rather than uranium ore dust, was the cause of lung cancer among underground miners. This conclusion was reached by comparing the miners with other workers who breathed radioactive dust but got almost no lung cancer. It was confirmed by experiments with animals.

Scientists were baffled as to why this alpha-emitting gas, radon, was such a powerful cancer-causing agent. It seemed much more damaging than other alpha emitters such as those found in the ore dust. The mystery went unexplained for more than a decade.

In the 1950s the mystery was partially dispelled when it was pointed out that the radon gas, hovering in the stagnant air of the mine, produces radioactive decay products called "radon progeny" (or, formerly, "radon daughters"). These solid radioactive byproducts, produced a single atom at a time, hang in the air along with the radon gas. When radon gas is inhaled, the radon progeny are also inhaled, resulting in a much larger dose of alpha radiation to the lungs than would be delivered by the gas alone.

E.4. Have uranium miners in North America also suffered from excess lung cancer?

When uranium mining began in earnest in the 1940's, first to supply uranium for bombs, and later for nuclear reactors, the evidence from Schneeberg and Joachimsthal was ignored. In the U.S., Navajo indians were sent into the Colorado uranium mines and exposed to levels of radon (the gas and its progeny) every bit as high as those recorded in the German and Czechoslovakian mines, with equally tragic results.

In Canada, large excesses of lung cancer deaths occurred among the Newfoundland fluorspar miners, who began work in the 1930s, as well as among the uranium miners of the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and Ontario, who started mining in the 1940's and 1950's. Although radiation exposures in Canadian mines were less than those in American mines, significant increases in lung cancer deaths still occurred.

Uranium itself was not present in the Newfoundland fluorspar mines, but high levels of radon gas were dissolved in the water seeping into those mines. This deadly gas, exhaled into the mine atmosphere and inhaled by the miners, killed many of them.

E.5. Are there higher rates of lung cancer among uranium miners today?

In 1976, an Ontario Royal Commission -- the Ham Commission -- found that 81 Canadian uranium miners had died from lung cancer. That was twice as many as expected. By the end of 1977, the number had risen to 119; by the end of 1981, the toll was 174; and by the end of 1984, it was 274. A 1980 report from the British Columbia Medical Association said that we must anticipate "a gradually-flowering crop of [radiation-induced] cancers" among the uranium mining population.

There are many current research studies of hard rock miners exposed to radon and its progeny in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, all showing clearly increased lung cancer rates. The amount of cancer is dependent on the radiation exposure of the miners; the higher the exposure, the greater the number of cancer deaths. Significant increases in lung cancer due to radiation have been observed in both smokers and non-smokers.

E.6. Are the current levels of radiation exposure for miners considered safe?

There is no scientific evidence to indicate that there is any safe level of exposure to radon. Virtually all of the evidence points in the opposite direction. The only prudent assumption consistent with the evidence is that any exposure to radon will cause a proportional increase in the incidence of lung cancer. This conclusion has been echoed by every major report on the subject since the late 1970s.

In the early 1980s, an independent scientific study on the risks of radon was published by the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB -- the body that sets standards for radiation exposure in Canada). This study, known as the Thomas/MacNeill Report, reviewed all available evidence from several countries. It concluded that the risks are very high.

If uranium miners worked at AECB's maximum permissible level over their entire working lifetime, the Thomas/MacNeill Report found that the lung cancer incidence would likely quadruple. Instead of 54 lung cancer deaths per 1000 males, the Ontario average, there could be close to 200 lung cancers per 1000 -- that is, one in five.

The 1980 report published by the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA), already mentioned, called the AECB "unfit to regulate" because of the health risks it permits. No other industry, says the BCMA report, allows a cancer-causing substance in the workplace at anything close to the doubling dose for cancers in humans.

E.7. Can the health dangers be alleviated by using more miners for shorter times?

The Ham Commission warned that using more miners for shorter times, without reducing the total exposure to inhaled radon, will not reduce the number of cancer victims. If anything, it could increase the number of excess lung cancers.

The Ham Commission Report, the BCMA Report, the Thomas/ MacNeill Report, and the 1988 BEIR-IV Report (by the U.S. National Research Council) have all pointed out that at lower radon exposure levels the number of cancers caused per unit dose may actually increase. In other words, spreading the same total dose out over a larger population, so that each individual gets a smaller dose, may increase the total number of cancers caused. The BEIR IV Report observes that this phenomenon is well-known for laboratory animals, but is less clearly established in the case of human populations.

Part F : URANIUM TAILINGS

F.1. What are uranium tailings?
F.2. What is thorium-230?
F.3. What is radium-226?
F.4. What is radon-222?
F.5. What are the radon progeny?
F.6. What is polonium?

F.1. What are uranium tailings?

In mining, the uranium and its decay products buried deep in the earth are brought to the surface, and the rock containing them is crushed into a fine sand. After the uranium is chemically removed, the sand is stored in huge reservoirs. These left-over piles of radioactive sand are called "uranium tailings".

Uranium tailings contain over a dozen radioactive materials which are all extremely harmful to living things. The most important of these are thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222 (radon gas) and the radon progeny, including polonium-210.

If this radioactive sand is left on the surface and allowed to dry out, it can blow in the wind and be deposited on vegetation far away, entering the food chain. Or it can wash into rivers and lakes and contaminate them.

F.2. What is thorium-230?

Thorium-230 is the uranium decay product with the longest lifetime. It lasts for hundreds of thousands of years -- in human terms, forever. Thorium is especially toxic to the liver and the spleen. It has been known to cause leukemias and other blood diseases. It decays to produce radium-226, which in turn produces radon gas (radon-222).

So the amount of radium in the waste, and the quantities of radon gas produced by it, will not diminish for a long time, because they are constantly being replenished by the decay of the very long-lived thorium-230.

F.3. What is radium-226?

Radium-226 is one of the more dangerous of the uranium decay products. It is a radioactive heavy metal, and a potent alpha emitter. As it decays, it produces radon gas as a byproduct. Radium is chemically similar to calcium, so when ingested, it migrates to the bones, the teeth and the milk. It is readily taken up by vegetation. In aquatic plants, it can be concentrated by factors of hundreds or even thousands.

In the first half of the twentieth century, radium was used to make a paint that glows in the dark. Radium is now considered too dangerous to use for such purposes. Many young women who used the paint in their work died from cancers of the bone or of the head. The bone cancers were caused by microscopic amounts of radium which were unintentionally swallowed. The head cancers resulted from radon gas generated inside the women's bodies which collected in their sinus and mastoid cavities.

Today, it is considered dangerous to wear a watch whose numerals have been painted with radium paint, because some of the decay products give off intense gamma rays, even more powerful than x-rays. This type of radiation can damage the body by sending rays right through it, even from a distance. Indeed, radium is sometimes used in cancer therapy for this very reason, to destroy unwanted tumours.

While some radium is still used for medical purposes, only small quantities are needed. Most of the world's radium is now discarded with the crushed rock left over from uranium mining, despite the fact that it is known to be a hazard.

Several U.S. studies have reported higher rates of cancer and leukemia in communities having elevated levels of radium in the drinking water, although the cause-and-effect relationship in these cases is still a matter of dispute.

F.4. What is radon-222?

Radon-222 is a toxic gas created by the decay of radium-226. Most of the radon is normally trapped in the ore-bearing rock deep within the earth. But when the rock is excavated and crushed, a lot of radon gas is released into the air. The uranium miners breathe this radioactive gas and its progeny into their lungs.

Radon (the gas and its progeny) is a very powerful cancer-causing agent. Even small doses inhaled repeatedly over a long time can cause lung cancer.

Uranium tailings are constantly producing large amounts of radon gas through the decay of radium in the tailings. This gas can travel thousands of kilometers in a light breeze in just a few days. As it travels, it continually deposits solid radon progeny on the ground, water and vegetation below.

Radon also dissolves readily in water, and can be transported by ground water into wells and streams.

F.5. What are the radon progeny?

Because radon gas is radioactive, it decays, producing seven radioactive decay products called "radon progeny". These solid radioactive materials attach themselves to tiny dust particles and droplets of water vapour floating in the air.

By itself, radon gas is exhaled as easily as it is inhaled; but when the accompanying radon progeny are inhaled, they lodge in the lining of the lung. There they bombard the delicate tissues with alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. The radon progeny are various radioactive forms (or "isotopes") of bismuth, polonium and lead. The bismuth and lead isotopes emit beta particles and intense gamma rays, while the polonium isotopes emit alpha particles which irreparably damage the bronchial tissue.

When radon gas is given off from uranium tailings (see F.4) the radon progeny eventually come to earth as radioactive fallout, in the form of rain, snow or dust, entering aquatic and terrestrial food chains. A few days following deposition, the only progeny left are lead-210 and polonium-210; the others have decayed away to almost nothing.

When lead-210 and polonium-210 are ingested in contaminated vegetables, fruits, fish or meat, they are incorporated into the body just as non-radioactive materials are.

F.6. What is polonium?

Three different isotopes of polonium are included among the radon progeny. They are polonium-218, polonium-214 and polonium-210. These pernicious substances are responsible for most of the biological damage attributed to radon. In particular, polonium-214 and polonium-218, when inhaled, deliver massive doses of alpha radiation to the lungs, causing fibrosis of the lungs as well as cancer.

Animal studies have confirmed that polonium is extremely harmful, even in minute quantities. The 1988 BEIR-IV report states that polonium-210 is far more dangerous than plutonium at high exposure levels, is more or less equivalent to plutonium (which is five times more damaging than radium) at intermediate exposure levels, and approaches the toxicity of radium at very low exposure levels.

Because of the lichen-caribou food chain (mentioned in C.3), caribou in the arctic and in northern Saskatchewan have much higher levels of polonium-210 in their flesh than any other animals in North America. As a result, the Canadian Inuit have up to 80 times more polonium-210 in their bodies than other North American people do. Uranium mining can only exacerbate this situation, because increased amounts of airborne polonium-210 will be deposited on the lichen as fallout from the tailings and from abandoned ore bodies.

There is growing evidence that polonium-210 inhaled in tobacco smoke is responsible for much of the biological damage caused by cigarettes. Autopsies show that smokers have higher levels of polonium-210 in their lungs than non-smokers. Animal studies show that polonium-210 in the lungs is a superb carcinogen. From the lungs, polonium can also enter the bloodstream; the resulting radiation damage to blood vessels can eventually lead to blocked arteries, causing strokes and heart attacks.

Part G : URANIUM AND THE ENVIRONMENT

G.1. What are the greatest environmental risks from a uranium mine?

The greatest risks to the environment are (1) contamination of ground water and river systems with dissolved radioactive materials; (2) catastrophic failures of tailings containment; (3) the dispersal of radioactive dust, which finds its way into water, plants, animals, fish and humans; (4) releases of radon gas into the air, which will deposit radon daughters on the ground for hundreds of miles around; (5) pollution of surface and ground water by chemical pollutants in tailings, notable heavy metals, acids, ammonia and salts.

In the short term, chemical pollution has caused by far the most damage. Whole groups of organisms have disappeared downstream from some uranium tailings areas. Radiation hazards are more subtle and will take longer to be manifested.

Unless the tailings are properly disposed of, these hazards will continue unabated for thousands of years. Tailings hazards will probably get worse as time goes on because of erosion, neglect and climatic change.

G.2. Does uranium mining cause water pollution?

During routine mine and milling operations, radioactive substances and other chemical contaminants (including sulphuric acid) will escape into the water. In Ontario, the entire Serpent River system -- including more than a dozen lakes -- were badly contaminated for 55 miles downstream from the uranium mines in the Elliot Lake area by the late 70s. At that time, the International Joint Commission identified the Serpent River system as the largest single contributor of radium contamination to the Great Lakes. The situation has improved since then as corrective measures have been taken.

In case of a failure of the containment system for tailings, rivers and lakes can be ruined completely as a source of water for humans and animals. In the Elliot Lake area, there have been over thirty tailings dam failures. In 1979, a new tailings dam built with the latest technology suddenly collapsed in Churchrock, New Mexico; the resulting spill was the greatest accidental release of radioactive material into the environment prior to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

At Key Lake in Saskatchewan, there were more than half a dozen radioactive spills within six months of the mine's starting operations in 1985. The main problem at Key Lake is that the tailings area is too small, even though it is a modern mine.

G.3. What are the dangers of the tailings to humans, wildlife and the environment?

Unless uranium tailing are perfectly contained in some kind of storage system which has yet to be devised, humans and animals who come close to the tailings cannot help ingesting or inhaling some of this radioactive material, which seeps into the air, the food and the water. In this way, damage can be done to the lungs, skin, kidneys, blood, bones and reproductive organs. Over a period of years, that damage can lead to many types of illnesses, including cancers and leukemia. It can also lead to diseases and malformations in children, even before they are born.

A major study of Navajo Indians who worked as uranium miners, and those living near uranium tailings on the Colorado plateau, is almost finished. The children of these people have a very high rate of birth defects. A study in Malaysia is currently documenting changes in blood and ill health among children exposed to thorium and uranium waste.

Radioactive materials in the tailings can also be carried very far away in the bodies of animals, fish or birds. Anybody eating the meat from these contaminated animals will get the radioactive material inside his or her own body.

G.4. Is there a way to avoid this kind of radioactive contamination?

Since people have to breathe and eat and drink, it is impossible to avoid the radioactive material once it is released from the deep rock and brought to the surface and crushed and spread into the environment. The only remedy is prevention. Either the crushed rock should not be allowed to get into the environment, or the radioactive material should not be brought to the surface.

G.5. How long will the tailings be radioactive?

The uranium which is taken away and sold represents only about one seventh of the total radioactivity in the rock. The rest will be left in the tailings, which will remain dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years -- far longer than the span of recorded human history.

In fact, the amount of radium in the tailings, and the amount of radon gas given off by the tailings, will not diminish much for the first 5,000 or 10,000 years. (The Egyptian pyramids are about 5,000 years old.) Even after 80,000 years, these quantities will have diminished by only one-half.

G.6. How long will it take to get rid of the hazard of uranium tailings?

Unless a great deal of money is spent on engineered deep storage of the mine and mill tailings, they will be left at the mine site forever. No mine or mill site has yet been cleaned up in a permanently satisfactory way anywhere in the world.

New stringent laws for covering (but not burying) mine and mill tailings in the U.S. have made mining companies move away to other countries where there are no such detailed laws. Canada does not yet have detailed laws requiring the removal or covering of mine and mill tailings by the mining companies, nor does the Canadian government require deep burial in rock. In most cases, Canada does not even fence in the abandoned radioactive material or post signs to warn people that it is dangerous.

G.7. Can modern science eliminate atomic radiation from radioactive tailings?

Modern science has no way to eliminate this radiation. There is no practical way to neutralize radioactive materials, to destroy them or to render them harmless.

Attempts are underway to try to put radioactive mine and mill tailings back into the ground, like the ore from which they originated, because the radioactive materials in the tailings were less harmful to animals and humans when they were underground.

However, we do not know how to put the sand back together as a rock, nor do we know how to call back all the radon gas, the liquid effluents and the radioactive dust which have been released into the environment. Because the finely ground tailings are much more easily dissolved than the original ore, we cannot ensure that ground-water contamination will not occur following burial. Also, because the tailings will remain dangerous for a period of time which exceeds the span of human history, it is difficult to judge whether our storage methods will be adequate.

Part H : REGULATING TAILINGS MANAGEMENT

H.1. Who is responsible for regulating tailings management in Australia?
H.2. What do the regulations require?
H.3. Are the regulations effective?
H.4. Are the regulators independent of the industry?

H.1. Who is responsible for regulating tailings management in Canada?

As long as the uranium mine/mill complex is operating, the management of the tailings is regulated by the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) and by the appropriate provincial authorities. However, once the tailings have been abandoned, particularly when the owner/operator ceases to exist or disappears, there is considerable confusion as to who is responsible for managing the tailings.

There have been numerous cases in Canada and elsewhere where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive mine tailings or refinery wastes, neglected by the authorities, have been used in the construction of homes and schools, resulting in unacceptably high levels of radiation exposure in those buildings. In Ontario, there are several cases of abandoned uranium tailings which are still not properly fenced or posted with adequate warning signs. These vast stretches of radioactive sand are freely accessible to animals, bikers, children, berry-pickers and picknickers. There is also the ever-present danger that this innocuous-looking sand will be used as fill or in home construction.

H.2. What do the regulations require?

The regulations require the design, construction, maintenance and monitoring of an engineered facility for storing tailings as long as the mine/mill complex is operational. There are also requirements for treating effluents and limiting access to the site, and there are close-out criteria to be followed in preparing the tailings for abandonment.

During the operational phase, the tailings must be physically confined behind some kind of retaining wall. The regulations require that provision be made for controlling the blowing of radioactive dust and limiting the atmospheric releases of radon gas. In addition, design measures to prevent the seepage of chemicals and radionuclides into the underlying soil, and to reduce the levels of radioactivity in the liquid run-off, must be approved. In unusual cases, where some portion of the tailings contains unusually high concentrations of radioactivity, special design requirements may be laid down by the regulators.

H.3. Are the regulations effective?

Over all, tailings management during the operational phase has greatly improved in the last fifteen years. Nevertheless, even at the newest mines, radioactive spills are frequent. Inspectors are not highly trained, and they often fail to notice flagrant violations of the regulations.

The long term containment of uranium tailings remains a major unsolved problem. Two of the most significant failures occurred in 1979, at Churchrock, New Mexico, when (as already mentioned) a huge state-of-the-art tailings dam collapsed without warning, and in the early 1980's, at Cluff Lake, Saskatchewan, when efforts to store highly radioactive tailings in thousands of concrete "pots" ended as a dismal failure. Although the pots were supposed to last for centuries, dozens of them were found to be cracked and leaking after less than five years of use.

Once uranium tailings have been abandoned, it is doubtful whether any regulations can be effective in preventing large-scale contamination of the environment. The levels of radioactivity in the tailings, and the amount of radon gas produced by the tailings, will not noticeably diminish for more than 10 000 years. How can the natural forces of erosion, migration, dispersion and dissolution be held in abeyance? Who will monitor the wastes and take corrective action? And who will pay for the future effort needed to do all this?

H.4. Are the regulators independent of the industry?

The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) is supposed to be independent of the nuclear industry. However, it reports to the federal Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources -- the same Minister who is responsible for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (a crown corporation that designs, builds and sells nuclear reactors) and Cameco (formerly Eldorado Nuclear Limited, another crown corporation that owns and operates uranium mines and refineries).

Moreover, most AECB staff are drawn from various sectors of the nuclear industry, including the uranium companies. In the past, many of the Board members were representatives of the very industries that AECB is regulating. Formal public hearings are not required as part of the licensing process, nor have such hearings ever been held.

Part J : THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF ATOMIC RADIATION

J.1. Can the human body protect itself from radioactive materials?

The body has no way of protecting itself from radioactive substances in food or air. It takes them in and stores them in the lungs, muscles, bones and other organs, just as if they were natural foods.

Inside the body, when the radioactive material decays, it explodes (microscopically), causing damage to the tiny living cells. When many of these cells are damaged, the body is less able to fight off a variety of infectious diseases.

J.2. How does atomic radiation cause cancer?

Chronic illnesses -- including leukemia or cancer -- can be caused by atomic radiation. When cells are damaged in such a way that they begin to reproduce in an abnormal and uncontrolled fashion, they have become cancer cells. As the cancer spreads, it destroys healthy tissue, and unless arrested, it eventually kills the host organism. Leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow, which results in the uncontrolled overproduction of white blood cells to the detriment of other blood cells.

It takes time for a cancer to grow, so the effect is not apparent immediately. It often takes many years before cancer caused by breathing radioactive air or eating contaminated food can be spotted by a doctor. Even then, it is usually impossible for the doctor to tell whether that specific cancer was caused by atomic radiation.

J.3. How does atomic radiation cause genetic defects in children?

Radiation damage to the father's sperm or the mother's eggs can result in a damaged child. Atomic radiation workers, such as uranium miners, take the greatest risk of having a damaged child because they are in closest contact with radioactive materials. A child suffering from genetic damage can pass that damage on to future generations.

Since the father's sperm is replaced every three or four months, he could theoretically wait for some time after working in the mine before fathering a child. However, if his body is contaminated with long-lived radioactive materials, his sperm could continue to be damaged by internal exposure to radiation even after quitting his mining job.

Women carry in their bodies from birth, all the eggs they will ever have. Damage to a woman's eggs at any one time can result in a damaged baby many years later.

J.3a. How do we know that atomic radiation causes genetic damage?

Genetic damage has been observed and documented in every laboratory species that has been so far studied, including mammals, insects, micro-organisms and plants.

Genetic damage sometimes results in an unviable organism, leading to spontaneous abortion or premature death. Some kinds of genetic damage result in gross abnormalities or deformities, whereas other types involve subtle differences which are difficult to detect. In fact, some forms of genetic damage are not seen in the first or second generations, but only later, after several generations have passed.

Among human populations, there is little direct evidence of radiation-induced genetic damage. Several scientific studies have found a significant increase in the incidence of a genetic disease known as Down's syndrome (also called mongolism) following irradiation of the mother, but other studies have not shown a comparable increase. An unusually high incidence of Down's syndrome has also been reported from some geographical regions where the background radiation levels are likewise unusually high. Thus, while there is evidence that radiation causes Down's syndrome, the evidence is not conclusive.

Despite the lack of conclusive studies showing genetic effects in humans, scientists consider it virtually certain that such effects are indeed caused in humans by exposure to atomic radiation, since these effects have been demonstrated in many other species.

J.4. How else can atomic radiation damage unborn children?

A recent British study (the Gardner Report, published in the Journal of the British Medical Association in February, 1990) shows that the children of men who work in the Sellafield nuclear plant in northern England experience a much higher rate of leukemia than other children. The radiation exposure of the father appears to play an important role. It may be that damage to the sperm before conception causes leukemia in the children born later on -- but no one knows exactly how or why.

Even if the father and the mother conceive a healthy baby, that baby is vulnerable to radiation while it is growing in the mother's womb. Whatever the mother eats can travel through the umbilical chord to the baby and damage it so that it is born with a disease or a deformity. The unborn child can also be affected by penetrating radiation from outside the mother's body. Sometimes when a baby is seriously damaged before birth it is spontaneously aborted or it dies at the time of birth.

Mental retardation due to brain damage is the most likely form of developmental abnormality resulting from exposure to atomic radiation, if the fÏtus is exposed during the critical period when the child's brain is being formed. Radiation-induced mental retardation has been observed and documented in animals as well as humans.

J.5. Is there a cure for radiation victims?

Some of the damage caused by radiation is healed by the body's own power to heal itself. Rarely is the healing perfect. Medical treatment can relieve some of the side effects of radiation damage and can prolong life through cancer surgery or treatment.

J.6. Can radioactivity be detected by human senses?

In concentrated form, radium or thorium or polonium can give a person a severe burn. Also, when uranium is exploded in an atomic bomb or "burnt" in a nuclear reactor, many radioactive substances are produced, that give off atomic radiation intense enough to kill a person very quickly with burning pain.

However, at much lower doses, such as those experienced in uranium mining, atomic radiation cannot be detected by any of our human senses. Special instruments are needed. Alpha radiation, the kind associated with radon gas and most of the other uranium decay products, is difficult to detect even with instruments.

J.7. Are medical and dental x-rays free of risk?

Although x-rays are often useful and sometimes necessary, they do cause damage to living cells, slightly increasing the risk of both cancer in the individual exposed and genetic damage to his or her subsequent offspring. That's why lead aprons or shields are now used to protect the patient's gonads.

As with all forms of atomic radiation, the risk from x-rays is cumulative; it increases with each extra little dose. That's why doctors, nurses and technicians often leave the room or duck behind a wall while a patient is being x-rayed.

Although the risk from one x-ray is small, the public health consequences of routine exposures can be serious because of the large numbers of people exposed to that small extra risk. That's why x-ray machines in shoe stores (letting kids see their toes wriggle) have been disallowed, and mass programs of chest x-rays have also been discontinued.

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Alice Stewart (a British M.D.) showed that a single diagnostic x-ray to the abdomen of a pregnant woman increased by fifty percent the chance that her child would later develop leukemia. It is no longer acceptable to x-ray unborn babies unless there is a compelling medical reason to do so.

Part K : THE REGULATION OF RADIATION EXPOSURES

K.1. What is an "acceptable" level of exposure to atomic radiation?

There is no convincing scientific evidence that there is a safe dose of atomic radiation. The evidence points strongly to the opposite conclusion -- that every dose of atomic radiation administered to a large population, no matter how small it may be, will cause a corresponding increase in the numbers of cancers, genetic defects in offspring and other diseases.

The increase in the incidence of cancers and genetic defects seems to be roughly proportional to the total radiation dose received by the entire population. If the radiation dose is cut in half, the increase in the number of people dying of cancer or having defective children will also be cut in half, but the degree of damage to each affected individual is undiminished. Lowering the dose reduces the frequency but not the severity of the medical consequences. Every regulatory body in the world uses this principle as the basis for regulating radiation exposures.

Since no dose is safe, there is no objective or scientific way to decide what dose is acceptable. It is a social or political choice, not a technical or scientific one. The situation is further complicated when the people who receive the benefits are not the only ones who are taking the risks.

Science can only help us to estimate the risks -- how many people are likely to get cancer, how many children are likely to be born defective, or what other types of illnesses might increase as a result of a given exposure to radiation. To judge whether or not these consequences are acceptable is beyond the scope of science.

K.2. Who is responsible for regulating radiation exposure in Canada?

The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) is responsible for regulating radiation exposure in Canada in cooperation with the Radiological Protection Bureau of the federal Department of Health and Welfare. Since the AECB has little medical or epidemiological expertise, it also depends heavily on research done and recommendations made by bodies outside Canada.

In particular, it relies on the advice of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), a self-appointed international advisory body consisting of prominent scientists who work in the field of atomic radiation. Critics have charged that ICRP members are in a conflict-of-interest situation, because their careers are based on jobs which inevitably expose people to man-made radiation.

The AECB sets maximum permissible levels of radiation exposure for atomic workers and for members of the general public. These levels are not regarded by the ICRP as acceptable levels for continuous exposure, but as upper limits beyond which radiation exposure becomes clearly unacceptable. Attempts are made to keep actual exposures to a small fraction of the maximum permissible limits, but there is no guarantee that this will always be the case.

The industry and the regulators claim to follow the ALARA principle, which means keeping radiation exposures "As Low As Reasonably Achievable, social and economic factors being taken into account." But who decides what is reasonable? Critics of the industry claim that current occupational and public exposures are already in many cases unreasonably high, particularly in the light of recent scientific studies published since 1988 which indicate that the risks from low-level radiation are from two to eight times as great as previously thought.

K.3. What is the basis for setting radiation standards?

In a very real sense, radiation standards are arbitrary. While maximum permissible levels of radiation exposure have been defined for workers and for the general public, these exposures should not be regarded as safe, or even acceptable. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) warns that it would be unacceptable for workers or for members of the general public to be exposed continuously to the maximum permissible dose levels.

Radiation standards are for people only, ignoring other species. The assumption that if humans are protected, so are non-humans, is now being seriously questioned.

Two approaches have been used to justify the existing radiation standards. The first involves estimating the risks of death and genetic damage from a given dose of radiation, and comparing these radiation risks with other risks (e.g. deaths from car accidents, hazardous work, fires, earthquakes, spontaneous birth defects, over-eating, etc.) in an effort to make these two kinds of risk more or less comparable. The second approach involves comparing the permissible levels of man-made radiation to the levels of naturally-occurring background radiation.

These approaches have been criticized. The first approach compares risks which people can take steps to avoid with risks of exposures to atomic radiation which are not within the individual's control or power to choose. This approach also assumes an accurate knowledge of the true risks of low-level radiation exposure; but there is growing scientific evidence that these risks have been seriously underestimated for decades. The second approach ignores differences between naturally-occurring radiation and man-made radiation; the latter sometimes involves radioactive substances or biological mechanisms which may not be characteristic of naturally occurring radiation.

Both approaches assume that it is acceptable to add the risks of "technologically enhanced" radiation exposure to all the other risks to which we are already exposed, or to multiply the risks from background radiation by some arbitrary factor.

K.4. What is "background radiation"?

Some radiation exposure is unavoidable, even in the absence of uranium mining and nuclear technology. This "background radiation" is due to small quantities of radioactive materials in the natural environment -- food, water and air -- as well as penetrating rays from outer space to which we are all exposed.

In some places, background radiation is higher than in other places, depending on the altitude, the nature of the soil, and the type of building materials used. In recent years, it has become clear that the largest and most dangerous single source of exposure to background radiation is in the form of naturally occurring radon gas.

It is considered that many of the cancers and birth defects that spontaneously occur in human populations are caused by our unavoidable exposure to background radiation.

K.5. Is background radiation increasing?

Because of man's activities, background radiation exposure is gradually increasing as greater quantities of naturally ocurring radioactive materials are being released into the biosphere (for example, through uranium mining).

We have added significantly to the unavoidable radiation exposure of all people on earth because of fallout from nuclear weapons testing and nuclear power plant discharges, particularly in the case of a large-scale accident like Chernobyl.

The medical profession has also added to our average radiation exposure through the use of x-rays. In addition, small quantities of medical and industrial radioisotopes (man-made radioactive substances used for "tracers" or therapeutic purposes) often end up in soil, water or air.

Although the term "background radiation" is not meant to include bomb fallout, reactor discharges, medical exposures or environmental contamination from radioisotopes, it is nevertheless a fact that people all over the world are being exposed to increasing doses of radiation because of these factors.

K.6. Is radon in homes a problem? how does it get there?

In the U.S., the U.K. and Sweden (but not yet in Canada), the governments have recently urged all citizens to measure the radon in their homes for their own safety.

Radon in homes is produced from tiny amounts of radium found in the soil or in building materials. Radon can also enter homes dissolved in tap water. A certain amount of radon is natural and unavoidable, but nonetheless dangerous. The more radium there is, the greater the problem. Of course, in uranium mines and in uranium tailings the amount of radon is far greater than that in most homes.

In some places, such as Port Hope, Ontario, and Grand Junction, Colorado, elevated radon levels in homes and schools resulted from the use of abandoned uranium tailings or other uranium wastes in construction. In other places, such as Oka, Quebec, and St. Johns, Newfoundland, radium-contaminated materials have been sold to unsuspecting builders, leading to high radon levels in many homes.

A new British medical study (published in The Lancet in April 1990) has found a significant correlation between elevated radon levels in homes and serious illnesses like myeloid leukemia in children and kidney cancer in adults. This study uses published statistics from fifteen countries, including Canada.

K.7. Are Canadian exposure standards being made more stringent?

In recent years, Canadian authorities have been relaxing exposure standards for atomic radiation rather than tightening them. Within the last decade, the maximum permissible concentration of radium in Canadian drinking water was increased by a factor of nine. The maximum permissible concentration of uranium in water is also being increased. New regulations proposed by the AECB, and not yet passed into law as of September 1990, will increase the maximum permissible intake of many radioactive subtances in the workplace.

Meanwhile, in other countries, the standards are being tightened because of new scientific evidence which indicates that the risks from low level exposure to atomic radiation are considerably higher than was thought just a few years ago. In the U.K., the suggested maximum permissible exposure for atomic workers has been lowered to 40 percent below Canada's current permissible level. In the U.S. and the U.K., the suggested maximum permissible exposures for members of the general public are much lower -- by more than a factor of ten -- than the corresponding figures in Canada.

Canadian regulatory authorities have never held public hearings to decide on radiation standards, despite numerous official recommendations that they do so. They have they never had any representation from the broad Canadian public on their decision-making bodies. It is ironic that radiation standards are now being passed into law in Canada, based on an antiquated report published by the ICRP in 1977, rather than on the best scientific evidence which is currently available.