CNP Media Release

(Moncton, January 23, 2003) – A new environmental coalition has been formed in New Brunswick to call on the province to decommission the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station at the end of its operating life in 2006 and to implement a comprehensive Green Energy Strategy for New Brunswick.

The Green Energy Coalition has drafted an extensive resolution to justify why it wants the Government of New Brunswick to decommission Atlantic Canada’s only nuclear power plant at the end of its operating life in 2006. Sixteen New Brunswick environmental groups have initially endorsed the resolution and the coalition will soon be approaching municipalities in the province to enlist their support.

The Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station, owned and operated by NB Power, began commercial operation in 1983 after a series of cost and time overuns. The plant was originally intended to run for 30 years. However, after twelve years of operation, serious problems developed in the reactor and its performance began to decline. As a result of these problems, Lepreau will reach the end of its operating life in 2006, seven years short of its target life span.

According to the Coalition’s Francophone spokesperson Daniel LeBlanc, “NB Power now wants to resuscitate the nuclear power plant by rebuilding its nuclear reactor, something that has never before been attempted, at a projected cost of $845 million. This goes against the September 2002 Public Utilities Board recommendation that NB Power not proceed with this project.”

The Board’s recommendation stated that “significant aspects of the refurbishment option for which the economic impact was uncertain, and that these aspects created additional economic risk which lead the Board to conclude that the refurbishment of Point Lepreau was not in the (New Brunswick) public interest.”

“Despite 50 years of promises by the Canadian nuclear industry, there currently exists no technology to neutralise or destroy New Brunswick’s hazardous nuclear waste stock”, says Beth McLaughlin, the group’s Anglophone Spokesperson. “Members of the public have also asked for studies on the health effects of Point Lepreau on the New Brunswick population and none have been released by NB Power.”

“Of immediate concern to New Brunswick’s environmental community is the possibility that hundreds of millions of dollars of energy investments will be directed towards the nuclear industry in the coming years, as opposed to investing these amounts into safe and renewable energy options for New Brunswick,” adds the Coalition’s Francophone spokesperson Daniel LeBlanc. “New Brunswick’s nuclear adventure has been a technological and financial fiasco, maintains LeBlanc, and it is time to cut our losses and deal instead with our growing legacy of radioactive waste”.

The Coalition is inviting the public to sign an on-line petition in favour of decommissioning Lepreau and investing in green energy alternatives by visiting their web site at: www.greenenergynb.org.

The New Brunswick environmental groups endorsing the resolution are :

1. Bathurst Sustainable Development
2. Campaign for Pesticide Reduction Quispamsis, New Brunswick
3. Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice & the Environment in Saint John (CUSJ-SJ)
4. Clearinghouse Group
5. Comité Environnementale Calhoun/Memramcook
6. Conservation Council of New Brunswick
7. Falls Brook Centre
8. Ford Alward Naturalist Association
9. Fundy Environmental Action Group
10. Organic Crop Improvement Association, New Brunswick chapter (OCIA-NB)
11. People Against Nuclear Energy
12. Sentinelles Petitcodiac Riverkeeper
13. Symbiose
14. Tantramar Environmental Alliance
15. Washademoak Environmentalists
16. Winterwood Environmental Committee