Radioactive and Other Skeletons in SNC-Lavalin's closet...
Articles, and other posts, listed in backwards chronological order:
Posted February, 2020 --
Nancy Vann, a watchdog on the Indian Point nuclear power plant, has published "rap sheets" on Holtec International and SNC-Lavalin, as well: 2/16/20 Holtec & SNC-Lavalin Profiles and "Rap Sheet"
Posted January 10, 2020:
Former SNC-Lavalin executive Sami Bebawi sentenced to 8½ years in prison for fraud, corruption
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin has partnered with U.S.-based Holtec International to form the consortium Comprehensive Decommissioning International.
Holtec itself also has bribery conviction, and additional bribery allegation, skeletons in its closet.
Despite this, Holtec has already secured the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's rubber-stamp, to take ownership of the shutdown atomic reactors at Oyster Creek, New Jersey and Pilgrim, Massachusetts, for decommissioning and high-level radioactive waste management.
Holtec is also scheming to take over the Indian Point, New York reactors, as well as Palisades, Michigan, once those nuclear power plants shut down in the years ahead (Big Rock Point, an already decommissioned but still contaminated site also in Michigan, along with its irradiated nuclear fuel, would be lumped in the deal along with Palisades).
Holtec has also applied for a construction and operating permit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to transport 173,600 metric tons of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel to New Mexico for so-called consolidated interim storage.
Posted December 19, 2019:
SNC-Lavalin, Holtec's partner in reactor decommissioning and high-level radioactive waste management, has pleaded guilty to fraud, will pay $280 million fine
SNC-Lavalin pleads guilty to fraud for past work in Libya, will pay $280M fine
Company will pay a $280M penalty over 5 years and be placed on probation
Jody Wilson-Raybould is Canadian Press newsmaker of the year for 2019
Former justice minister was the choice of news editors across the country
Corruption Case That Tarnished Trudeau Ends With SNC-Lavalin’s Guilty Plea
No verdict after second day of deliberations in trial of Sami Bebawi, ex-SNC exec
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted December 10, 2019:
Bebawi’s defence argues that millions in accounts were bonuses authorized by SNC bosses
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted December 9, 2019:
Greed drove former SNC exec’s alleged fraud, corruption scheme: Crown
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted December 3, 2019:
Ex-SNC-Lavalin executive on trial for fraud, corruption won’t present defence
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted November 29, 2019:
Jurors in Bebawi trial hear ex-SNC president approved yacht for Gadhafi’s son
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted November 28, 2019:
Former SNC executive proposed $4-million bribe in form of loan for witness to change testimony
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted November 27, 2019:
Former SNC-Lavalin executive’s trial hears from undercover agent who dug into $10-million bribe offer
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted November 5, 2019:
Ex-SNC-Lavalin exec’s trial hears of $10-million offer to witness for testimony
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted November 1, 2019:
Trial of former SNC-Lavalin executive hears how son of Libyan dictator helped company
As reported by the Canadian Press.
Posted October 31, 2019:
Fraud, corruption trial underway for former SNC-Lavalin executive Sami Bebawi
Posted July 16, 2019:
Pilgrim Watch Motion to File a New Contention, re: SNC-Lavalin trustworthiness, reliability, and character (vis-a-vis allegation of bribery attempts, and more)
See the July 16, 2019 Motion filed by environmental watch-dog organization Pilgrim Watch, in the context of Holtec International/SNC-Lavalin's takeover of the permanently shutdown Pilgrim atomic reactor license for decommissioning and irradiated nuclear fuel management purposes.
Posted on April 29, 2019:
'Simpsons' Canada-Based Episode Pokes Fun At SNC-Lavalin Affair
As reported by Huffington Post Canada.
Meanwhile, in the theater-of-the-absurd-esque non-fiction realm...
Scandal-ridden SNC-Lavalin, of Montreal, has merged with Holtec International, to form a nuclear power plant decommissioning consortium.
Holtec, for its part, hopes to send the irradiated nuclear fuel (high-level radioactive waste) from the decommissioning project contracts it secures to New Mexico, for "interim storage."
Posted on April 8, 2019:
Justin Trudeau just can’t quit the SNC-Lavalin scandal
As reported by the Washington Post:
Instead of closing the door on the controversy that has dogged his government for months, the Canadian prime minister threw it back open as his top critic said he was threatened with a lawsuit. The critic’s response? Bring it on.
However, not reported is the fact that Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin has partnered with Holtec International to form a leading U.S. nuclear power plant decommissioning consortium. Already, Holtec and SNC-Lavalin have taken over the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant site in New Jersey, including the highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel stored on-site there. (Holtec is itself NJ based.)
Holtec hopes to open a CISF (consolidated interim storage facility) in New Mexico, to "temporarily" store Osyter Creek's -- and the rest of the country's -- commercial high-level radioactive wastes there.
Next on SNC-Lavalin and Holtec International's target list is Pilgrim near Boston, scheduled to permanently shut by June 2019. Palisades in MI, and Indian Point in NY, are also in the consortium's sights.
And some of the major federal contracts in Canada mentioned in the article? Those would also include nuclear facility decommissioning and radioactive waste management contracts, worth billions of dollars.
Posted on March 7, 2019:
"An unapologetic Trudeau speaks up on polictical crisis rattling Canada." New York Times.
Posted on March 5, 2019:
Posted on February 28, 2019:
JUSTIN TRUDEAU FACES CALLS TO RESIGN RE: SNC-LAVALIN SCANDAL
Liberal Party Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now faces calls from his Conservative Party challenger in this autumn's election to resign over a scandal involving SNC-Lavalin, a giant engineering firm based in Montreal, Quebec. SNC-Lavalin has been accused of bribery, fraud, and other corruption over its practices in Libya. If convicted of such wrongdoing, SNC-Lavalin could be barred from Canadian federal contracts for a decade. (SNC-Lavalin has been previously barred for a decade from World Bank contracts.)
Holtec International has teamed with SNC-Lavalin to form a nuclear power plant decommissioning consortium. Already, the Holtec/SNC-Lavalin consortium has taken over ownership of the permanently shutdown Oyster Creek atomic reactor in NJ. This includes on-site irradiated nuclear fuel management.
Holtec & SNC-Lavalin are also vying for taking over the ownership of such other soon-to-be decommissioning nuclear power plants as Pilgrim in MA, and Palisades in MI.
Holtec is also the proponent for a national centralized interim storage facility for irradiated nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico.
Its partnership with a corrupt company like SNC-Lavalin calls into question Holtec's own judgment.
However, Holtec itself has engaged in bribery, at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear power plant; in addition, Holtec CEO Krishna Singh has been accused by whistleblowers Oscar Shirani (Commonwealth Edison/Exelon) and Dr. Ross Landsman (NRC Region 3) of attempting to bribe them into silence, re: QA violations (see below).
And Holtec CEO Krishna Singh has also made racist remarks re: his own African American and Puerto Rican American workers in Camden, NJ.
Posted September 20, 2018:
Oyster Creek closure should mark the end of an “error”; prompt more GE shutdowns
The nation’s oldest atomic power plant at Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, New Jersey permanently shut down on September 17, 2018 due to its poor economics and costly post-Fukushima safety retrofits. The 49-year old nuclear plant was the first General Electric Mark I boiling water reactor to go critical in the United States and the world in October 1969. GE globally marketed this reactor design and its lighter “pressure-suppression containment system” as cheaper and quicker to build than its competitors at Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering and Babcock & Wilcox. Japan was one of those countries to buy the GE design and construct its first units at Fukushima Daiichi---where multiple units would later explode and meltdown following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. For the sake of public safety, Oyster Creek’s closure would well mark the beginning of the end of an “error” first identified in a 1972 controversial memo by a top reactor safety official at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. Stephen Hanuaer. Hanauer pointed out a design flaw to colleagues, the GE containment design is volumetrically too small to contain the force of a severe accident. He warned, “I recommend that AEC adopt a policy of discouraging further use of pressure-suppression containments, and that such designs not be accepted for construction permits.” There are now 21 GE Mark I reactors still operating in the United States.
Exelon Generation’s termination of Oyster Creek’s “operating license” starts the decommissioning process. The Chicago-based nuclear utility giant has submitted an application for approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to sell and transfer the Oyster Creek “possession only” license to Holtec International, headquartered in Camden, NJ to take over the decommissioning of this facility. Holtec has merged with a Canadian energy corporation, SNC Lavalin, to form Comprehensive Decommissioning Incorporated (CDI) in a bid to corner a growing market to decommission more closing reactors. The Holtec/Lavalin merger is offering a “proto-prompt” decommissioning strategy to rapidly dismantle the reactors within eight years and containerize the dangerous high-level nuclear waste in dry storage casks onsite.
However, controversy is already stalking the corporate merger and potentially the reliability of accelerated decommissioning and nuclear waste storage. Holtec International CEO, Krishna Singh, is quoted talking down the ramping up of his Camden headquarters workforce. “‘They don’t show up to work,’ he said. ‘They can’t stand getting up in the morning and coming to work every single day. They haven’t done it, and they didn’t see their parents do it. Of course, some of them get into drugs and things. So, it’s difficult,’” said Singh. In fact, Singh’s disparaging remarks about the workforce sparked public protest at the Camden headquarters.
As reported earlier, SNC Lavalin, headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, is embroiled in a global corruption scandal and criminal charges. SNC Lavalin and 100 of its subsidiaries have been debarred from contract work with the World Bank for ten years. Former-Lavalin executive are scheduled to go to trial in Canada later this year on fraud and bribery charges.
Exelon Generation has declined to disclose the amount for the proposed sale of Oyster Creek to Holtec International. The transaction will be decided by NRC by the end of 2019. Nearly $1 billion in the reactor's decommissioning trust fund would then be transferred to Holtec.
Posted August 21, 2018:
[Canadian] First Nations, NGOs condemn federal plans for defunct nuclear reactors
Press release, circulated by Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR):
Ottawa, August 21, 2018 — Forty First Nations, citizen groups and NGOs have asked Canada’s Auditor General to hold an inquiry into spending by Natural Resources Canada, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) on nuclear reactor decommissioning.
“The plan to entomb and abandon radioactive carcasses of nuclear reactors next to major rivers is an abomination,” says Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. “Billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on plans that are clearly designed for the convenience of industry rather than the protection of human health and the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. The Government of Canada must consult First Nations and Canadian citizens to arrive at a meaningful and enforceable policy on how to manage these wastes in the very long term. There is no such policy now."
The groups are worried those plans will set a precedent for other federal reactor sites in Ontario and Quebec.
CNL is owned by a consortium of multinational corporations that was contracted in 2015 by the previous Conservative government to quickly and cheaply reduce Canada’s $10 billion worth of federal nuclear legacy liabilities. The clean-up costs for Canada's 70 years’ worth of nuclear waste exceed those for all of Canada’s 2,500 other federal environmental liabilities combined.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is meeting on August 22, 2018 in Ottawa to review progress on CNL’s nuclear waste plans at the Gentilly-1 reactor on the St. Lawrence River, the Douglas Point reactor on Lake Huron, the NPD reactor on the Ottawa River, Whiteshell Laboratories on the Winnipeg River in Manitoba, and in the Port Hope Area, among other topics. Groups will be demonstrating outside the meeting.
“Several federal reactors are located on unceded aboriginal traditional territory,” noted Chief April Adams-Phillips of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. “Now we hear that these defunct reactors may be turned into giant radioactive hulks, covered in cement as a monument to folly. We cannot stand by and let this happen.”
"For decades, the Government of Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission have promised that all Canadian nuclear reactors will be dismantled at the end of their useful life and that the land will be returned to its natural state," says Gilles Provost, spokesperson for the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive. "They must live up to their commitments rather than turn our reactors into perpetual radioactive waste repositories!”
Federal funding for ‘nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management’ has increased 400% in the last three years, since these functions were handed to the consortium of multinational corporations that includes SNC Lavalin.
In the first three fiscal years of the GoCo (government owned – contractor operated) arrangement (2016/17 to 2018/19), Parliamentary appropriations to AECL for “nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management” averaged $547,577,479 per year. This represented a four-fold increase over the $137,800,000 per year appropriated during the 2006/07 to 2015/16 period when decommissioning and waste management was funded by Natural Resources Canada through the Nuclear Legacy Liabilities Program.
Canada has no policies restricting how nuclear reactors can be decommissioned or nuclear waste managed. It is up to proponents to suggest how they will decommission or manage wastes and then defend their chosen method to the CNSC.
The groups are asking the Auditor General to investigate whether the federal government is handling nuclear waste and reactor decommissioning in ways that are compatible with sustainable development principles.
- 30 -
Posted August 5, 2018:
Company to decommission US reactors has corruption history
The New Jersey-based company Holtec International has agreed to purchase three soon-to-close U.S. nuclear power stations to try out its new rapid decommissioning strategy. Pending U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval, Chicago-based Exelon and New Orleans-based Entergy announced sale agreements for the Oyster Creek (NJ), Pilgrim (MA) and Palisades (MI) nuclear power stations to a fledgling company, Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI), formed by the 2018 merger of parent companies Holtec International and SNC-Lavalin (SNCL). CDI is offering that its prompt decommissioning strategy for commercial power reactors and site restoration can be completed inside of eight years. But Lavalin is embroiled Canadian Crown federal charges for fraud, embezzelment and bribery and blacklisted from doing business with the World Bank's global contracts.
However, closer scrutiny of these companies raises some serious red flags. While every effort needs to be made to decommission nuclear plants promptly, close attention needs to be paid to exactly who is doing it and where the money stream -- along with the radioactive waste stream -- is going.
When Oyster Creek shuts down, Exelon has set up Plan A to sell the 47-year reactor site and its high-level nuclear waste to Holtec International, headquartered in Camden. Pending approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the sale of the “possession only” license, Exelon will transfer the power plant’s estimated $982 million decommissioning trust fund to Holtec, which will in turn contract the job out to CDI. CDI is a limited liability corporation formed in a 2018 merger of Holtec International and the Canadian engineering giant SNC Lavalin based in Montreal, Quebec.
SNC Lavalin is a long-established global energy development corporation spanning the oil, gas, nuclear and renewable power industry. But that history to date arrives with serious allegations and findings of corruption and fraud in the corporation’s business dealings that now need airing with regard to the pending Oyster Creek nuclear decommissioning deal and several others also on CDI’s new agenda.
According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, SNC Lavalin Group Inc. is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Canada in September or October over federal corruption and fraud charges. The Crown prosecutor has combined two cases against SNC that focus on the embezzlement of funds, bribery and wrongdoing for lucrative contracts in Libya between 2001 and 2011. A former senior executive is named in one case and SNC and several subsidiaries are named in the other.
SNC has acknowledged wrongdoing with assurances that sweeping ethics changes are now in place. The SNC former executive has already been found guilty of bribery in a Swiss federal criminal court. In a separate criminal case and pending trial, another former SNC chief executive officer faces charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and using forged documents for a SNC contract to build new $1.3-billion super-hospital in Montreal.
In ongoing findings of SNC Lavalin corruption, the World Bank debarred the corporation and 100 of its affiliates in 2013 for 10 years from further Bank contracts. This followed misconduct involving conspiracy to pay bribes and bidding misrepresentations involving Bank-financed contracts in Bangladesh and Cambodia in violation of procurement guidelines. The SNC Lavalin sanction from 2013 to 2023 is the longest-running financially punitive action taken by the World Bank. According to the Bank’s related press release, “This case is testimony to collective action against global corruption.”
Given the still uncertain cost and a limited trust fund to do the Oyster Creek decommissioning right, every effort needs to be made to take precaution with financial safeguards from the very beginning. The State of New Jersey would be wise to authorize the establishment of a Nuclear Decommissioning Citizen Advisory Panel, as was legislated in Vermont and Massachusetts, to watchdog their nuclear power stations, to focus squarely on making the business of decommissioning and site restoration more transparent and accountable.
Posted on August 3, 2018:
Oyster Creek decommissioning plan needs close scrutiny: Gunter
Op-ed in the Asbury Park Press, by Paul Gunter, Reactor Oversight Project Director, Beyond Nuclear.
Posted on August 1, 2018:
Holtec expands n-waste and new build business model with rapid decommissioning
Relevant to SNC-Lavalin's background.
Posted on April 17, 2013:
SNC-Lavalin Inc. 2013. World Bank Debars SNC-Lavalin and its Affiliates for 10 years, World Bank press release (Apr 17, 2013)
[“The World Bank Group today announced the debarment of SNC-Lavalin Inc. - in addition to over 100 affiliates - for a period of 10 years following the company’s misconduct in relation to the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project in Bangladesh, as well as misconduct under another Bank-financed project.” SNC-Lavalin Inc. is a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin Group.]
Posted on January 26, 2013:
Posted on January 25, 2013:
Posted May 31, 2012:
Gordon Edwards: "SNC-Lavalin and the Demise of CANDU Competence"
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), has written this essay, "SNC-Lavalin and the Demise of CANDU Competence." SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based multi-national corporation, recently took over Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd.'s (AECL) CANDU reactor division for the bargain basement price of just $15 million. Its situation since can only be described as in meltdown. Its stock value has plummeted, with $1.5 billion in losses, prompting a shareholder class action lawsuit. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided its Montreal headquarters, related to $56 million in "untraceable and un-accounted for payments, presumed to be bribes." And a former SNC-Lavalin vice president, with close ties to the Gadhafi family in Libya, which he used to land a controversial Libyan prison contract, is now in a Swiss prison himself, charged with "fraud, money-laundering, and corruption of officials." Another SNC-Lavalin consultant is now in a Mexican jail, charged with "consorting with organized crime, falsifying documents, and human trafficking." Meanwhile, CANDU nuclear engineers are leaving the company in droves, and remaining nuclear engineers are threatening a major strike, due to deep cuts in pay and pensions threatened by SNC-Lavalin. Dr. Edwards warns this dangerously undermines CANDU competence -- and an attached news article shows how the strike and departures could well impact CANDU operations in New Brunswick and Ontario, Canada, as well as a number of overseas countries with CANDUs.
[See a similarly long list of skeletons in the closet re: Holtec International, posted at Beyond Nuclear's CENTRALIZED INTERIM STORAGE website section. Holtec and SNC-Lavalin have formed a consortium named Comprehensive Decommissioning International, CDI.]
July 26, 2019