Pickering settles on siren plan to alert residents of nuclear mishap

PICKERING, ONTARIO - Pickering residents could be hearing their sirens call before the end of the summer.

A compromise plan for alerting residents if a dangerous situation should occur at the local nuclear plant has received all of the necessary approvals, Mayor Dave Ryan said.

The new plan will see only four sirens installed initially instead of the 27 that had been planned.

"This is a happy medium between public safety and nuisance," Ryan said. "We have been told that these four locations will give us the coverage that is required."

The sirens were made necessary by the province's new plan for emergencies, drafted after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

A public alerting system is now required within a three-kilometre radius of Ontario's nuclear plants. But Ryan said never in the plant's almost 40-year history has there been an occasion when the sirens would have been needed to alert residents.

Pickering residents might hear the sirens later in the summer when they are being installed, and periodically during testing to ensure they are working.

Local officials say that if the sirens ever do go off, residents should go inside and tune in to local radio and TV stations, which would be broadcasting details of the emergency.

Some Pickering residents had complained that the original plan for 27 sirens was overkill,would fray nerves if they ever went off and lower property values. Under that plan, some of the sirens would have been placed on boulevards in front of homes or in back laneways.

All four sirens will be installed in industrial areas. They will be located at Bayly St., near the railway crossing east of Brock Rd.; Clements Rd., near the railway crossing east of Brock Rd.; Montgomery Park Rd., west of Brock Rd.; and Sandstone Manor, on the north side of the road.

Durham Region is responsible for installing the sirens under a program being paid for by Ontario Power Generation.

Ivan Ciuciura, the region's director of emergency planning, said plans for two sirens in Ajax and 17 in Clarington, around the Darlington nuclear plant, are being re-evaluated in light of the changes made in Pickering.