Search for nuclear-waste depository continues

[Oscar]

Search for nuclear-waste depository continues

[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinio ... 87351.html ]

By: Dave Taylor, Winnipeg Free Press, March 8, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/moentas

Nuclear waste will not be disposed of next to Flin Flon on the Manitoba border. The organization that has been given the responsibility of finding a hole for Canada’s, and possibly the world’s, nuclear waste has decided that the community of Creighton, Sask., is not worthy.

Of course the public is told the geological conditions are not suitable, but that’s not the only reason the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is dropping Creighton from its list of 11 finalists.

The NWMO represents all the Canadian companies that presently have in their possession high level radioactive waste that will be toxic to life on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. The federal government, which handed off the task of finding a dump, has left it to these owners because after several attempts at trying to convince Canadians to host it, they realized nuclear waste was not politically sexy, and a federal crown corporation could not make it happen.

So the dirty work has been outsourced and arranged in a long boring process that started with 22 host communities and has been now trimmed to nine, mostly in southern Ontario. Each of these communities received $400,000 for throwing their hats in the ring. The big players and funders of this process are the nuclear [waste producing] corporations from Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec.

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Water is the biggest threat to a repository because it’s water that carries the radioactivity into the environment.

The official line was that Creighton was scratched for scientific reasons. In reality, a well-organized opposition, Saskatchewan’s Committee for Future Generations, and the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, were pivotal in preventing this repository from being built on traditional territory.

They only had to consult with their elders — the rock of the Canadian Shield is considered the grandfather according to cultural traditions, and you don’t put poison in your grandfather.

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Dave Taylor is a freelance writer and anti-nuclear activist.