MB First Nations Signs NWMO Contract on Nuke Waste . . .

[Oscar]

Manitoba First Nations Group Signs Contract with NWMO on Nuclear Fuel Waste

From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Monday, March 9, 2015 11:34 PM
Subject: Manitoba First Nations Group Signs Contract with NWMO on Nuclear Fuel Waste

Background March 10 2015

Manitoba has a law against the permanent storage of nuclear fuel waste in that province.

Nevertheless, the Manitoba MKO Grand Chief David Harper has signed an agreement with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) worth more than $300,000 over the course of one year.

These funds are to be used "exclusively on expenses related to the . . . site selection process" for finding a willing host community to accept all of Canada's nuclear fuel waste for permanent storage.

See the financial terms of the agreement at
[ http://ccnr.org/NWMO_MKO_2015.pdf ].

See the Aboriginal People's Television Network (APTN) coverage at
[ http://tinyurl.com/qyc2w85 ]

The Canadian nuclear industry, through its proxy organization the NWMO, is clearly spreading a lot of money around in a determined effort to convince decision makers in Ottawa and Queen's Park that the problem of getting rid of 50,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste is just around the corner.

But don't hold your breath.

The Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning declared in 1978 that if the nuclear waste problem were not resolved by 1985, there should be a halt to nuclear power in Canada.

Here we are, almost four decades later, and there is still no operating high-level nuclear waste repository anywhere in the world. Two deep geologic repositories for less radioactive nuclear wastes have since failed abysmally in Germany, and one such repository failed in Carlsbad New Mexico just a year ago.

No one truly knows how to put an undisturbed geological formation back together again, once it has become thoroughly disturbed. And no one knows, even in principle, how to accurately predict the behaviour of any man-made facility for hundreds of thousands of years into the future.

Certainly not our nuclear experts, who have proven themselves incapable of even predicting the behaviour of the two MAPLE reactors that they themselves designed and built! As a result, those reactors had to be dismantled at public expense without ever operating safely. Not only did they not work as designed, but the experts couldn't figure out WHY they didn't work as designed.

The nuclear waste problem is much more imponderable. It cannot be solved by bribes alone.

Gordon Edwards, President
Caanadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
http://www.ccnr.org
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MKO signs agreement with nuclear waste agency NWMO

[ http://aptn.ca/news/2015/03/03/mko-sign ... te-agency/ ]

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc. APTN National News | March 3, 2015

[ http://tinyurl.com/qyc2w85 ]

[See video on APTN web site at the link given above]

Tuesday was a “monumental” day according to long-time opponents of proposed nuclear waste disposal sites in Saskatchewan.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has removed two potential host communities from its list of sites.

Meanwhile, as APTN’s Dennis Ward [Winnipeg bureau] reports, another First Nation organization [MKO = MANITOBA KEEWATINOWI OKIMAKANAK INC., MKO Grand Chief: David Harper - MKO Executive Director: David Monias] has just signed a contract with NWMO.

-----------------------------------

See financial terms of agreement at:
[ http://ccnr.org/NWMO_MKO_2015.pdf ]

[Oscar]

EDWARDS: RE: First Nations demand northern chief's removal over nuclear deal

From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2015 1:42 PM
Subject: Winnipeg Free Press: First Nations demand northern chief's removal over nuclear deal

Background March 15 2015

Canada's nuclear waste producers are looking for a place to abandon 50,000 tonnes of nuclear fuel waste. This waste is extremely toxic, very long-lived, and virtually indestructible. More is being produced every day. The amount is expected to double over the next 30 years.

The industry's idea is to dig a hole and bury the waste deep inside an undisturbed geological formation (without disturbing it?) and then, eventually, walk away from it. Abandon it. Thereby, in effect, limiting the corporation's liability and passing on the responsibility of coping with any alarming leakage of radioactivity to future generations, without actually providing future generations with the resources or the knowledge to deal with the problem.

To the critics, it seems like a self-serving philosophy: "Out of sight, Out of mind"; "Now you see it, Now you don't"; "You bury the waste over there and we'll keep producing it over here."

Despite more than half a century of effort, there is no operating waste repository for irradiated nuclear fuel anywhere in the world. Two deep geologic repositories in Germany, designed to hold nuclear wastes far less radioactive than irradiated nuclear fuel, have failed because of radioactive leakage and structural collapse. Last year, the only deep geologic repository in North America for storing nuclear wastes far less dangerous than irradiated fuel, was abruptly closed until 2018 at the earliest -- because a barrel of nuclear waste exploded 750 metres underground, spreading plutonium dust throughout the underground tunnels and contaminating 22 workers at the surface.

Canada's nuclear waste producers know that if they cannot convince the political decision-makers and the public that the nuclear waste problem is "solved", the industry may not be allowed to continue. In other words, the corporations in question may not be allowed to continue making more nuclear waste indefinitely into the future.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) was created by the nuclear waste producers to find a "willing host community" to accept all of Canada's nuclear fuel waste.

The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) has criticized this entire undertaking for three main reasons:

(1) the NWMO has a built-in conflict of interest because it is not independent from the nuclear waste producers;
(2) burying nuclear waste in one location will never solve the problem as long as additional nuclear waste is continually being produced and stockpiled at several other locations;
(3) it is scientifically and ethically unjustified to abandon highly toxic materials when safety cannot be proven; on-going monitoring and repackaging (Rolling Stewardship) is necessary to provide remediation when needed.

For these and other reasons, many people consider it wrong to lend credibility to the NWMO by entering into financial agreements and accepting money from that organization -- money that can easily be interpreted as hush money or bribes to enable the nuclear waste producers to continue mass-producing the most toxic industrial wastes ever produced on planet Earth.

Gordon Edwards, President
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
http://www.ccnr.org

===================================================

First Nations demand northern chief's removal over nuclear deal

[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ ... 25181.html ]

By Alexandra Paul, Winnipeg Free Press, March 14 2015

http://tinyurl.com/mztc6kb

A group of First Nations has demanded the removal of northern Manitoba's Grand Chief over an agreement to fund a study worth more than $300,000 on the risks of storing nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield.

Manitoba adopted nuclear-free status in 1987, ruling out any storage of spent nuclear fuel from commercial or research reactors.

But David Harper, chief of the MKO (Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak) representing northern first nations, negotiated a two-year $312, 689 funding agreement this winter with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a federal body that oversees management of spent nuclear fuel from commercial and research reactors.

None of the nine proposed disposal sites being considered by the NWMO is in Manitoba, but at least one, at Ignace in northwestern Ontario, 460 kilometres east of Winnipeg, is part of the Nelson River watershed covering territory stretching westward to Alberta.

Swampy Cree Tribal Council chiefs denounced any consideration of a deal, citing a moratorium approved by MKO last year on storing or moving nuclear waste through Cree territory.

"I was shocked to find out that MKO Grand Chief Harper signed an agreement with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization without our knowledge or our consent," Council head Nelson Genaille said in a statement issued on Thursday.

The Council, it said, would take no further part in the activities of the MKO executive "until such time as Grand Chief Harper has been removed from office due to a lack of trust to follow the directions of his member communities."

As Chief of the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, one of seven First Nations within the council, Genaille led a protest this winter against Manitoba Hydro's plans to run the Bipole III transmission corridor from northern to southern Manitoba through its land claim.

Harper has defended the nuclear deal, saying similar funding was provided to First Nations in Ontario and Saskatchewan. The agreement, he says, involves strictly a study of the issues - not a commitment to having spent fuel around.

On Thursday, he dismissed any notion of resigning.

"Step down for doing my job? I don't think so," he told the Free Press in a text message. "I'm just abiding by the MKO constitution which states, 'Protect First Nations.'"

MORE:

[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ ... 25181.html ]