CLEAN GREEN SASKATCHEWAN’S POSITION ON NUCLEAR WASTE

[Oscar]

CLEAN GREEN SASKATCHEWAN’S POSITION ON NUCLEAR WASTE IN SASKATCHEWAN

September 17, 2009

The Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan objects to the secretive consultations that the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is currently holding in Saskatchewan.

The NWMO is a federal corporation made up of nuclear reactor waste producers from Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick (created by the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, S.C. 2002, c. 23). Any corporation or provincial utility that produces nuclear waste by generating electricity from a nuclear fission reactor, including a research reactor, must become a member and own shares in the NWMO (s.6).

The NWMO is targeting Saskatchewan as a possible high-level nuclear waste disposal site. It seeks a willing community to accept a “deep nuclear waste repository” in Ontario, Quebec or Saskatchewan. The most toxic materials on the planet would then, from the industry’s point of view, be out of sight, out of mind, swept under a metaphorical carpet.

While questioning the very legitimacy of the NWMO, we feel that at the very least any consultations by it should be announced well in advance and be completely open to ALL members of the public and media.

If any level of government -- municipal, provincial, Métis, First Nations, or Federal -- is negotiating the possibility of such a toxic waste dump for Saskatchewan, all negotiations should be made public and there should be open debate and even the possibility of a referendum on this issue.

Nonetheless, it is our firm belief that our provincial government should pass an act similar to Manitoba’s (1987) that outlaws the storage of nuclear waste from other jurisdictions. Such an act should also prevent the transportation of nuclear wastes through our province.

The industry underplays the scope of these nuclear fuel wastes—as equivalent to that of six hockey rinks full. The reality is that for the waste already accumulated (about 45,000 tonnes), it would take over 20,000 trucks a period of approximately thirty years to deliver the highly dangerous materials to a repository. The nuclear wastes, hot and highly fissionable, have to be widely separated and carefully packaged to avoid going “critical”. These and other hazards exist during transport and long after burial. No containers can last as long as the radioactive materials that they encase.

Used fuel bundles contain man-made highly radioactive isotopes with extremely long half-lives, such as: Iodine 129—16,000,000 years, Cesium 135—2,300,000 years, Technetium 99—211,000 years, Neptunium 237—2,100,000 years, Thorium 232—1,400,000,000 and Plutonium 239 — 24,000 years. This means that for half of each of these products to break down it will take up to 2 million years! (And remember that’s just half!)
Plutonium is the key component in nuclear weapons. All these radioactive materials are known to cause cancer, genetic damage, and many other adverse health effects in humans and all living things.

Future generations of Saskatchewan people should not be left responsible for these hazards. EVERYBODY and all living beings in the province would be affected by transportation and storage of these materials.
Saskatchewan should not become the nuclear wastebasket of the world. -30-

For further information contact:

Neil at 374-3401
or cleangreensask@yahoo.ca
or visit
http://sites.google.com/site/cleangreen ... earn-more/
nuclear-waste
or www.cleangreensask.ca