PAGC official to highlight Northern concerns at Cameco re-li

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PAGC official to highlight Northern concerns at Cameco re-licensing

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Submitted on October 1, 2013 - 11:55am By Shinoah Young paNOW Staff

A high-ranking official with the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) wants uranium miner Cameco to improve its practices. Vice-chief Joseph Tsannie plans to make the environment and economic development in the North a priority at a meeting on Wednesday that will discuss mining license renewals in northern Saskatchewan.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission will be reviewing Cameco's application to renew licenses at its Key Lake, MacArthur River and Rabbit Lake operations. At this meeting, First Nations groups who reside in the area are given an opportunity to weigh in.

Land-based living and further developing the economic benefits for northern First Nations will be the PAGC focus at the meeting. Resource and revenue sharing is important to Tsannie, but as a Dene man, he feels it’s also important to protect plants, animals and water.

He said he wants a baseline-health study done, which will assess and monitor acid and radiation levels in the plants, animals and water over a certain period.

“So, I think the fish, the caribou, the moose, and the berries and stuff, we need to do our own study on those, traditional medicines and that too,” Tsannie said. “That’s all a part of the study.”

He wants there to be as little damage done to the land as possible. He stressed it can take up to 200 years to restore one day of damage done from mining.

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