Feds should pay larger share of uranium mine clean-up.....
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:12 pmFeds should pay larger share of ballooning uranium mine clean-up costs: province
[ https://www.humboldtjournal.ca/news/fed ... 1.24175066 ]
July 23, 2020
The province is calling for the federal government to pay a larger share of the rapidly expanding costs to clean up a relic from the dawn of the atomic age.
During the 1950s and 60s, the demand for uranium was insatiable, needed to fuel a wave of new nuclear power plants and for tens of thousands of U.S. nuclear warheads. A good chunk of that uranium came the Gunnar Mine, 40 kilometres southwest of Uranium City but after operating just eight years employing up to 800 people at a time, the mine closed down in 1963 and was abandoned. There no cleanup of the mine or facilities.
With the people who operated the mine long gone, the Province of Saskatchewan was left holding the bag for the cleanup. They want the feds to pay up, to the point of taking the federal government to court.
The provincial government feels the federal government needs to pay its fair share, as uranium was a federally-regulated material “in the national interest.”
An agreement was reached in 2006 between the federal government and the province to split the cost of cleanup, then thought to be $25 million. That cost has since ballooned 11 times to $280 million. The Saskatchewan government has taken a booked environmental liability of $160 million, more than half, and they’d like to see the feds now cover their share. The federal government, however, have only committed to pay their initial share of $12.3 million, according to Bronwyn Eyre, the provincial energy minister, on July 21. And so far, they’ve paid a lot less than that.
“We've paid $160 million and the government of the federal government provided only $1 million,” Eyre said.
MORE. . . . .
[ https://www.humboldtjournal.ca/news/fed ... 1.24175066 ]
July 23, 2020
The province is calling for the federal government to pay a larger share of the rapidly expanding costs to clean up a relic from the dawn of the atomic age.
During the 1950s and 60s, the demand for uranium was insatiable, needed to fuel a wave of new nuclear power plants and for tens of thousands of U.S. nuclear warheads. A good chunk of that uranium came the Gunnar Mine, 40 kilometres southwest of Uranium City but after operating just eight years employing up to 800 people at a time, the mine closed down in 1963 and was abandoned. There no cleanup of the mine or facilities.
With the people who operated the mine long gone, the Province of Saskatchewan was left holding the bag for the cleanup. They want the feds to pay up, to the point of taking the federal government to court.
The provincial government feels the federal government needs to pay its fair share, as uranium was a federally-regulated material “in the national interest.”
An agreement was reached in 2006 between the federal government and the province to split the cost of cleanup, then thought to be $25 million. That cost has since ballooned 11 times to $280 million. The Saskatchewan government has taken a booked environmental liability of $160 million, more than half, and they’d like to see the feds now cover their share. The federal government, however, have only committed to pay their initial share of $12.3 million, according to Bronwyn Eyre, the provincial energy minister, on July 21. And so far, they’ve paid a lot less than that.
“We've paid $160 million and the government of the federal government provided only $1 million,” Eyre said.
MORE. . . . .