McNAMARA: Willing Host Community???

[Oscar]

Letter to Premier Wall, et al - Willing Host Community???

From: entwork@hotmail.com
To: premier@gov.sk.ca; ceaainfo@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca; contactus@nwmo.ca
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Subject: Willing Host Community???

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:27:35 -0400


Premier Wall, the CNSC and the NWMO,

There's a great deal of confusion in northern Saskatchewan with the term "Willing Host Community" as it pertains to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization's (NWMO) attempt to find a host community for high-level radioactive waste from Eastern Canada. This matter must be cleared up before the process of educating northern residents proceeds any further. After all, how does NWMO or our groups know who to educate if the affected surrounding communities haven’t been identified?

I've attached a signed letter from the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) Michael Binder from March 2010 that provides some of the answers. Mr. Binder’s letter states “When the CNSC receives a licence application, CNSC staff undertakes a careful analysis to identify all potentially interested and/or affected persons. Depending on the application, those persons could be within a municipality, region or a province, and are not necessarily limited to a “community.”

The CNSC letter makes it very clear that the CNSC determines the parameters of the community that must be consulted for its willingness to host the project. The problem with this definition is that the CNSC does not do so until it receives a licence application. In the case of the high-level waste storage facility, the licence application is still many years away. The CNSC must change this policy now so that we can educate and consult with the appropriate communities.

Mr. Binder’s letter continues “As I have stated publicly on other occasions, a social licence and accepting host community are integral for any successful licence application, but the CNSC does not determine whether a community is a “willing host community” – that is for licensees and municipal and provincial governments to determine.”

So the question to NWMO, Premier Wall and the municipalities is “What specific measures and time frame will you take to determine the willingness of the community that the CNSC designates, to host the high-level waste storage facility?

Premier Wall stated in his October 11th, 2012 letter to me “the support of the residents of these communities, as well as the support of the surrounding region, is a requirement to move forward in the site selection process.” I couldn’t agree more.

We can’t move forward in the site selection process until we determine the support in the surrounding communities. Now is the time to make that determination. Failing to do so will see the continuance of the animosities, fear and intimidation this project has spawned across the north of the province.

The CNSC and NWMO staff don’t care how many communities they tear apart in Saskatchewan as almost all of them live in Ontario. But, Premier Wall, you’re the leader of the province and are responsible for the well-being of all its citizens, including those in the north. Are you going to be a true statesman or a pawn to eastern interests?

Pat McNamara