McNAMARA: More on NWMO

[Oscar]

McNAMARA: More on NWMO

From: entwork@hotmail.com
To: premier@gov.sk.ca; contactus@nwmo.ca; mkrizanc@nwmo.ca; ceaainfo@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca

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Subject: More on NWMO
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:24:43 -0400

Premier Wall, the CNSC and Mike Krizanc (NWMO),

I would like to thank the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for responding to the letter I sent to Premier Wall, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and NWMO on October 12, 2012 concerning a “Willing Host Community” (WHC). I will speak to a couple of the points they make in their letter (both letters are copied below).

NWMO states “Once a community expresses interest, work immediately begins to engage surrounding municipalities and Aboriginal communities that would be affected if the project was implemented in the nearby community.” NWMO agrees with Premier Wall and northern residents that the communities surrounding the one that expressed interest are part of the decision making process. As such, the surrounding communities should have been consulted to see if they supported the “expression of interest” before any further steps were taken.

Secondly, how did NWMO determine which communities will be affected? The letter I referenced from CNSC president Michael Binder makes it clear that the CNSC determines the communities that are affected by a nuclear-related project, and not NWMO. Please advise me if the CNSC has made this determination. If the CNSC hasn’t done so, NWMO is over-stepping its authority.

Thirdly, Pinehouse and Patuanak expressed interest two years ago but the residents surrounding those communities have not been visited or educated by NWMO. There has been no evidence at all of ‘engagement” with affected residents. How does NWMO expect the surrounding communities to be well-informed to make a decision if they don’t provide education?

It was this lack of contact by NWMO that led residents from Beauval, Coles Bay, Canoe Lake and Ile-a-La-Crosse to set up a convoy of vehicles to attend the NWMO meeting in Pinehouse last night (October 17th). NWMO cancelled the meeting on October 16th and announced it on the Pinehouse radio station. We received a call from Pinehouse residents at 4:00pm on October 17th that a meeting was back on. It was too late to let people know of the change of plans.

NWMO says they intend on “identifying an informed and willing host community” yet they say that it will be several years before they formally engage the surrounding area. How can NWMO expect the surrounding area to be well informed if they don’t engage and educate them until several years along in the process?

Talk about timely. I just received a report on NWMO’s shenanigans in Pinehouse yesterday. They cancelled the public meeting in Pinehouse but went there just the same. Several hours after getting there, NWMO held a meeting with the Community Liaison Committee (CLC). The CLC is a pro-NWMO group of people dominated by Vince Natomagan. For lack of a better term, Vince Natomagan is NWMO’s enforcer. He’s the big tough guy who threatened the teenager because he was organizing youth in Pinehouse to oppose NWMO’s project. A police report was filed in this matter.

It was announced at the meeting last night that NWMO has decided not to go to the surrounding communities to educate them. Instead, the CLC will perform that function. NWMO didn’t like what it heard from residents in Patuanak and is going to send the Pinehouse crew out to intimidate the surrounding communities into accepting the proposal. All this is going to do is create animosity between northern communities. Further, how will the CLC answer the community’s questions when NWMO couldn’t?

I have to make a correction to a paper I wrote a couple of weeks ago. Regan Mispounas wasn’t 17 years old when he was speaking out against the nuclear waste proposal. He was only 15 when Vince Natomagan threatened him, when Pat Patton and a NWMO staffer (not a provincial employee) interrogated him and when Jim Sinclair told him to go hang himself with his Metis sash. How would you feel if someone did these things to your child? These abuses were all perpetrated by people paid by NWMO. Now it’s going to start all over again with Vince Natomagan and the CLC touring the surrounding area.

NWMO letter continues “Note that it is only after several phases of studies, and many years, that a community must decide if it is willing to host the facility and that support in the surrounding area would be assessed.” It’s ludicrous for NWMO to expect the surrounding communities to have this hanging over their heads for “many years” without having any input.

Considering NWMO says a community can opt out at any time, I assume this holds true for the surrounding area as well. Several surrounding communities have resolutions opposing waste storage in place and others will be doing so after next week’s elections. As the American philosopher Jed Clampett used to say “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but none that the cat’s going to like. Goodbye NWMO.

Pat McNamara

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October 17th, 2012

Good morning, Mr. McNamara, and thank you for your question.

We are in the very early stages of a 7 to 10 year site selection process for identifying an informed and willing host community for a deep geological repository for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel in Canada. Several components of the siting process are designed to help ensure this outcome, and they are outlined in our site selection process document entitled “Moving Forward Together: Process for Selecting a Site for Canada’s Deep Geological Repository for Used Nuclear Fuel,” which we have made available on our Web site:

http://www.nwmo.ca/uploads_managed/MediaFiles/
1545_processforselectingasiteforcan.pdf.

The process involves a community expressing interest about learning more about Canada’s plan, the site selection process and the project. Once a community expresses interest, work immediately begins to engage surrounding municipalities and Aboriginal communities that would be affected if the project was implemented in the nearby community. Over the next several years, as communities continue learning and the findings from preliminary technical and social studies are known, engagement of the surrounding area will become more formal. Note that it is only after several phases of studies, and many years, that a community must decide if it is willing to host the facility and that support in the surrounding area would be assessed.

Several communities are at Step 3 of the site selection process during which preliminary assessments are conducted collaboratively with the community and engagement of the surrounding area continues. To review a description of Step 3 activities in more detail, please see the NWMO booklet “Preliminary Assessment of Potential Suitability – Feasibility Studies” at:
http://www.nwmo.ca/sitingprocess_feasib ... 2&#content

We appreciate your interest in the site selection process and the implementation of Canada’s plan and welcome your further comments and suggestions.

Sincerely,

NWMO

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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