Nuclear Waste Special Feature - Meadow Lake Progress June 21, 2012
Northern community divided over nuclear waste question
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By Richard McGuire
Meadow Lake Progress
June 21, 2012
The Northern Village of Pinehouse is located in an idyllic setting on the shores of Pinehouse Lake, amid the boreal forest of northern Saskatchewan. Behind its apparent tranquility however, the issue of nuclear waste is dividing the community.
Pinehouse, along with English River First Nation and Creighton, is one of three Saskatchewan communities currently being considered for the site of a centralized deep geological repository for all of Canada’s nuclear waste.
The aboriginal and Métis community of more than 1,000 people is located roughly halfway between Meadow Lake, about 250 km to the south, and Key Lake, the site of the world’s largest high-grade uranium mine, about 225 km to the north.
The village first came to the attention of Canadians in the late 1970s when the CBC program The Fifth Estate profiled it in a scathing documentary about its alcoholism problem, calling Pinehouse “the drinking capital of northern Saskatchewan.”
Since then, the community has worked hard to overcome that image, and despite continued poverty, there are also signs of more recent prosperity.
Big changes came to Pinehouse with the opening of the Key Lake mine in the early 1980s, and later other uranium mines in places like McArthur River. The mining was controversial at the time, and some residents still oppose it, but uranium mining has already made Pinehouse part of the nuclear economy.
“People are very used to that,” says Vince Natomagan, one of the community leaders now urging the village to take a close look at nuclear waste. “If it wasn’t for Cameco, or the mining in general, we’d be absolutely impoverished.”
Cameco Corporation, the main owner of Key Lake, brings millions of dollars annually into Pinehouse, says Natomagan, executive director of Kineepik Métis Local.
But Natomagan’s views aren’t universally shared in the community, with some opposing the mining, and many wanting no part of Pinehouse becoming the site of a nuclear waste repository.
Throughout the village, many houses are plastered with hand-made signs reading: “Say no to nuclear waste.”
Village resident Fred Pederson, 70, says he’s the one who made the signs and stirred up opposition to the nuclear waste proposal.
“I’m maybe 500 per cent against it,” says Pederson. “I’ve been fighting since day one.”
Pederson says he and other members of the Committee for Future Generations have collected names on a petition opposing the plan from about 60 per cent of the community.
He and his friend John Smerk were among the original six from Pinehouse to organize against the proposal.
Pederson claims that more people in the community would sign the petition, but they are afraid to because their livelihoods are connected to Pinehouse Business North, the economic development corporation closely tied to the village leadership.
Pederson is worried about the dangers of nuclear waste, but he also believes the village leadership is acting in its own economic interests and not the interests of the community. Nor is he impressed by the answers he’s received from representatives of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO).
“They circle around the questions,” says Pederson. “They’ve got a fancy way of avoiding the questions.”
What would he ask?
“We want them to bring this nuclear waste in their hands or stick it in their pockets,” he says. “Bring it to Pinehouse. Bring it to Meadow Lake and show the people that it’s safe. If they can carry that stuff and bring it to us, then we’ll let them go with it.”
Smerk dismisses suggestions that the jobs from the project will benefit the community.
“We’re going to sacrifice land, water, and air for two generations of jobs?” he asks, noting that the radioactivity will last millions of years.
He dislikes the way NWMO has come into the community using its money to try to influence the community leadership and elders.
“I think there should have been a vote before they were even allowed to step into the community,” he says. “They should not have been allowed to come in here like snakes.”
Glen McCallum, one of the village leaders, takes issue with opponents who he says fear monger and aren’t willing to listen or learn.
“If we just say no to everything, it’s not good for our future,” says McCallum, coordinator of social development.
Trapping is gone, there are few commercial fishers, and forestry is being depleted, says McCallum. The community needs to turn to new opportunities, educating its young people, and putting trust in technology, he says.
McCallum, 56, admits he was against uranium when it was first developed in the 1980s, but says he’s changed his view. The community has never lost a life because of uranium, but it has lost lives to drugs, alcohol and suicide, he says.
As for the nuclear waste proposal, McCallum insists that the people of the community will be the ones to decide whether or not to go ahead.
Dale Smith is a commercial fisherman who’s resisted the lure of uranium, which he says the community is now dependent on just like it was dependent on welfare and alcohol in earlier years.
At one time, Smith hired 26 people to assist him. Now, with competition from the mines, he can’t find anyone willing to work.
“For some of them, it’s an insult to work for $100 a day cash,” he says.
Smith says he’s made it a point over the years to inform himself about the nuclear industry and the waste question. He thinks the discussion today about nuclear waste is as one-sided and pro-industry as it was in the early 1980s about the apparent benefits of uranium.
“If they want to talk about the future, I want to use facts,” he says, adding that only a few residents have done their own research.
For example, Smith is skeptical that the waste will simply be buried and left underground. He suspects that at some point there will be a financial incentive to retrieve the waste and reprocess it, bringing an added level of danger to Pinehouse.
“Nobody buries gold he says,” referring to the vast energy still remaining in the spent fuel rods.
Vince Natomagan says he’s neither advocating for nor against going ahead with the project at this stage – only for gathering more information and encouraging community members to do the same.
It’s unusual, he suggests, to be given an opportunity to study a project and engage the proponents without having to make a firm
The Committee For Future Generations and its supporters across Saskatchewan, continue to work against planst to turn the north into a nuclear waste dump. You can visit their Facebook page - Say No to Nuclear Waste Storage in Saskatchewan.
The Committee For Future Generations continues to collect names on its petition calling on the Saskatchewan government to pass a law banning nuclear waste storage in the province. If you haven't signed the petition, please download it, and circulate in your community. Return address is on the bottom of the petition.
Area communities hear more about nuclear waste plans
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By Richard McGuire
Meadow Lake Progress
June 21, 2012
Two communities in northwestern Saskatchewan will, this week, be hearing more about how they could be affected if one of them is chosen as the permanent storage site for Canada’s nuclear waste.
Officials from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) are holding open houses Tuesday in Patuanak and Thursday in Pinehouse to inform residents about the project to build a deep geological repository for Canada’s nuclear waste.
Thousands of jobs would be created over the life of the project, many of them highly skilled. But the project would also require the shipment, most likely by truck, of thousands of containers carrying highly radioactive spent fuel through northwestern Saskatchewan to one of these communities north of Beauval.
The proposal has divided local residents and officials between those who believe it will provide economic benefits, and those concerned about the risks of bringing such hazardous substances for permanent storage deep underground near their communities.
“This project is so big that it has the potential to be transformational to a community and a region,” said Jo-Ann Facella, NWMO director of social research and dialogue, one of a number of officials who briefed the Progress on the project.
English River First Nation and Pinehouse are only two of the 18 communities in Saskatchewan and Ontario being considered for the site. A third Saskatchewan community, Creighton, is close to the Manitoba boundary near Flin Flon.
Nuclear waste may not start to move until 2035 or later. The process of selecting a suitable location could take nearly a decade, followed by many more years of design, construction and testing.
The Progress recently spent several days being briefed by nuclear officials, as well as talking with leaders and residents in the communities that could be affected. We visited a site in Ontario where nuclear waste is currently stored, and met with government regulators responsible for protecting the public. We also talked with nuclear opponents.
Canada’s nuclear waste has accumulated over nearly 50 years. Most of the waste produced by nuclear reactors generate electricity.
More than half of Ontario’s electricity is produced at reactors along the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Huron.
Spent fuel is currently stored in cooling pools initially.Then in large, shielded, dry, concrete containers warehoused above ground at reactor sites close to population centres.
Quebec and New Brunswick are the only other provinces using nuclear reactors to produce electricity, with those two provinces having one reactor each.
Saskatchewan, however, is also heavily involved in the nuclear industry because it is one of the world’s leading suppliers of uranium, the mineral used to produce the fuel that powers the reactors.
Although the governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta have considered using nuclear energy, which could be used to replace natural gas in extracting bitumen from the oilsands, neither province has committed to the technology.
NWMO hopes to find an “informed and willing” community in one of Canada’s four nuclear provinces to host the repository, which would be built about 500 metres deep into bedrock. So far, no community in Quebec or New Brunswick has expressed interest, and the deadline for communities to put their names forward is September 1.
NWMO insists that the community itself must first show interest and make the initial contact. Expressions of interest are taken to mean that the community simply wants to learn more – only at a much later stage is the community asked to make a clear commitment.
No community will be forced to accept the repository against its will, NWMO insists. Willingness of the community, as well as suitability of the site from a safety standpoint are the two most important considerations, NWMO officials say.
How will it be determined that a community is “informed and willing?” NWMO doesn’t set out how this will be decided, saying it’s up to the community itself to decide if it wants to hold a referendum or use some other means. They do say, however, that the community’s voice must be decisive – a plebiscite with a thin majority wouldn’t be good enough.
English River First Nation and Pinehouse are both among 10 Canadian communities at Step 3 in the nine-step process to becoming the repository site. This means they have passed an initial screening to weed out communities that are clearly not suitable, and they’ve expressed an interest in learning more. More thorough preliminary assessments are now getting underway. Only at Step 5 will the community be asked to make a decision.
There are numerous reasons besides lack of community willingness that would make a location unsuitable. Presence of groundwater, mineral resources, or unstable rock formations are just some of the reasons why a site might be eliminated.
Both English River and Pinehouse sit at the boundary between two geological regions – the Western Sedimentary Basin and the Canadian Shield. NWMO has ruled out areas in those communities built on sedimentary rock, deciding that only the areas in the stable rock of the Canadian Shield are suitable near English River and Pinehouse. That rock, below the glacier-scarred surface, has been undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years.
NWMO geologists believe that the stability of the rock has been proven by time, and that the area is not susceptible to earthquakes. The 500-metre depth, they say, is deep enough even to withstand the impact of a new ice age. It’s also deep enough below the level at which fractures might allow groundwater to circulate, they say.
Nuclear infrastructure project could be worth $24 billion
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By Richard McGuire
Meadow Lake Progress
June 21, 2012
Two isolated communities in northwestern Saskatchewan are being considered for a national infrastructure project costing $16 billion to $24 billion to store nuclear waste.
English River First Nation and Pinehouse, both north of Beauval, are among 18 communities in Saskatchewan and Ontario currently being considered for the project.
The chosen community will host a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel and a centre of expertise.
Although the facility is not expected to be in operation until around 2035, the construction phase will create 600 to 800 jobs, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO).
After completion, the facility will continue to employ several hundred people, many in highly skilled positions.
The NWMO, which is funded by the nuclear companies owning the waste, has been mandated by the Canadian government to develop a permanent solution to Canada’s growing stock of spent nuclear fuel.
Currently more than 2 million bundles of used fuel are stored at nuclear reactors in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. That quantity is expected to reach about 4 million bundles by 2035.
The highly radioactive bundles become less toxic over time, but NWMO acknowledges that it will take about a million years for the waste to return to the level of radioactivity found in the material’s natural state.
The plan results from a three-year study by NWMO from 2002 to 2005 during which 18,000 Canadians participated at 120 information and discussion sessions in all provinces and territories, NWMO says. This included 2,500 aboriginal people.
In June 2007, the federal government approved NWMO’s proposal, which is called Adaptive Phased Management (APM).
This plan calls for transportation of all Canada’s nuclear waste to a central location, where it will be placed about 500 metres below the surface in a stable rock formation.
The waste will be continually monitored, and there will be flexibility to adapt the plan as new science emerges or public policy changes.
For example, the waste will be retrievable either in the event that problems occur, or a decision is made to reprocess the spent fuel in the future.
The plan also allows for an optional step of temporary shallow underground storage. Similarly, a decision could be made to seal off the shaft and permanently decommission the facility.
Although nuclear opponents question the safety of the plan, NWMO insists that it is safe, is highly regulated, and is consistent with best international practices. The repository, for example, is adapted from plans developed in Sweden, and such a facility is currently under construction in Finland.
The national centre of expertise will include both surface and underground facilities including laboratories, offices, public viewing galleries and exhibits. It will draw international researchers and scientists, as well as engaging the community and being a tourist attraction.
While the surface area of the facility will be about 100 hectares (250 acres), the sub-surface area will measure 2.5 km by 1.5 km.
The fuel will be shielded by multiple barriers so that if one barrier fails, others will prevent radioactive contamination, NWMO says.
An inner vessel of steel will provide structural resistance for the containers, while an outer shell of copper will provide long-term corrosion resistance. These containers are intended to prevent water from entering and radionuclides from leaving.
Containers will be placed in underground chambers filled with bentonite clay, which swells when exposed to water, adding further protection. The system is designed to dissipate any remaining heat, NWMO says.
Finally, the host rock provides a barrier against future disturbance by humans or natural surface events such as another ice age. The rock must be in a location not affected by seismic activity such as earthquakes, or by fracturing and groundwater.
Nuclear opponents argue that because nuclear waste has never been stored in such a facility before, there is no way of knowing it will prove safe under real conditions. They point out that heat from the waste, and drilling in the rock could make the rock less stable.
NWMO scientists, however, base many of their safety assumptions on what they call “natural analogues.” For example, natural copper sheets found in mudstones in England show that copper contained in clay has not corroded in 200 million years. Similarly, uranium ore contained in clay and capped by quartz at Cigar Lake, Saskatchewan did not result in any radioactivity in water on the surface, despite the presence of groundwater.
Nuclear opponents argue that transporting the spent fuel from the reactors to the repository is risky. NWMO, however, says transportation of waste is highly regulated and containers meet or exceed international standards and testing. Used fuel has been transported around the world for more than 40 years with no incident resulting in release of radioactive substances, NWMO says.
Both NWMO and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission dream up “reference cases” or “what-if” scenarios of things that could go wrong in order to study whether safety measures are adequate.
Officials showed reporters videos of nuclear waste transport containers being dropped onto hard surfaces, being exposed to fire, submerged in water, and even being rammed by a high-speed train moving at 160 km/h. The containers emerged battered, but intact.
commitment for seven to 10 years.By engaging in the process, the community has been able to do baseline studies at NWMO’s expense, regardless of whether or not Pinehouse ultimately decides to become the repository location, Natomagan says. This data will be useful for other economic development initiatives, he says.
“Let’s not base our decision like we historically have. Let’s not base it on fear,” says Natomagan.
Smith is unconvinced. People just want to survive and live a decent life, and they’ll adapt to changing conditions, whether it be forestry, fishing, thermal, solar or a hydro dam, he says.
“Living in a contaminated land, I don’t think we can adapt, regardless,” Smith adds.