A large demonstration at Queen’s Park called on Canadian governments to phase out nuclear power and opt for renewable energy sources, instead. First Nations people and environmentalists from around Ontario joined in solidarity on Thursday.
Please read the communication below by Johanna Echlin of the Old Fort William Cottagers’ Association, indicating that the nuclear authorities at Chalk River have yielded ever-so-slightly to public pressure by announcing that they will not include “intermediate-level” radioactive waste in the giant multi-story mound of radioactive waste they plan to erect just one kilometre from the Ottawa River — not as a temporary storage facility, but as a permanent dump that will eventually be abandoned.
Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.
Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.
The Canadian federal government has all but approved plans by Ontario Power Generation to build an underground nuclear waste dump on the shores of Lake Huron but U.S. officials are still making their objections known.
The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) finds the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) completely unacceptable, not just in terms of the fine details, but in its fundamental concept. We urge CNSC to reject this EIS.
On Sunday afternoon, a flotilla of more than 30 watercraft – from kayaks to flat bottomed tour boats – carrying 150 people assembled offshore of Chalk River Laboratories to deliver a message to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories: a resounding no to the proposed near surface disposal facility.
The Anishinabek Nation and Iroquois Caucus reject CMD 17-H109, the nuclear power license amendments for the Darlington and Pickering Nuclear Power Stations which would allow the import and export of nuclear substances such as: waste/materials/ equipment/shielding/packaging/laundry between Canada and the US and other nations.
A petition to the federal environment commissioner Julie Gelfand, filed on June 20 with the Office of the Auditor-General, seeks the commissioner’s help in probing the origins of the radioactive waste dump proposal that has been ringing alarm bells for citizens’ groups, business owners and residents of Quebec and Ontario since the environmental impact statement for it was released in March, 2017.
This morning, the Registered Nurses’ Association, Canadian Environmental Law Association, and Greenpeace held a press conference to launch A Call for Public Safety and call on the Ontario government to protect people from Fukushima-scale accidents. Help spread this cause!
