Dear editor,
As 2024 approaches the debate and media coverage on the proposed nuclear waste dump for northwestern Ontario is heating up. 2024 is the year in which the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) will select a site to dump all of the radioactive toxic waste produced by the Canadian nuclear industry. Revel Lake, just west of Ignace on Crown lands is one of the two sites proposed for this dump. The other proposed site is South Bruce in southern Ontario , and is within a much closer proximity of the three nuclear power plants in Ontario producing the waste. As the debate and media coverage heats up on this most important issue so does the NWMOs budget. The NWMOs proposed budget for 2023 is $162 million dollars. Projections to 2026 increase their budget to $299.8 million dollars increasing on average $40 million dollars per year. Their budget is broken into eight categories; engineering, site assessment, safety, regulatory decisions, engagement, transportation, communications, staffing and administration. All of the money the NWMO spends in their budget is derived from the public – people who pay the electric bills. The interesting thing about their budget projection is the amount of money dedicated to the different activities.
Second to staffing and administration the second major expenditure is what they call “engagement”. There are no specific details on what “engagement” entails but I think one could safely state it is getting the public on side for their proposed dump. The engagement portion of their budget in 2023 is $47.8 million rising to $81.9 million by 2026. Other parts of their budget such as engineering, site assessment and safety come in at much lower costs literally a fraction of the staffing and engagement dollars.
Engagement – what does that mean? Is it millions of dollars given to Ignace by NWMO to spend on what they see fit? A new fire truck for Ignace money donated by NWMO? A new 1/2 ton truck money donated to Ignace public works? Money donated by NWMO for nature trails and Skidoo clubs, etc .etc? I find it difficult to relate a lot of the learning about nuclear waste disposal in a fire truck or 1/2 ton truck or the rest of the gifts the NWMO has bestowed on Ignace. The recent trips to Finland paid for by public money stand out as a glaring “engagement” waste of money by the NWMO.
Cindy Stark from Ignace who made the trip stated the repository built by the Finns was an engineering marvel. The robotics, forklift, 20 minute trip to get to the bottom of the repository, the four inch cement walls painted white and slightly damp rock walls were in her words “mind boggling”. Ignace Councilor Defeo who also made the trip, described the Finnish facility as having ingenuity in developing a safe clean site to behold. There is no nuclear waste stored on the site they visited so nothing has been proven or confirmed except the Finns have some mining technology. If this trip and what they observed was the conclusion to their having any doubts to the safety of a nuclear dumping site which will have to be safe for thousands of years, then the bar for safety is at an all time low. A trip to Finland all expenses paid by the public has definitely wowed some people. That trip and others could have been avoided and saved the public purse many thousands of dollars. Snowlab located in the former Vale Creighton mine site near Sudbury is two kilometers deep in bedrock the deepest under ground laboratory in the world studying dark matter. It has an underground car wash, change rooms for the staff, a lunch room, meeting rooms, staging areas, water purification, air showers and many other features – 40 in total – and yes, it is very bright and clean. A virtual tour is available online at no cost. The Cheyenne mountain complex in Colorado USA the headquarters for Norad is 2000 feet in granite. This facility will withstand a 30 megaton nuclear explosion and is a living community in a geological formation. So why go to Finland when anything they saw there could be seen here?
So not to diminish the Finns mining technology but some of the most state of the art mining technologies in the world exist right here in Ontario. Is it really necessary to spend money on trips to Finland?
Painted cement walls, slightly damp rock walls, forklifts, 20 minute trips to the bottom of a mining facility, do not define a safe environment for an extremely toxic waste which will be with humanity for thousands of years. Trips to Finland prove nothing. Proving a deep underground repository is a safe way to dispose of extremely toxic radioactive waste that can only be proven by the test of time! The NWMO has no proven methods of disposing safely of this waste. Their rhetoric, science and engagement of NWMO is a theory and that is all it is – a hazardous theory! It is an extremely expensive experiment at the expense of the taxpayers and those who pay electric bills.
According to NWMO’s projections over the next five years they will spend $359.3 million dollars of public money in trying to convince people their plan will work and that is just a part of their bottomless pit of money.
Imagine how many kids that money would feed that go to bed hungry every night. Food banks are now seeing record numbers of people relying on their services. Imagine how much food that would put onto the shelves of food banks. Imagine how many homeless people could come in from the cold and be housed or find shelters instead of sleeping on the streets. If we as the public are not incensed by this out of control spending, we should be. For those in political power and should be concerned about responsible use of public money – where are they? Marcus Powlowski is nowhere to be seen or heard on the issue! Patti Hadju is nowhere to be seen or heard on the issue! Kevin Holland is nowhere to be seen or heard on the issue! Why? There are a lot of votes to be lost in the nuclear industry, approximately 70,000.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
James Kimberley
Atikokan
