​Shame on nuclear industry for walking away from its pollutants, says reader

To the Editor:

RE: “South Bruce out of the running as NWMO selects Ignace for used nuclear fuel DGR”

This letter is in reference to your story about the site selection for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO)’s proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for used nuclear fuel

For starters, your quote is incorrect: “There is international scientific consensus that a DGR is the safest way to manage used nuclear fuel over the long-term, and Canada is among the leading countries on this solution.”

Nowhere on this planet does an operational DGR exist and the ones that were tried, failed. Nowhere in this world have there been any significant issues observed with above-ground storage. Germany just implemented by law, a 50-year moratorium on further burial grounds, to have more time researching below-ground storage and the how-to's.

That is a long period, because it was the well-known "German engineering" that failed the 120,000 containers with radioactive waste, buried twice as deep as the NWMO plans on doing (Asse II,1973; 1,200 metres; 123,000 containers that started to leak within 34 years - of the approximate 100,000 years they were engineered to last).

But what very few people understand and know: policing in various parts of Ontario is not done by the OPP. Particularly, First Nation communities often have their own policing in place. So does the Wabigoon Lake community.

Radioactive waste needs to be policed from when it is transported to the site, as well as while it is stored. Any concerns outside the NWMO-operated facility will be in the hands of the First Nation, regulatory but also financially.

The transport of each Castor container did cost the small communities near Asse II (Germany, Niedersachsen) millions of Euros, as the state police (equivalent to RCMP here) sent the local authorities the invoice when demonstrators tried stopping the shipments. State police had to intervene, largely because the local authorities did not have the necessary equipment.

I am not aware that the chiefs are aware that they need to foot the bill from the bribery money that the NWMO is paying them for hosting toxic waste they never had anything to do with.

Shame on the industry for walking away from its pollutants, and sad that small communities, hungry for a quick buck, don't understand the dimension of time that they commit themselves to.

Do you really believe that Jesus knew the value of a Canadian toonie? That is only a span of 2,000 years, far less than the 100,000 they need to be a host.

Respectfully,
Ulrich (Ulli) Pieplow
Paisley