The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.
Two prominent Aboriginal organizations have come out against a proposal to bury nuclear waste in Northern Ontario.
The separate declarations by Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) and the Union of Ontario Indians (UOI) come as a half a dozen Northwestern Ontario municipalities continue to explore the possibility of hosting an underground storage facility for spent fuel bundles from nuclear reactors.
In separate news releases, NAN and UOI trash a search by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to find a community willing to host a disposal site. “We have a mandate from the Creator to protect our lands and waters and have been doing so for thousands of years,” NAN Grand Chief Stan Beardy said.
“Nuclear waste is a poison that will damage our homelands.”
The search for a deep, underground storage site for the current inventory of fire-log shaped fuel bundles — enough to fill six hockey rinks up to the boards — is not limited to Northern Ontario, says the NWMO.
So far in Northwestern Ontario, Ear Falls, Ignace, Nipigon, Schreiber, Hornepayne and Wawa have expressed a willingness to at least consider the concept of storing the bundles.
The storage facility could create hundreds of high-paying permanent jobs, says the NWMO.
The NWMO says that even if a community meets the criteria for a disposal facility, such a site will not be imposed on any town or First Nation.
In his own news release, UOI Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee noted that “the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands and territories of Indigenous Peoples without free and prior consent.”
Madahbee said his members aren’t convinced that an underground storage site can be made safe, regardless of depth.
“There is absolutely no guarantee that the government, industry or NWMO can provide assurance that a natural hazard such as an earthquake, volcanic activity, rock fracture, corrosion, ice age or any other naturally occurring disaster can be avoided — only their unproved scientific theory,” Madahbee said.
Beardy said he’s urging all Northern communities to declare themselves “nuclear waste-free zones.”