When Buz Trevor first learned that Creighton might one day become the nation’s drop-off point for radioactive waste, the idea didn’t sound that far-fetched.
“My gut reaction was that this would be the perfect place to store it,” says Trevor, a Denare Beach resident and retired geologist.
He wasn’t alone. For all of the placard-waving, petition-gathering opponents, a quieter but no doubt sizable segment of the area population favours a nuclear waste repository.
To them, the underground repository – expected to generate many hundreds of jobs in the coming decades – is the region’s best hope to finally shed its one-horse-town label.
“This obviously is one major consideration here,” says Dave Price, a long-time Flin Flon resident who also favours the repository.
“It’s always been a nice thought that we should have some other potential industry around here, potential ways of employing people, and this seems quite a promising one.”
Trevor too would welcome the economic spinoffs of the repository but sees other important reasons to lend his support.
He says Canada has an ethical responsibility to securely store its nuclear waste and that the Canadian Shield is one of the more stable places on earth.
“Whether we like it or not, the waste exists and we have a duty to look after it in the safest manner possible,” Trevor says.
Trevor says nuclear waste research in Pinawa, Man., has shown that it is technically possible to store the material underground in the Canadian Shield – and he believes Creighton is a superior location.
He says the potential Creighton repository would also include a research centre that would enhance educational and career opportunities, possibly making this a region of international significance.
Of course much would have to happen for Creighton to be chosen for the multibillion-dollar repository.
The geology of the area would have to be proven sound. The Town of Creighton would have to apply to host the repository, not just learn more about it as is now the case. And Creighton would have to be seen as a better location than the 13 Ontario communities also learning about the project.
Just as importantly, the people of the region – Creighton, Flin Flon and the surrounding area – would have to overwhelmingly demonstrate that they want the repository.
Attempting to gauge public opinion on the repository is no simple task. No surveys have been commissioned and, as a percentage of the population at least, few people have been outwardly vocal for or against the project.
The Committee for Future Generations, an anti-waste group, says it has over 1,000 signatures from Flin Flon and Creighton on a petition against the repository, with more untabulated from Denare Beach.
The committee says it has 1,500-plus additional signatures from across the five westernmost provinces, with the petitions to be delivered to Creighton town council and the Saskatchewan legislature.
Trevor doesn’t doubt that some people are ardently against the repository, but, pointing to the fewer than 350 likes on the Committee for Future Generations’ Facebook page (as of Monday), he wonders if the opposition is as strong as may be perceived.
He believes most residents of Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach firmly endorse an investigation into the repository, with many already in favour.
“Further, I think that as more young people become aware of its potential for a future in Flin Flon and area, the more this support will grow,” Trevor says.
Trevor says people have a right to disagree with him, but he is frustrated by some repository opponents whom he feels lack a scientific understanding of the issue.
“It is always better when opinion is informed rather than governed by emotion and misinformation,” he says.
Trevor won’t find argument on that point from La Verne Hinzman, a former Creighton town councillor who voted to have the municipality learn more about the repository in 2010.
Hinzman says the project has become needlessly divisive when in fact a lot of valuable information must still be learned over the next year or two.
“It’s a study, for crying out loud,” he says, reiterating the preliminary nature of the work underway in Creighton.
Hinzman is personally leaning toward backing the repository and says he will do so if Creighton meets all of the criteria for nuclear waste storage.
While Trevor champions the repository, he initially had misgivings over whether radioactive material could safely be transported – largely from Ontario – all the way to Creighton.
“I have focused a lot of effort on finding out about this and am totally satisfied that transportation of nuclear waste is one of the most closely regulated and safest processes in our modern world,” he says.
Given his interest in radioactive waste, Trevor in 2012 accepted a seat on the Community Liaison Committee.
The CLC forms a bridge between area residents and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), the agency tasked with pinpointing a location for the repository.
While the CLC is officially neutral, Trevor, as an individual, has become an enthusiastic advocate of the repository.
“My conviction that it is a great project sometimes makes me more evangelical than perhaps I should be,” he says.
Of course such advocacy has failed to sway opponents of the repository, including the influential Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, which in May voted to oppose the project.
Trevor says he is sympathetic to Aboriginal people who view the repository as part of the colonial exploitation of their land.
But he says the NWMO process is deliberate and involves ongoing constructive engagement with Aboriginal groups.
At the end of the day, Trevor is optimistic about Creighton’s chances.
“If I did not believe that Creighton stood a chance of securing the repository, it would not be worth expending the effort to make it happen,” he says.
