A committee studying the potential storage of nuclear waste near Creighton is calling for certain protest signs opposing the project to be taken down.
The Community Liaison Committee voted Tuesday to urge area municipalities to remove any signs in public places that feature the international symbol for radiation.
CLC member Leslie Beck said citizens have the right to voice their concerns around nuclear waste but that symbol is reserved for sites where radioactive material is actually present.
“I would not want people to become complacent with a sign that designates that there could be radiation in the area,” Beck told the meeting, held at The Prospector Inn banquet room.
Beck said signs bearing the symbol are used at sites such as Saskatchewan’s Cigar Lake uranium mine and “you have to take them seriously.”
Ron Black, another CLC member, said it is in fact illegal to use the symbol where there is no radiation.
CLC member Kari Lentowicz, who works in the nuclear industry, said if someone at her workplace has a radiation symbol on their hard hat, the hard hat is confiscated.
“It’s not permitted to say that your head is a source of radiation – I mean, your head simply is not,” Lentowicz said with a gentle laugh.
Les Oystryk made a motion that the municipal councils in Creighton, Flin Flon and Denare Beach be asked in writing to remove “inappropriate or illegal signs” pertaining to nuclear waste.
The motion narrowly survived a 4-3 vote, with Buz Trevor among the opponents.
“It’s not our position to ask the councils to deal with these signs,” Trevor said. “To me this is a free speech issue and I think we [should] just leave it.”
But even Nadine Smart, a vocal nuclear waste opponent who has been attending CLC meetings, agreed that the motion is “totally fair.”
Dwindling list
The motion came as the CLC heard that the list of potential storage sites for Canada’s nuclear waste continues to dwindle.
The Township of Nipigon, Ont., recently withdrew from the site-selection process with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is searching for a place to store the waste in a secure underground repository.
NWMO spokesperson Mike Krizanc said Nipigon faced geological challenges as well as conflicting public visions around the project.
That leaves 14 communities – Creighton along with 13 in Ontario – still working with NWMO to learn more about the repository. None have formally applied to host the project.
Tuesday’s meeting once again heard from area opponents of NWMO’s plan, with several of the roughly 25 attendees speaking against the concept.
But one attendee, Alan Vowles, said it needs to be made “loud and clear” that NWMO is itself a neutral body.
Vowles said the nation’s nuclear waste already exists and has to be dealt with, adding that neither the NWMO nor the CLC are “pushing the idea of disposing nuclear waste in somebody’s backyard.”
That had Smart, the vocal opponent, bringing up NWMO’s awarding of $400,000 to Creighton and other communities furthest into the site-selection process.
“How is that not pushing by paying people to take it?” Smart asked.
Smart also claimed that the community ultimately chosen for the repository will receive another $600,000, but NWMO says no such consideration has been given.
NWMO has said the $400,000 payments to Creighton and other potential host sites recognize the contributions those communities have made to advance the national plan to store nuclear waste.
Scientific consensus
While Smart favours securing the waste at its present locations to allow for further study of a long-term plan, Krizanc told the meeting that the scientific consensus is that the material should go into an underground repository.
To provide further education around the repository concept, NWMO will be sending select area residents to Ontario to tour an existing above-ground nuclear waste storage site.
Rod Gourlay, who chaired Tuesday’s meeting, asked CLC members as well as the general public to submit names of residents who may benefit from a tour.
One man in the audience asked why NWMO won’t send area residents to see an actual underground repository in Europe, but Lentowicz, a CLC member, said the type of facility being considered in Canada has not been completed anywhere in the world.
Transport concerns
Bev Carriere rose to tell the CLC that she has concerns about nuclear waste being transported to Creighton through her home community of Cranberry Portage.
“It worries me because there’s so many accidents that happen outside of Cranberry, north and south,” Carriere said. “Semis go off the road. That’s really concerning.”
The CLC’s Beck encouraged Carriere to meet with the panel of experts who will be in the Flin Flon area this week with a transport container that would be used to move nuclear waste.
Beck further made reference to a March incident in Halifax in which four canisters containing radioactive material reportedly fell while being moved off a cargo ship.
Beck said it was her understanding that the main concern related to the impact to the ship, not the security of the material. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission reported that none of the containers leaked.
Eileen Linklater, a Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation councillor, urged the CLC to bring in guest speakers to discuss the potential harms of nuclear waste, such as David Suzuki.
Others called on the CLC to hear from Dr. Gordon Edwards, a prominent member of Canada’s anti-nuclear movement.
It remains to be seen whether those men visit Creighton, but NWMO is expanding its informational reach into Flin Flon and Denare Beach.
Jamie Matear, senior advisor on Aboriginal relations, told the meeting that NWMO now has permission to install information kiosks at both the Denare Beach Village Office and Flin Flon City Hall.
Information from NWMO has long been available at Creighton Town Office.
