There are multiple ways the Town of Creighton’s potential bid to store radioactive waste could fall flat on its face.
The NDP, never timid in its opposition to nuclear waste storage in the province, could win a future election and promptly ban the practice Sask-wide.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall could do the same, particularly given that in 2011 he made comments to the media that all but ruled out the controversial project coming to his province.
Adamant opposition could surface from within Creighton, Flin Flon or the influential (and growing) First Nations of this region.
Or studies could simply conclude that Creighton does not have what it takes geologically to warehouse spent nuclear fuel rods in a subterranean repository.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), which is working with Creighton on the project, is certainly aware of all of these possibilities.
Now we can add another layer of uncertainty to the process – individual communities across Canada climbing aboard the anti-nuclear bandwagon.
On Monday, Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dionne announced he may ban hazardous goods from being transported through his city.
“Especially the nuclear waste, (there) is a concern,” Mayor Dionne said, as quoted by the Prince Albert Daily Herald.
“I think what we need to do, and I’ll be making this motion early in the new year, to ask the city solicitor, do we have the right to ban that material from coming through our city? Because that is very dangerous.”
But so what if it turns out Prince Albert can and does pass such a ban? In the event that any nuclear waste came to Creighton from the west, its movers could simply bypass PA.
But what if elected officials in other communities, and in other provinces, played copycat, as they so often do?
Phenomenon
The phenomenon could cut off all available routes for transport in a hurry as a web of “nuclear waste free zones” colours the map.
Sound outlandish? Not really when you consider that municipalities have a habit of replicating each other’s policies, especially on hot-button issues.
Look at water fluoridation. Towns and cities are tripping over themselves to pull fluoride from their drinking water based on little more than junk science and pressure from fringe elements.
So many municipal officials are willing to trust themselves over scientists and health experts who say that fluoridation is safe and beneficial.
So why wouldn’t they also trust themselves over the scientists and experts who say that nuclear waste can be safely transported and stored – especially when “nuclear waste” is a much scarier term to the average person (rightly or wrongly) than “fluoride”?
It would be considerably easier for anti-nuclear activists to take away all routes to Creighton than any of the other 16 communities still in the running to possibly host the repository.
Those other 16 communities are in Ontario, after all, home to 90 per cent of Canada’s nuclear waste.
There would be ways for the NWMO to circumvent any nuclear waste free zones. Alternate roads, for instance, could be looped around opposing communities.
But if this becomes a necessity, the financial feasibility of moving the waste to Creighton could evaporate rapidly.
Opponents of nuclear waste storage are more organized, mainstream and formidable than anti-flouride folks could ever hope to be.
Those who support nuclear waste storage are going to have to fight back. If Creighton remains in the running for radioactive waste in the long-term, get ready for an interesting battle.
Local Angle runs Fridays.
