Dear Editor,
Dr. Jeremy Whitlock is quite right that we live in a sea of radiation. The sunlight around me can give me sunburn or even cause cancer, and the sun is 93 million miles away. We have not totally adapted to even this form of radiation.
It’s not quite the same radiation as what we are concerned about when we mine uranium or transport and dispose of nuclear waste, but we are concerned about elevated concentrations and prolonged exposures.
The 1997 report from the Joint Federal-Provincial Panel on mining in northern Saskatchewan, concerning cumulative effects on operating mines as well as considerations for Midwest and Cigar lake mines, found the tailings from these mines were sufficiently toxic that they would have to be monitored in perpetuity.
Despite the findings, we now leave the very fine, more chemically mobile mill waste in pits on the surface that will eventually be exposed to erosion.
The tailings still contain about 85 per cent of the radioactive materials that were in the ore body. They also still contain about five to 10 per cent of the uranium.
In 2006, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) found that uranium and uranium compounds were entering into the environment at uranium mine and milling operations in concentrations that may have immediate or long-term effects on the environment and biodiversity.
As far as the transport of nuclear waste, the trucks that carry the waste cannot be built heavy enough to eliminate the exposure of the public to the penetrating gamma radiation.
The driver may be protected, but how about people who may find themselves stuck in traffic beside a truck releasing radiation? Or the people who live close to the transport route who have several trucks go past where they live or work every day?
As for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), the key question should be: How are they going to rescue that radioactively hot waste, buried deep in solid rock, if the situation gets out of control?
Bury it in concrete like they did at Chernobyl and hope for the best? Pump in unlimited amounts of water like they did at Fukushima? This waste is going to remain dangerous for at least a million years.
