nuclear-news

Reconciling With Truth Requires Listening… what about nuclear waste?

September 30, 2023  https://mailchi.mp/preventcancernow/reconciling-with-truth-requires-listening?e=ba8ce79145 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes

As Canadians look back and Remember the Children who suffered at residential schools, we wish to highlight Algonquin First Nations’ important work to protect the health of children, and the Kitchi Sibi (Ottawa) River watershed from pollution.

The First Nations oppose a hillside nuclear waste Near-Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) proposed on unceded Algonquin territory at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories. In a remarkable turn of events, rainfall during the final hearing on the NSDF demonstrated that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is unlikely to meet its goal to keep nuclear waste secure for hundreds of years.

At Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories scientists first worked on the atomic bomb in the 1940s; ongoing nuclear research ever since has resulted in voluminous waste, that will remain toxic longer than planning horizons. People oppose transportation of nuclear waste through their communities, so the CNSC concluded that it had to deal with waste onsite. A federal Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was published for a nuclear waste NSDF. 

Disturbingly, assessment of the natural environment is absent from the federal EIS, so the Algonquin First Nations retained experts and published Assessment of the CNSC NSDF and Legacy Contamination in June 2023.

The federal assessment found that the top risk for stability of hillside waste disposal was severe rainfall. Too much rain could sweep the nuclear waste down the hill and into Perch Lake, polluting Perch Creek and the Kitchi Sibi River a kilometre away. This could pollute the ecosystem and food sources, as well as drinking water for millions of people downstream in smaller towns, Ottawa and cities. 

On Aug. 10, 2023, at the sacred site where the Rideau, Kitchi Sibi and Gatineau rivers tumble together, Chiefs of Kebaowek, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and Mitchibikonik Inik First Nations, Elders and other experts, made final submissions to the CNSC. As witnesses spoke, attendees heard a roar of rain drumming on the roof. 

This rain flooded Ottawa streets and basements, stopped traffic, took out power, and backed up sewers. Five centimetres of rain fell in an hour, and more than 300 million litres of untreated water flowed into the Ottawa River.

The EIS vastly under-estimates future weather severity, defining “heavy rainfall” as over only 0.7 cm per hour. The EIS also cites a 2013 estimate of low tornado risks—an insult to fresh memories of catastrophic tornadoes and derechos in Eastern Ontario.

The acceleration of climate disasters is boggling Canada’s long-term predictions of the scale of extreme weather. The nuclear waste disposal facility was designed to withstand end-of-the-century estimates of less than five cm of precipitation in a day for Deep River, and over five cm in a day—not an hour—for Ottawa. 

Ottawa’s not alone in breaking rainfall records and disproving future estimates. July 2023 brought rainfall disasters to Nova Scotia, with rainfall up to 50 cm per hour measured in one location. Much of the province experienced 20 cm in a day, causing widespread damage. Canadian federal climate predictions call for much less—up to 9 cm in a day by the end of the century.  

If an Environmental Impact Assessment for a bridge was discovered to be this flawed—that the bridge would not withstand a storm as severe as what just occurred—it would be a good reason to reconsider the plans. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should heed the warning from Mother Nature and deny the present proposal.

2

October 8, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, climate change, indigenous issues, wastes