{"id":177946,"date":"2018-08-22T02:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=177946"},"modified":"2025-01-09T01:04:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T06:04:38","slug":"stop-producing-nuclear-waste-can-dispose-critics-urge-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/22\/stop-producing-nuclear-waste-can-dispose-critics-urge-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop producing nuclear waste until we can dispose of it, critics urge Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Main street in Chalk River (Photo By P199 – Own work, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014 Environmental groups say Canada should stop producing nuclear energy until the federal government replaces its “pathetic” waste disposal policy with something more meaningful and scientific.<\/p>\n

The groups, including the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and the Canadian Environmental Law Association, intend to protest outside a meeting Wednesday where officials will discuss plans to decommission nuclear labs and reactors in Chalk River, Ont., and Pinawa, Man.<\/p>\n

The groups are particularly concerned about the proposal to build a surface-level disposal site at Chalk River, about two hours northwest of Ottawa, that would house a million cubic metres of waste just a kilometre from the Ottawa River, and to bury underground nuclear reactors at the sites in concrete.<\/p>\n

Neither proposal meets international guidelines for the handling of nuclear waste, they say.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Canada’s only written national policy on radioactive waste is so short it would take less than four tweets to post it on Twitter, said coalition president Gordon Edwards.<\/p>\n

“Canada’s nuclear waste policy is pathetic,” he said.<\/p>\n

The policy calls for radioactive waste disposal to be done safely and in an environmentally sound, comprehensive and cost-effective manner. It also says Ottawa must ensure radioactive waste producers meet their responsibilities and pay for any required disposal.<\/p>\n

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The policy is entirely silent on science or agreed upon best-practices for how waste should be disposed, say opponents, who want Canada to immediately halt nuclear activities until such a policy is in place, developed in consultation with the public and interested parties.<\/p>\n

Thus far, burying properly encased radioactive waste in tunnels in the ground is the best option, but no one is certain of the long-term consequences, critics say. Encasing facilities in concrete so that they can never be safely accessed later is short-sighted, they warn.<\/p>\n

Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., a federal Crown corporation, contracted Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, a privately-owned consortium, to decommission nuclear sites.<\/p>\n

The decommissioning proposals are currently undergoing an environmental assessment process with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, a spokesman for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories told The Canadian Press. Nothing has been approved and that assessment is done with public consultation, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s meeting is just an status update and will not decide anything, he added.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Edwards said, Ottawa needs to acknowledge that Canada put the nuclear cart before the disposal horse and needs to figure out the way forward before proceeding.<\/p>\n

“The first step should be to stop producing this waste,” he said. “Since we don’t have a solution for it of a permanent nature, we shouldn’t be making it.”<\/p>\n

The federal policy assigns clear roles and responsibilities to the federal government and nuclear waste owners, Natural Resources Canada said in a statement Tuesday. The proposals will not be approved unless they are safe for workers, the public and the environment, it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 Environmental groups say Canada should stop producing nuclear energy until the federal government replaces its “pathetic” waste disposal …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":177950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-mia-rabson","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281375,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177946\/revisions\/281375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}