THE CREDIBILITY OF BURYING RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Now is when our politicians and authorities will pay the price for decades of psuedo public consultation and pretend transparency with the public. Whether there is a safe way or not to store high strength radioactive waste; trust and credibility are the issue. Personally I no longer have any trust of our politicians and Ontario Ministry of the Environment, based on their decades old reprehensible behaviour.

Normally I try very hard to keep local environmental issues front and centre here in the Advocate. In regards to Deep Geological Repository of nuclear wastes we are looking at proposals anywhere from fifty to one hundred miles away (NW). That being said I certainly posted in regards to the proposed mega quarry in Melancthon Township as it could have negatively affected the source of the Grand River which flows through Woolwich Township and the Region of Waterloo.

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story " Opposition grows to burying radioactive waste". For me it is absolutely ridiculous to bury this stuff anywhere near the largest supply of fresh water in the world. To say that location is counter-intuitive is a huge understatement. Whether the Nuclear Waste Management Association will have credible peer reviews or just the usual tame bought and paid for junk scientists at their beck and call, I do not know. Again prior to having read their rationale for location beside or near Lake Huron; I suspect that the location may have to do with very good road access combined with relatively low population. In other words in a worst case scenario, there wouldn't be millions of people in Bruce and Grey Counties requiring emergency evacuation. My first common sense approach would be that IF burial is the only option, then bury it above the water table, hundreds or thousands of miles from population centres. My prediction is that with the ending of the mega quarry threat there will be an equally large resistance to this idea. Again if it turns out to be sited using legitimate science and legitimate public consultation, that is unfortunate. Our history here in Ontario at least, is both those conditions are unlikely.