Dear Editor,
Choosing our best representatives for the next four years is a big responsibility. Now is the time to persuade the decision makers that we really do want clean water to drink and swim in. We do not want a near surface disposal facility filled with radioactive waste from across Canada situated at Chalk River near Perch Lake that flows into the Ottawa River. It is forecast to be seven stories high (20 – 25 meters high). It is in an area where tornadoes and earthquakes are common.
On July 12, 2021 it was announced that the final environmental impact statement for a giant radioactive waste disposal mound project in Chalk River, the Near Surface Disposal Facility had been passed. That is not good news.
I am going to vote for the party that promises to try to turn that decision around. I was fond of Pierre Trudeau’s efforts to control the use of uranium and its by-products.
He supported innovative arms control policies designed to eliminate the technological impetus behind the nuclear arms race between the USA and USSR during the Cold War. In 1983, he announced his “Strategy of suffocation” at the Special Session on Disarmament.
Under Pierre Trudeau, Alistair Gillespie, Minister of Energy Mines and Resources, initiated programs to jump start solar and bio-fuel industries in Canada. He did not encourage nuclear power as a source of energy — I am sure he would not have endorsed the small nuclear reactors that are being promoted.
Will his son, Justin Trudeau, follow in his father’s footsteps and put a stop to the potentially hazardous waste disposal site at Chalk River and support alternative energy sources that do not depend on radioactive minerals? Which representatives will support a clean environment?
Venetia Crawford, Shawville, Que.
