Dear Editor,
The Liberals said they would create a responsible and independent environmental assessment process.
They failed to do . . .
so in relation to the National Energy Board mandated to assess the environmental impact of pipeline projects (i.e. appointed with officers of petroleum industry, indifferent to the effects on Pacific orcas and aboriginal communities whose livelihood is destroyed by oil spills alike, governed by regulations dictated by petroleum producers to Senators pleased to do their bidding). And they have failed to do so in relation to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which is reviewing the proposed waste site at Chalk River.
Three projects to manage Canada’s radioactive waste threaten to contaminate the drinking water of millions of Canadians: the waste dump on the the Ottawa River at Chalk River, and the entombment of two other reactors, one on the Ottawa River in Rolphton, Ontario and the other on the Winnipeg River in Pinawa, Manitoba.
The dump would abandon one million cubic metres of radioactive waste — on a site located on a major seismic fault, above porous and fractured rock, contrary to International Atomic Energy standards, less than one kilometre from the Ottawa River! Action Climat Outaouais, the Old Fort William cottagers association, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, le Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive and the Coalition Against Nuclear dumps on the Ottawa River are all fighting for an end to these insane proposals and our common safety.
These three projects are presented by a consortium of private for profit corporations chosen by the Harper government and maintained by the Trudeau Liberals. And the environmental assessment process for approval of these three projects is the responsibility of the same agency that promotes the nuclear industry. Mr Amos, an environmental lawyer who should be leading the charge against these projects, would rather just let the process happen. There is even a series of new proposals to build “small modular reactors” on the same site — when it is clear that nuclear energy is expensive, far from clean, and, on its way out internationally. Unbelievable.
Denise Giroux
NDP Candidate for Pontiac
Cantley, Que.
