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Your article "Fight continues against proposed nuclear waste facility" makes some excellent points about UNDRIP, engagement, Indigenous rights and reconciliation. It is our hope that these issues can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
Some of the information, especially that provided by anti-nuclear campaigners, is however not correct, and there are important technical issues that should also be mentioned if this situation is to be resolved satisfactorily and safely.
Gordon Edwards' statement that "99 per cent of all the radioactive material that would go into the facility is waste not produced locally" is not correct. Ninety per cent of the waste is already on site at CRL (Chalk River Laboratories), five per cent will come from hospitals and universities, and the remaining five per cent will come from other AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) sites.
It is important that people understand that the imported waste from hospitals, research establishments, and universities has been generated through the diagnosis and treatment of sick people and essential research into curing disease. It is typically clothing, masks, instruments etc that may have a high volume but contain very little radioactivity. In taking these materials and managing them properly Chalk River is carrying out an essential national service. Were it not to provide this service there would be a national health care crisis that could lead to many people suffering, and potentially dying, unnecessarily.
And it is important to recognise that the NSDF (Near Surface Disposal Facility) will be a modern, state of the art, disposal facility that will take many legacy wastes from facilities that do not comply with modern standards or which have decayed over time and would benefit from being replaced. This means that inaction has consequences and delaying the project could cause the very environmental harms that everyone wants to protect against!
Edwards also suggests that the people planning the project cannot be trusted and heavily implies that anything could go into this new facility when in fact it is very clear that the NSDF will contain low-level radioactive waste only. This will be things like soil from environmental remediation work, demolition debris from the revitalization of the campus, protective clothing or equipment and that all materials going into the facility will have to meet the stringent Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) that have been accepted by the independent regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), who will also be checking that CNL (Canadian Nuclear Labratories) comply with this requirement.
It is our hope that all the parties will work together to resolve their differences so that progress can be made and the people of the region and of Canada can be kept healthy and safe.
The Canadian Nuclear Society is an independent society of individuals interested in the use of nuclear technology in Canada and the use of Canadian nuclear technology abroad.
Dr. R. Neil Alexander, Head of Communications, Canadian Nuclear Society