To the Editor:
The timing of the latest educational public forum about the proposed Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) deep geological repository (DGR), organized by Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste, offers an excellent opportunity to challenge the author of the recent letter titled “Experts you can trust,” by broadening the accessibility to a range of experts who raise serious questions about the proposed deep burial of high-level radioactive waste, both in regard to what no one yet knows as well as the ethics of the community decision-making process created by industry and the federal government.
On Oct. 5, a public information event was held at the Teeswater Community Centre – the main hall filled with interested citizens – to hear invited panelists who all have decades of experience keeping informed on nuclear issues, grounded in their respective professional fields of activity.
Important to note is that experts do exist beyond the nuclear industry, who are essential in voicing their moral, and respective knowledge-based concerns, about a deep burial project which continues to be a global experiment, with no scientific evidence to demonstrate safety at any stage of this project.
These independent experts are equipped with investigative and analytical skills to communicate what the nuclear industry and its proponents, such as the NWMO, do not, and cannot, tell us. We need to hear those other voices, who communicate honestly about the limits of human knowledge, even – and especially – in the sciences.
Contrary to the attempt in reducing anyone who is against the proposed DGR to the category of “activist,” and putting a disparaging tone upon it, I turn around how the aforementioned letter-writing author tries to diminish the fact – I concede, not specifically referring to Saturday’s presenters – that the invited experts are professionals first and foremost. Integral to their professional work is the moral obligation to educate the wider public, and be willing to have their knowledge interrogated, publicly. Doing so is “activism” in the best sense.
Sadly, and ironically, through various letters to the editor from those who are current or former nuclear power workers through many months, we are supposed to read their words apparently as unbiased and all-knowing, while the views of anyone who have actually studied a range of research and views independent from the nuclear industry, continuously have been discredited.
As for the NWMO, in bearing witness myself to the various efforts to promote two DGRs through the past 12 years – the previous DGR promoted by the OPG, in regard to low-and-intermediate level radioactive waste – never, never have I witnessed the NWMO demonstrate the same courage and integrity, to put its speakers into a public setting where a genuine debate could happen. Instead, the NWMO speaks publicly only in places where the NWMO has full control of the information discussed. What does that say about experts we are supposed to trust?
Note, the NWMO refused an invitation to participate at Saturday’s event.
In reference to nuclear power workers, however, I actually have had private conversations with a few such workers who are against the DGR. But they believe they would lose their jobs if they spoke out publicly to state that position. So, employees in the nuclear industry are effectively muzzled. Again, what does such silencing say about how much trust we can place in an industry that discourages independent thinking?
Fortunately, the Saturday event gives us a wealth of insights, timely and critically important, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdeOZOpwViM. Do not be intimidated by the length of the video because you can watch one speaker at a time, and return repeatedly to the content in order to listen again and digest excellent information, which is totally pertinent to reflect upon before the vote.
Dr. Sandy Greer, PhD
Blyth
