To the editor,
Welcome to the Municipality of South Bruce, a community working under the authorization of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). Is this the future for South Bruce?
Did you know that the NWMO Near-Term Investment Fund in South Bruce is paying for a portion of an expansion of the wastewater treatment plant, purchasing a compactor for the two landfills, and purchasing a new fire pumper truck? The municipality has already received hundreds of thousands in funds. See what all those other municipalities missed out on because they did not take up the NWMO’s offer to look at becoming a deep geological repository (DGR) site for highly radioactive nuclear waste? Be glad that your community did not, so you are not a divided community like South Bruce has become.
An agriculture community, an agricultural business impact study by MDB Insight consulting has just been done. The study was done on the assumption that the DGR was present. Does this consulting firm know something that the South Bruce residents do not? The wait is on to see the results. Just how many responded to the study? The virtual workshop only had 13 participants. Is that what one calls a good representative of an agricultural community? The NWMO and municipality will call it community involvement and check off another box on their list.
Now the NWMO announced a Property Value Protection (PVP) program. Another box checked off. The program created in consultation with the municipality – no names known – is like a “Property Exit Protection” program. It starts when the DGR location is picked and runs for 25 years. One has to live within a five-kilometre radius of the site. Better still, if one is a bordering property owner, one has a two-year window to “sell out” and move away. Remember, the DGR has to be licenced before burying any high radioactive nuclear waste and that may occur around 2040. The PVP program would end around 2045. It seems the NWMO is wanting landowners, especially bordering neighbours, “to move away” years before the DGR is operational. Those who “stick around” may have until 2045 to decide, then all protections are off. Remember, nuclear waste lasts for thousands of years. This is what the NWMO and the municipality is calling ensuring peace of mind when it comes to real property value in the area.
Lise Morton, NWMO vice-president of site selection, has been known to say that the people in the areas where we’re working will always be the experts on their communities and what’s important to them. Really? What is important is that many people – many multi-generational farm families – do not want to leave their community. They don’t want the NWMO to destroy acres of agricultural land to bury radioactive nuclear waste.
Welcome to South Bruce.
S.A. McDonald,
Culross/Teeswater
