Dear Editor:
Why South Bruce? And of all the locations in South Bruce, why a site located beside a town? Why farmland on the edge of the largest forested swamp in Southern Ontario, with the river running through it? Driving down the 8th Concession, northwest of Teeswater, I just cannot understand how anyone can look at the landscape and say, “Wow, the perfect spot to bury radioactive waste! “This is the safest environmental site?
Water must be protected. Moving some of the radioactive waste from the lakeshore does not protect the Great Lakes. There will always be waste and radioactive danger along the lakeshore, until they stop the production of nuclear energy and it doesn’t look like they are planning on that any time soon. All a DGR does is add transportation risks, place another community at risk and threaten important aquifers, swamps, and rivers.
The only operational DGR in the world is WIPP and it is a low/intermediate level in the desert in New Mexico. It is located in a completely different environmental situation so it actually doesn’t provide very much useful data except that accidents happen and you can’t predict human error.
Science does get it wrong. A chemist won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948 for his invention of DDT. Nobody at the time anticipated the unintended consequences DDT would end up having on wildlife. Boeing thought they had a safety feature to prevent stalling but unexpected results and human error resulted in two terrible plane crashes. Chalk River – mechanical problems and human error. Chernobyl – flawed design and human error. WIPP – human error and mechanical failure.
The industry has learned from past mistakes but we don’t want to be the next accident or negative incident that the world nuclear industry ‘learns” from.
How are they able to ignore the petition of 1,600 local signatures and the visible display of unwillingness? Why won’t they give us a definition or benchmark of a willing community? What is the real reason they won’t give an answer?
Ben Befadhel, I read your letter to the community and would like reply; protectsouthbruce-nodgr.org is full of reports and science that explain the potential risks. Just because they do not have the NWMO stamp of approval does not mean they aren’t true. There are many scientists and geologists who have grave concerns about this proposal.
From what I have seen the call for us to be “willing to listen” is actually a request that we keep quiet and if we don’t, we will be called names.
We did listen, we researched, we talked to many members in our community and many of us have decided we are not willing to bury your industry’s radioactive waste in our community.
Michelle Stein,
Teeswater
