Peace Magazine April-June 2021, page 2. Some rights reserved.
Search for other articles by Matthew McClearn here
For the past decade, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has been exploring possible locations to bury radioactive waste from Canada’s nuclear power plants. They have been asking various communities whether they would be “informed and willing hosts” for underground disposal sites. Now the search process is nearing completion and the NWMO says that in 2023 it will choose between South Bruce and Ignace, Ontario.
The consent of these communities still has to be confirmed, though in fact the issue has polarized public opinion in each community. It is hardly surprising that opposition is vigorous, since when these deep sites are being filled, hundreds of truckloads of nuclear waste will arrive each year to be placed in steel containers and encased in clay before burial. The whole entombment might last 150 years and cost $23 billion. Citizens and local farmers need assurance that their bodies and products will never be contaminated with radiation.
Source: Matthew McClearn, The Globe and Mail, March 19, 2021. (tinyurl.com/u9ernreh)
Peace Magazine April-June 2021, page 2. Some rights reserved.
Search for other articles by Matthew McClearn here