The FSIN taking $1,000,000 from the industry-based Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has put nuclear waste back in the news. And apparently the Métis Nation has also taken hundreds of thousands of NWMO money. What does it mean that both large Aboriginal organizations have gone this far? Do they seriously believe that an industry-funded “information” campaign can create informed consent about a nuclear dump in Saskatchewan?
The threat from a nuclear dump would be gigantic. To transport the 1.8 million spent fuel bundles totaling 40,000 tonnes that had accumulated in eastern Canada by 2004 would require thousands of truckloads over several decades. And the industry estimates that double this amount, 3.6 million fuel bundles, will be created by the time existing nuclear plants are shut down. With less than 200 fuel
The industry-based Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has confirmed that two of the four Canadian communities that it is talking to about becoming a nuclear dump are in northern Saskatchewan; at Pinehouse and English River. The other two are in northwestern Ontario, much closer to the nuclear power plants along the Great lakes that produce almost all of the nuclear waste in Canada.
The Northern Village of Pinehouse is located in an idyllic setting on the shores of Pinehouse Lake, amid the boreal forest of northern Saskatchewan. Behind its apparent tranquility however, the issue of nuclear waste is dividing the community.
