Comment: Part 3, great series about the problems of uranium mining in Canada!
THE ORIGIN OF NUCLEAR POWER
Publicerad 100412 11:15. Uppdaterad 100412 11:27.
Jim Penna and Eleanor Knight from Saskatoon's oldest organization critical to nuclear power, the Inter-Church Uranium Committe, thinks that neither Kevin Scissons and his authority nor state organization Health Canada is doing their job.
- There will always be a big problem to take care of all waste safely after the mining, due to the extremely long half-life of uranium substances. The companies still have not found a technique that works to take care of the material safely, Jim Penna says.
- There are so many examples of leaks from waste sites, but the worst is that the CNSC close their eyes and not give the companies proper punishment.
We require basic health studies of current workers in the mines and of people living in these areas. There is nothing more than a scandal that this still has not been done, Eleanor Knight says.
In Saskatchewan there are examples of leaking contaminated materials that had been known long after the uranium mining stopped. The most large-scale leak was discovered in northern Saskatchewan, the Gunnar Mine in the early 1990s. From old abandoned barrels, there was a large leak of radioactive
material in the big Lake Athabasca.
Cleaning up costs millions
Now, 20 years later, it seems to be a big clean-up. It likely will take several years and cost several million dollars. Gunnar Mine is close to the Uranium City, the world's largest mining area until the mines close down 1983. Now a deserted ghost town where only around 50 people still living. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, for example Sweden got uranium even from this area.
- The big question is how all waste after mining can be stored safely. It is only a few decades after the mine closed that it is possible to say whether the companies succeeded. If they fail, if it is leaking into groundwater, so we risk incalculable problems, Peter Prebble from the Saskatchewan Environmental Society says.
- Crucial for the future is likely if there is a much stronger UN resolution or not in terms of uranium mining. The present is not powerful enough and results not in some punishment in the countries where pollution occurs, or where people get affected, Jim Penna says.
During our stay in Saskatoon, we had no representative for Cameco to agree to either interview or to accept us a place at any of the tours in the uranium mines sites in Saskatchewan.
After the trucks with uranium have drive through Saskatoon many of them continues thousands of kilometers towards east of Canada, through the neighboring Manitoba and staying in the southwestern part of Ontario Province.
Here, just outside of society Blind River, is the world's largest plant for converting uranium, which is also operated by Cameco.
There are people who are concerned about emissions of uranium vapor that spreads over surrounding region. Not far from here lies the vast mining area at Elliot Lake. There has also been uranium mining in this area.
The effect on the lives of indigenous people in surrounding region, all hazardous substances in the Serpent River, has been described in Magnus Isacsson's award winning short film "Uranium" from 1990.
Lorraine Rekmans, whose father worked in the underground mines and died from cancer in 2002, has written the book "This is my homeland", about how indigenous people affected by uranium mining in Elliot Lake.
Impossible to track
But our inquiries and the responses we get to the end of Cameco says that there are no absolutely guarantee that at the uranium to the Oskarshamn originally comes from Saskatchewan.
Also from other mines around the world uranium is transported to the process in Blind River. During our trip in Canada, several people who worked for many years in upgrading facility in Blind River, says that it is impossible to track all uraniums original source.
Doug Prendercast, who has worked as an informer for Cameco in 7-8 years, says that the uranium that comes to Blind River, and then carried on to countries including Sweden, can come from any country in which Cameco have uranium mines. These countries are, for example, the U.S. and Kazakhstan.
Read more:
Fredrik Loberg
fredrik.loberg@ostran.se
http://www.nyheterna.net/kaernkraftens/the_origin_of_nuclear_power/much_is_at_stake
