Impact Statement Guidelines for a Deep Geological Repository

I am a senior citizen, who grew up on the shores of Lake Superior, lives in Kaministiquia, NW Ontario, and grows organic vegetables for both family and community in soil that we have built up over the last 50 years. I rely on a drilled well for clean drinking water, and share the land with wildlife, including migrating birds. Four of our five children live in Thunder Bay or surrounding area. I am a grandmother, with 14 grandchildren, ranging in age from 3 to 29 years old. The above are my "valued components"- elements of the environment that will be affected by the proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for Nuclear Waste. 

In assessing changes to the environment, and the positive and negative consequences of those changes likely to be caused by the carrying out of the DGR, I urge the Impact Assessment Agency to accept no risk of contamination from leakage of radioactive nuclear waste, from any aspect of the proposed operation: from extraction from the reactor site, to transportation through all the impacted communities across Ontario, to processing waste from the transportation container to a used fuel container, to emplacement in a repository of fractured rock, to long term monitoring and future retrieval of the waste. Instead, contamination from nuclear waste, in our air, water and earth, must be prevented. 

There is no effective way to "clean up a nuclear waste spill". There is no going back; there is no mitigation of adverse effects. They will be with us beyond the foreseeable future, and render the land, air, water uninhabitable for all life forms.  The proposed DGR cannot be treated as an experiment, that we can do over and over again, changing the variables until we "get it right". Any failure to contain the nuclear waste and radiological releases will result in permanent negative effects.

With the goal of preventing radiological releases (not just lowering the risk), the Impact Statement Guidelines must require a detailed description of alternatives to the proposed DGR, such as storing nuclear waste close to where it is produced, in stronger storage containers. Other alternatives are to stop the accumulation of more nuclear waste, and the building of more expensive nuclear plants; eliminating a reliance on nuclear energy and increasing Canada's investment in renewable energy. 

While I do not support the number of resources put into space exploration, I was struck by the sincerity of the crew that recently returned to Earth after circling the moon, and by the perspective they offered from space. Earth, all alone and surrounded by space, was seen by the astronauts as a fragile planet, as all we have. One of the astronauts expressed that we need a "crew" that is united in purpose and vision to prevent our planet was being destroyed. 

I consider the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to be part of our crew. We are counting on the agency to hold high standards, to conduct a rigorous examination of the evidence presented on the impact of a DGR, to select a review panel on the impact statement that is independent from the nuclear industry, and to take the long view when setting requirements to be included in the assessment of the impact of a DGR for nuclear waste in NW Ontario.