NWMO's Nuclear Waste project

Dear Panel,

Please accept my comments on the Nuclear Waste Management Organization's latest project of trucking deadly nuclear waste from nuclear generating stations in southern Ontario and eastern Canada to the NWMO’s the proposed dumping site in the headwaters of the Wabigoon River in northwestern Ontario for 'permanent' storage - WITHOUT including this activity in the FULL IMPACT ASSESSMENT.

It is no secret that uranium and all of its by-products are a deadly risk to all forms of life - wherever or however living organisms come in contact.   We do NOT need nuclear energy for anything!  Increasingly, statistics from the world over show that truly clean, safer,  and less expensive renewable energy sources are overtaking the ongoing myth that nuclear is the solution to our increasing climate crisis.

It is, therefore, irresponsible that this project be carried out at all.  The very idea of sending 2-3 trucks per day for the next fifty years over this 1800 km of mostly two-lane public roads - loaded with radioactive nuclear waste which remains deadly for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years - without including it in the Full Impact Assessment - is preposterous and unspeakably dangerous!  Past schools, hospitals, homes, natural landscapes . . . all at risk of being exposed.

The fundamental question remains:  Why would we intentionally create this deadly 'forever' radioactive situation for hundreds of future generations to face?

I believe that, in her March/April 2010 Watershed Sentinel magazine article, "The Yellow Cake Trail", Anna Tilman said it all:  "Nuclear waste is deadly in minuscule quantities. A single radioactive atom lodged in the lung can cause lung cancer. There is no way to eliminate it, and no way to keep it completely contained for a million years so that no atoms can escape. The only real solution is to not produce it in the first place. The only way to win the nuclear game is to not play it."  -   Anna Tilman was a toxics researcher and a member of the Board of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the absolute necessity of including the transportation of this deadly material in the FULL IMPACT ASSESSMENT of this project.

Elaine Hughes