The Great Canadian Nuclear Waste Saga-volume Three, 1988-1998

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JOYS OF QUÉBEC We e had just arrived at their home in the town of Beebe, in the Eastern Townships of Québec. It was March 15, 1988, and we were on a house hunting expedition. Somewhat tired from the day's journey, which included a six-hour long delayed flight from Winnipeg, and a long drive through a heavy snow storm from Montréal, we looked forward to some relaxation and good conversation that evening. Our friends, John Henderson and Pippa Hall stood by quietly watching, as Phyl and I stared incredulously at the March14 edition of the Sherbrooke Record, which was propped up on their dining table. Plastered across the front page was a story about AECL's plan to construct and operate a ten megawatt SLOWPOKE ("Safe Low Energy Critical Experiment") nuclear reactor at the University Hospital at Sherbrooke, the principal city of the Townships. I quickly scanned the story, which had been leaked to the newspaper, revealing AECL's plan to build the reactor for the stated purpose of heating the hospital. AECL was to own and operate it, and the hospital would pay the heating bill. Most importantly, the reactor, the first of its kind, was planned to serve as a demonstration model, for potential world-wide customers. The ten megawatt reactor would be very different from the demonstration two megawatt version (which we knew was still not up to operating at full-power) at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment at Pinawa, Manitoba. "I don't believe this," and "You've got to be kidding," were but a few (printable!) comments made by the two of us, as we read the lead article. Our activities in Manitoba were well known to some of the environmental and peace activists in the Townships area. We had made contact with them several years earlier during the 1985 controversy over a possible nuclear waste dump in northern Vermont. When some of them heard that we were moving into the area, we were asked to join them in dealing with the new-to-Sherbrooke SLOWPOKE issue. A short time after our arrival into what we had hoped would surely be a relaxed new start in retirement life, Phyl and I were involved in strategy meetings with peace and ecology groups, a meeting with AECL and hospital officials, news conferences and media interviews. To use a Yogi Berra phrase, "It was deja vue all over again." It was as if we had never left Winnipeg. No matter that most of the meetings were in French, a language which we had planned to study, while living in the Townships. People kindly whispered translations to us during the proceedings. Nevertheless, it became clear, very quickly, that our role would be quite different than it had been in Manitoba (particularly for me) --- much more behind the scenes. Since my concern about the so-called SLOWPOKE reactor had already started to grow over the past several years in Winnipeg, it seemed only appropriate to be involved in this new controversy. I recalled when AECL announced it would store its customers' high level

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radioactive SLOWPOKE waste at its Chalk River, Ontario and Pinawa, Manitoba facilities. One of AECL's main objections to Manitoba's new radioactive waste law was that it would prevent(!) the Crown Corporation from fulfilling that objective at Pinawa. I recalled an article in the Lac du Bonnet Leader that confidently predicted that SLOWPOKES could some day replace oil and gas furnaces for home-heating. The more I learned about the new mini-nuke, the less I liked it:

It would use highly-enriched uranium which must be imported from other countries. It would create high-level radioactive waste, which would contain weapons grade plutonium. It would be marketed anywhere in the world. It would operate unattended for periods of time, leaving it vulnerable to those with malicious intent. Furthermore, It would routinely emit radioactive gasses into the environment. Yet, the plan now was to place such a machine in, of all places, a large hospital, where, as is true of anything else designed by humans, accidents could, and did happen. When Phyl and I left Winnipeg, we had put our belongings in storage as we searched for a house in the Townships. As it turned out, we did not find a house we liked before we sold our place in Winnipeg. So, we rented a furnished mobile home in a farming area near Beebe. We brought the essentials for living with us in our camper van which pulled our old 1960s' tent trailer from Winnipeg to the Townships. However, I had packed one box of assorted files on nuclear waste issues in the tent trailer. Now, I am not especially a mystic, but it turned out that one of those files was full of papers on the SLOWPOKE reactor! It contained information which later proved to be very useful in shaping future events. However, it now seemed as if our dream of "peace, quiet and contemplation" in the rolling hills of the Eastern Townships was not to be. [Our histories showed that we were probably never cut out for that kind of a life anyway!] For us, it would be the "Year of the SLOWPOKE."

SLOWPOKE The SLOWPOKE deal between AECL and the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Sherbrooke, (CHUS), was unknown to the general public, until someone leaked the information to the Sherbrooke Record. By now, I had become quite accustomed to AECL's covert approach. Eight years of involvement with the nuclear waste issue repeatedly revealed

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this approach as AECL's modus operandi . Sooner or later, of course, the public does find out, but by that time, AECL has usually succeeded in getting its "ducks" lined up nicely, all in a row. The minutes of a February 16, 1988 meeting between AECL and the Hospital Board of Directors include an AECL quote that ". . . an appropriate strategy produces very little public reaction." [After all, what should one expect from a Crown Corporation which receives much of its revenue from the taxpayer? Openness? Transparency? Ha! ] This time, however, AECL's "appropriate strategy" obviously did not take into account that someone(s) high up within the hospital's staff itself might have more than a few misgivings about the venture and would leak the information to the media. As word spread and citizens became concerned, the nuclear reactor plan quickly became a very public issue. Various peace and environmental groups began to raise questions. The Townships Peace Group asked us to attend a May 2, 1988 meeting at the CHUS with hospital officials, AECL representatives, and persons concerned about the SLOWPOKE project. We were already seated at the board room conference table when the AECL contingent arrived. Several AECL officials present from the Pinawa, Manitoba, Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment (WNRE), were visibly shaken when they saw us there. Of course, they did not know that we had very recently moved from Winnipeg to Québec. "What are you doing here?" asked one of them. "We live here." I retorted. I'll never forget the astonished look on his face. The Robbins, former Concerned Citizens of Manitoba stalwarts, were probably the last two people they wanted to see that morning! They were no doubt unhappy about the presence of others who also were at the meeting, including Gordon Edwards, well known nuclear critic from Montréal, and Max Krell, a local university professor, (and a very concerned nuclear physicist). The hospital officials and AECL reminded me of a group of kids who had just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I imagine that they all realized at that moment, that their "appropriate strategy" might have just gone down the tube! Although "good manners" were observed throughout, it became quite obvious that the citizens' representatives were not going to "buy in" on the proposal. It did not take long for a coalition of peace and environmental groups and other concerned individuals to take shape in the Eastern Townships. The group called itself the "Coalition CHUS" (Continue Hydro, not Uranium for our Safety, or, en franç ais , Continuer l'Hydro non l'Uranium pour notre Sécurité.) I was one of the speakers at the May 19 public meeting at which time it was formed. Using the hospital's own acronym (CHUS) turned out to be a great idea, except for one

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overlooked detail. It seemed to lend support to the Québec Government's insatiable desire to build more hydro-electric megaprojects. The good people working against that possibility, were not amused! However, the coalition kept the "Coalition CHUS" identification as an instantly recognizable symbol to garner public support to oppose the nuclear reactor. After the initial flurry of organizational and media activity, Phyl and I settled into our relatively benign role of "behind the scenes" support to the mostly French speaking Coalition. But I had one more moment in the spotlight, which Phyl provided for me. She had carefully reviewed the contents of the SLOWPOKE file that we had brought with us from Winnipeg, and had found an amazingly frank, and startling statement by John Hillborn, the inventor of the SLOWPOKE reactor, concerning the possibility of nuclear accidents. In a June, 1981 paper he co-authored for the Second Annual Meeting of the Canadian Nuclear Society in Ottawa. (AECL document No. 7438), Hillborn said that, "It is now well known that people will accept frequent, small disasters more readily than rare catastrophes." Airplane crashes were used as an example. The paper continued, "Although we may have to endure the legacy of Three Mile Island for many years, a decentralized system of small reactors which effectively eliminates the possibility of a single big accident may have a significant advantage in licensing, insuring, and gaining public acceptance. "Eventually the public may accept accidents to small reactors to the same extent that they accept fires, explosions, and airplane crashes, as long as the consequences are not obviously worse. It would be unrealistic however, to expect many communities to welcome nuclear reactors within their boundaries until there are severe regional shortages of gas and electricity." On June 22, 1988, I read this statement, without comment, at the Coalition's first press conference. The media jumped on it. The following day the quote was used in the lead editorial in the Sherbrooke Record . Hilborn's statement became one of the Coalition's, and the media's favorite items. It was an excellent example of the fact that one of our most powerful tools against it was AECL's own prose. I was not alone in finding Hilborn's statement to be a chilling one, with its assessment of public reaction to "small" nuclear catastrophes. The 1980s witnessed bitter and protracted conflict and public concern over radioactive spills from discarded medical equipment in scrap yards, radioactive soil in housing developments, radioactive materials dropping from space satellites, and missing quantities of plutonium. [ All "interesting" examples of the careless lack

of monitoring and controls that ought to be in place with these highly hazardous materials.

]

The fact that there is no safe level of radiation is understood by the public. Increasingly, evidence points to negative health effects from the most negligible levels of radiation. And the public has become far more sophisticated about the potential long-term health

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consequences from nuclear radiation in whatever forms and amounts. Even the negative side of natural radiation has become more evident. There is nothing to suggest that the public will, in Hilborn's terms, easily accept "small" nuclear disasters. Coalition CHUS continued to raise questions about the safety of the reactor. An exchange of correspondence between an official of Canada's Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) and myself, revealed that the so-called "nuclear regulators" had no(!) safety information on the reactor. Their October 5, 1988 letter to me stated that "It is likely that the 10-mw reactor will be significantly different from the (2-mw) SDR." The letter also noted that "At this time the AECB does not have any detailed design information on the proposed 10-mw installation." Not only was the 10-megawatt SLOWPOKE an "experiment" in the true sense of the word, even its supposed prototype 2-mw version, at the WNRE, was still in its embryonic stages. AECB had reviewed that reactor and requested that AECL take a number of significant steps to improve its safety. As the SLOWPOKE issue developed and the Coalition CHUS quickly grew during the Summer and Autumn of 1988, Phyl and I continued to provide advice, moral support, assistance in developing letters and fact sheets and even some opportunities for entertainment. In July, we had moved into a century-old Victorian house in the town of Waterville, about 10 miles south of Sherbrooke. We decided to hold a combined fund-raiser/ housewarming party. As I chewed on my fingernails, that big old house passed the structural engineering test when at least fifty people decided to step-dance to the music of the "fiddles and the banjos" We didn't raise much money, but a good time was had by all! I was absolutely astounded at the energy and the effectiveness of the anti-SLOWPOKE coalition. Something was happening all the time. Meetings, mailings, radio and TV coverage, debates, button and t-shirts sales --- just about every legitimate, democratic, non-violent form of protest and expression was taking place. The t-shirts were an instant success: someone came up with the notion of using one word "Tcherbrooke," printed in yellow, on a dark green shirt. The colors were the official colors of the City of Sherbrooke. The word was a clever play on the word Chernobyl, which, en français is "Tchernobyl." The shirts sold out, almost immediately, and again, after a second run was printed. For years after, a wearer was almost assured of a nod of recognition and a grin of approval, from local residents. By October, 1988, the movement had acquired a life of its own. There were so many media events, activities, and speakers' appearances going on that it was difficult just to keep track of all. As Coalition CHUS rapidly expanded, Phyl and I continued to supply information and ideas. For example, in one of her fact sheets Phyl included information about AECL's own stated policy of excluding pregnant women and small children from tours and open houses at

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the WNRE, which contained the 2 megawatt "prototype" of the SLOWPOKE. Pregnant women and small children visit the CHUS every day for medical treatment. Would not a ten megawatt reactor at the hospital provide at least equal, if not greater risk? The point was not lost on the nurses at the hospital. Their union passed a unanimous resolution opposing the reactor, declaring it a public health risk. By November, 1988, coalition support was estimated at twenty-five thousand, with almost ten organizations a week joining our forces. Much of the opposition came from the hospital staff itself. Politicians were falling over themselves to come onside. The handwriting on the wall was writ large and clear. On December 20, 1988, we received the best Christmas present of all: the hospital Board of Directors announced its withdrawal from the SLOWPOKE project, a decision taken in spite of AECL's initial offer to absorb the five-to-seven million-dollar capital cost. Coalition CHUS had done its work well. AECL folded its tents and left Sherbrooke. It had lost another round in its struggle to market its mini-nuke. The Sherbrooke rebuff was not the first. There had been earlier unsuccessful attempts to market its nuclear heating system in such places as the Northwest Territories (NWT) and Fort Nelson, BC. AECL's public relations and sales forces had again failed to convince any community that they had invented the near-perfect nuclear heating machine; one which they promoted as being completely safe, and which would operate in the midst of a populated area without negative consequences, for at long as 30 years -- - even though the design of the reactor had

not yet been finalized! Undaunted, the federal Crown Corporation continued to seek a location for a full-scale demonstration SLOWPOKE to enhance the reactor's credibility in the eyes of potential foreign customers. But no one was buying. After two more failed attempts (one at a G.E. plant in Peterborough, Ontario, and another lengthy one at the University of Saskatchewan), the marketing project stalled. A few years later, the two megawatt "prototype" at WNRE (which had never operated at full strength) was shut down. By November 1991, and forty-five million dollars later, the entire SLOWPOKE project was consigned to oblivion. But, in December, 1988, the coalition's victory in Sherbrooke was sweet indeed, and roundly celebrated. Elation would be too mild a word to describe the emotions of everyone who was involved with the issue. Much of the Coalition CHUS dissolved after that. But a few of the groups decided to continue monitoring nuclear and other environmental issues. They used the French name "Coalition pour la Surveillance du Nucleaire, which in English became the simple "COSUN" (pronounced "co-sun"). This new coalition turned its attention to such issues as the nuclear reactors in Québec and, of course, high-level nuclear waste developments. I mused over the stark difference between the SLOWPOKE battle in Québec and the

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high-level nuclear waste controversy centered in Manitoba. The battle was all over in Québec in about nine months, whereas it had taken over six years of continuous pressure to achieve anti-nuclear dump legislation in Manitoba. One reason for this was fairly obvious. In Sherbrooke, people were dealing with a specific location and site. The perceived threat was tangible; a reactor in a hospital. In Manitoba, the public could not get very excited about the somewhat vague notion of research into the assessment of a nuclear waste disposal concept. The difference between a "concept" and a "site," when it comes to things nuclear, is profound! The SLOWPOKE issue was initiated by a leaked document to the media. But it was not to be the only leaked document that caused controversy during that rather frenetic year of 1988.

SPY CAPER In the midst of all the SLOWPOKE turmoil, another nuclear "bombshell" was dropped on us. On July 16, 1988, we learned that an AECL "confidential" document, along with several other papers, had been leaked, in plain brown wrappers, to, at least four environmental groups in Canada. In a forty-three page report, twenty Canadian environmental groups known for their criticism of the nuclear establishment were listed, complete with documentation on their internal organization, membership, budgets, and, in some cases, personal history data on key individuals. More importantly, each write-up also included an assessment, including:

each organization's strengths, weaknesses, its threats to AECL, and

"opportunities" for AECL to deal with the perceived threats(!)

. Italics added

The document was marked "Copyright, 1987 by Ridley Research Group, Toronto." The Sherbrooke Coalition CHUS was much too new to be included in the AECL strategy document. Concerned Citizens of Manitoba (CCM), on the other hand, was included along with personal history data on yours truly, and my activities with the group. I recalled that sometime during the latter part of October 1987, while still in Winnipeg, I had engaged in a long phone call with a man who identified himself as a free-lance reporter working on a story for Harrowsmith Magazine. Knowing that Harrowsmith ran articles on the nuclear waste issue, I had no reason to believe that the call was not authentic. He asked many questions about CCM as well as about my own background. When I read the leaked AECL document, I realized that most of the information in it must have come

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from that phone call. However, the sections on "Threats to AECL," and "Opportunities for AECL," were apparently an analysis provided by the Ridley Research Group. CCM's strengths were identified as "Good at organization and has track record in developing high profile publicity," and "CCM knows how to influence governments." Its main weakness was that the "future of the organization is in question." As for "opportunities for AECL," the document considered that AECL could address CCM's "serious concerns inherent in the unattended operation of SLOWPOKE." CCM's concerns over whether Bill 28 would stand the test of constitutionality, were mentioned also under this section of the write-up. Many of the other environmental groups had also given information to a "free-lance journalist" about their activities. It was nasty enough that someone under contract to AECL had misrepresented himself in order to acquire information about environmental groups. It was even worse that some of the information could only have been obtained through covert means. For example, the Toronto -based Energy Probe group reported that the leaked document contained information that was never publicly divulged, such as projected meetings, future press conferences, and data from unpublished studies . Energy Probe said that some of the information could only have been acquired "through surreptitious means of some kind." Environmentalists across Canada expressed anger and outrage that AECL, a publicly-funded Government of Canada agency, would engage in what amounted to a covert intelligence-gathering operation, the objective of which was to design strategies to silence its critics. On July 18, 1988, simultaneous news conferences were held by environmental groups across Canada, including one by our new coalition in the Quebec Eastern Townships. The Canadian public quickly became aware of what had happened. On July 19 th and 20 th , newspapers across Canada gave the story plenty of news and editorial coverage. The July 20 th , 1988 Winnipeg Free Press editorial mentioned the fact that "One of Ridley's suggestions, which AECL circulated, was creation of a fake environmental group controlled by AECL, which could join the (Canadian Environmental) network and find out what the environmental people are saying about AECL."

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The editorial concluded that "AECL's worst problem is that its management is not too bright. That was once a state secret but is now common knowledge." That was a rather astonishing comment from a diehard media supporter of the agency, but I would have liked to read something further about AECL's sense of ethics! During the press conference in Sherbrooke, I made some strong statements about AECL's lack of ethical behavior and said that I believed my civil liberties and individual right of privacy had been violated. In a protest letter of August 1, 1988 to Marcel Masse, Federal Energy Minister, I pointed out that the data collected about CCM and myself was done without my knowledge or my consent. I asked that the Minister provide me with the originals and copies of any files in AECL's possession that pertain to me. I also asked for an apology for the incident. I concluded my letter by saying that "…AECL has the right to publicly disagree with its critics, which it does --frequently. But it does not have the right through secret or covert activities to gather information about its critics and to design strategies of reprisal, intimidation and infiltration." In his October 18, 1988 letter to me, the Minister referred to the results of an investigation conducted by AECL senior management which concluded that the idea of infiltrating various anti-nuclear groups was "totally unacceptable." The letter did not address the specific points I raised about violation of individual rights or the propriety of collecting information in such a reprehensible manner. And, of course, the letter contained no apology. One of the documents also leaked to the environmental groups, was a 1987 Canadian Nuclear Association public education and communication strategy report which outlined a plan to associate nuclear energy with the medical technology side of the industry. In the words of this document, "Making people more aware of the medical technology side of the industry will help soften the hard image the industry currently has and will help raise the stature and credibility of the industry as a whole. "The tactic should be to encourage people to associate the nuclear industry and the term 'nuclear,' itself, with the positive, progressive, warm, sensitive quality of life overtones associated with the medical technology side of the industry." [Being a fiddler, I could have supplied appropriate background music to that statement. Such prose was enough to bring tears to the most hardened! ] It was clear that the attempt at placement of the SLOWPOKE reactor in the University Hospital at Sherbrooke was part of this strategy. Potential foreign customers for AECL's "mini-nuke" would obviously have been impressed with the fact that Canada considered it safe enough to put into a large hospital.

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And the medical uses of the mini nuclear heating machine (for isotopes) would certainly have fit with the Canadian Nuclear Association's attempt to improve the image of the nuclear industry. To me, the strategy is simply one more indication of the last gasps of a dying industry, (were it not propped up on life-support systems by the Canadian taxpayer). Attempting to associate huge nuclear power stations and potential underground nuclear waste dumps on the one hand, with medical uses of radioisotopes on the other, are, at the very least, misleading. CCM and all the other nuclear watchdog groups have always gone out of the way to exempt medical uses of radiation from their critiques of the nuclear industry. [Having said that, I hope and trust that some day, medical science will develop more "user friendly" therapies to deal with serious medical problems .] While the SLOWPOKE and "spy caper" dominated my retirement activities in 1988, I had not forgotten about the emerging environmental assessment of AECL's underground nuclear waste burial concept. The powers that be in Ottawa and Pinawa were busy putting the final fine touches on a process that could decide the fate of some of the most radioactive and toxic substances ever produced by the human race.

"EARP!" "Excuse Me!" On June 23, 1988, Federal Energy Minister, Marcel Masse announced that he had taken the first step in initiating an environmental review of nuclear fuel waste management issues, including a specific review of AECL's geologic disposal concept. I reflected on the many agonizing years that CCM had spent simply trying to get a public airing of the AECL underground nuclear waste project at Lac du Bonnet. Now Mr. Masse, referred the matter to the Environment Minister, who would use his Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office (FEARO) for the process. From 1980 on, CCM had been told by AECL and the Federal Government that the Lac du Bonnet project was "minuscule," and did not warrant the open public hearings that we frequently requested. Now, after eight years, and much sweat and tears, the project had become the focus of what the Minister later termed as "one of the most important environmental assessments ever undertaken in this country . . . (the results) will provide an essential foundation for future decisions on energy policy." In a Summer 1988 article published in the Saskatchewan periodical, NeWest Review, I described some common pitfalls found in public participation programs. One reason why these kinds of programs fail, as noted by social science researchers, is the scheduling of hearings as late as possible(!) in the planning process. The contemplated use of the Federal Environmental Review Process (known then as the Environmental Assessment Review Process or, " EARP " --- which caused many a bad pun), on the AECL underground nuclear waste concept, is, in my view, a classic example of this " as late as possible " problem. 10 of 52

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The AECL concept was conceived in the late 1970s. Ten years passed before the issue would be aired in an open government-run forum. During that time, enormous vested interests had developed, pre-judgements of the success of the research were not uncommon, and millions of taxpayers' dollars had been spent. Under the circumstances, it was very difficult not to be cynical about the upcoming EARP process. My guess was that this would not really be a "public" inquiry in the true sense of the word, but rather a forum for special interest groups, pro and con, on the nuclear waste issue. Hope for a real "peoples'" hearing, with objective airings of the issues involved (the kind we envisioned in 1980) had all but vanished. As the EARP process began to unfold, my cynicism grew. On December 8, 1987 I attended a FEARO public consultation meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Winnipeg. The purpose of that meeting was to exchange some ideas with FEARO officials, about proposed changes in the federal legislation for the environmental assessment process. When I walked into the conference room, it was obvious that there was another agenda as well. The meeting was dominated by AECL, which had sent four principal staff members to participate. Clearly AECL had more than a passing interest in the EARP process. Marcel Masse's announcement in June 1988 came as no big surprise. We awaited further information. The September 23, 1988 letter of referral from Mr. Masse to Environment Minister Tom McMillan provided some detail about the upcoming EARP. He stated that ". . . a Federal Environmental Assessment Panel should be formed to examine publicly the broad range of issues." He also recommended that the Panel establish a Scientific Review Group (SRG) to ". . .facilitate evaluation of the scientific and technical matters. (That group should be composed of) ". . . eminent, independent experts . . . (Its purpose would be to) ". . . conduct specific in-depth examinations of the safety and acceptability of the concept of disposal in granite rock formations of the Canadian Shield." More than a year passed from the time the nuclear waste EARP was first announced by Marcel Masse, and the actual establishment of the Panel. A new Progressive Conservative (PC) Government replaced the Liberals in Ottawa. Jake Epp, MP, the stalwart nuclear establishment proponent from eastern Manitoba became the new Energy Minister, and Québec's Lucien Bouchard was appointed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to the Environment portfolio. Bouchard announced the establishment of the nuclear waste EARP Panel on October 4, 1989. With the possible exception of one or two appointees, the composition of the Panel did little to alleviate my cynicism and apprehension about the upcoming hearings. The backgrounds of the Panel members included such fields as health physics, biology, engineering, religion and aboriginal concerns. 11 of 52

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A Panel Secretariat was established and it began conducting interviews to aid in the selection of the Scientific Review Group (SRG).Since, over the years, by its use of contractual arrangements, AECL had virtually "cornered the market" on technical expertise, especially in the geo-sciences, I had serious doubts about the formation of any group of so-called "eminent, independent experts." [Phyl and I often resorted to gallows humor in these kinds of situations, and went so far as

to invent our own fictitious group of scientific advisors for the Panel. They included such prestigious characters as: Iban Boughtov, Phd, Physics Department, University of Manitoba; Ima Token, M.A., Department of Domestic Sanitary Engineering, Western Technical Institute for Agricultural Studies, North LaRonge, Sask.; and Roche de Pierre, Phd, Chef, bloc des rivieres, Baie James, Québec. In-jokes, such as these, made this otherwise gloomy issue, barely tolerable. I particularly liked Phyl's "Ima Token," character, since AECL had so few women involved in its project. But few others appreciated our quips! ] The EARP got off to a rather dismal start with our COSUN group and the other concerned organizations across Canada. A major controversy developed over the scope (i.e. terms of reference ) of the inquiry. At the outset, it was made clear that the EARP would be restricted to consideration of nuclear waste management issues only, and principally, the AECL concept for underground burial. The broader and most critical issue of what to do about the actual production of future nuclear waste would not be included. Inclusion of concerns about the future of Canadian energy policy was absolutely verboten! These exclusions were explicit; so much so that FEARO officials joked that the Panel members would push a button which would drop people through a trap door to oblivion if they should perchance stray from the path of the inquiry. This kind of "rigging" of the terms of reference was not uncommon. Another reason given by social science researchers for the failure of public participation programs (mentioned in my NeWest Review article), was that they often exclude many of the main concerns of the people. (It would be another ten years before this critical problem with federal environmental assessment processes would finally become a major issue in the public arena. As reported in the July 11, 1998 edition of the Globe and Mail , a Federal Court judge declared that an environmental assessment of a bridge construction in Alberta was deficient because it was, essentially too narrow (not the bridge --- the assessment!) It did not take into account ". . .

the cumulative environmental effects from the project." It was becoming painfully evident to me that the nuclear waste EARP was likely to include most, if not all of the "no-no's" identified by social science research over previous decades for the conduct of public participation programs. It was then that I started thinking about the legal implications of these kinds of maneuvers.

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Initially, the inquiry was to be restricted geographically as well. Only the nuclear energy producing provinces would participate, (i.e., Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick). That decision was changed later when both Manitoba and Saskatchewan requested that they be added to the EARP. Both provinces had significant interest in matters nuclear, (Manitoba with the underground research, and Saskatchewan with the uranium mining industry). Questions surrounding the EARP's terms of reference became a hot topic for discussion among environmental groups. Happily, collaboration among these groups had become much easier as a result of new communication technology. The advent of the EARP coincided nicely with the development of a non-profit Canada-wide telecommunications network (known as " The Web ") designed primarily for non-governmental social and environmental groups. By the Fall of 1989, various organizations concerned with the EARP quickly began to network using the e-mail and conferencing system. The Web provided the various groups and individuals the opportunity to share information and even to strategize together in a very rapid and effective manner. Giving and receiving quick feedback, inexpensively, became possible for the first time. A significant outgrowth of this collaboration was the establishment of a "Nuclear Waste Group," which, for "rations and quarters" was attached to the Canadian Environmental Network (CEN) Energy Caucus. Many of these same groups and people had already been targeted by AECL in its covert data collection effort designed to deal with its opponents. [Our early efforts to use computer technology were both amusing and frustrating. Some

weird and wonderful indecipherable hieroglyphics would periodically appear on the computer screen, along with almost audible(!) groans of "I wish I could figure out this (blankety-blank) machine!"] The controversy over the scope of the inquiry lingered into the Spring and Summer of 1989. Brennain Lloyd of Ontario's Northwatch environmental group described this issue well in one of her e-mail messages:

" Public interest groups requested meetings and opportunities to discuss the terms of reference in advance of their formulation and release, and were refused; They submitted "draft" terms of reference, and were ignored. The terms of reference for the eventual Federal Environmental Assessment and Review, designed and delivered without opportunities for public input, were restrictive in the extreme, and have been subject to much and repeated criticism since their release." The Nuclear Waste Group had hoped to convince the Government to broaden the terms of reference, and during the Spring of 1989 repeatedly requested a meeting with both the Federal Ministers of Energy and Environment (Epp and Bouchard). It took months of letters, requests and delays before that meeting was actually held, on October 26, 1989. By that time, the final version of the terms of reference for the EARP had already been established and published!

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The idea for the meeting with the ministers about the terms of reference, came out of a meeting of some members of the Nuclear Waste Group in Montréal on January 4, 1989. It was held at the rectory beside the burned-out hulk of the Unitarian Church of Montréal. That was one of the coldest days I have ever experienced. The wind whipped around the tall buildings with a bite that surpassed anything I had ever experienced, including a nine month tour of duty on Baffin Island with the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1946, and nearly eighteen winters of residence in Manitoba. Phyl and I attended the resulting meeting with Messieurs Epp and Bouchard. We had previously arranged that each environmental group present would raise one or more specific concerns. The time was divided between nuclear waste issues, and other environmental concerns. I was representing COSUN and my statement and questions dealt with data from a new AECL public opinion poll, which revealed that over eighty percent (!) of Canadians opposed the idea of burying high-level nuclear waste. That information did not seem to make a dent in Jake Epp's nuclear armor. Not surprisingly, Jake Epp expressed little sympathy and a good deal of impatience with the questions and statements raised by the participants. Bouchard looked as if he would much rather be somewhere else. He seemed bored with the whole thing; that is, until the list of other environmental topics to be discussed was revealed. It included the proposed Great Whale project at James Bay, in Northern Québec. Bouchard nearly leaped out of his skin and imperiously demanded to know why that item was on the list for discussion. Great Whale, he said, was the business of Québec, and Québec alone. The Federal Government had nothing to do with it. It was obvious that the best way to get Bouchard's attention was to mention the word "Québec." [ Little did I suspect at the

time that he would eventually become the Premier of Québec and the leader of its movement to separate from Canada. ] But, since the EARP terms of reference had already been published, the meeting with Epp and Bouchard was essentially a waste of time. A year later, 1990, the Great Whale project had escalated into a major international controversy. The indigenous people in northern Québec were overwhelmingly opposed to the dam project with its potential for massive destruction of their traditional hunting and fishing grounds. Opposition grew to the point where the Québec government had little recourse but to indefinitely suspend the project. It became a pocketbook issue for the Province, when some of the Northeastern States started making noises about not going through with proposed electric power import deals. Again, the new telecommunications network served as a major tool. During 1990, from the comfort of the office in my home, I was able to provide various environmental groups in New England with information they needed, such as the time and location of various meetings in Québec, and the location of some of the people in the Province who were directly involved in the effort to stop Great Whale.

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[Apart from our environmental efforts, our proximity to New England was really great for us.

We were less than a day's drive from the Maine Coast and the beautiful Mt. Desert Island ] that we had first visited during the 1960s while living in the Washington area. While Phyl and I waited for more information about the events, timetables, and other details of the forthcoming environmental assessment, we continued to try to put down some roots in the Québec Eastern Townships, including daily French lessons at the adult education center in Sherbrooke, informal music sessions, and our usual activities of writing, gardening, traveling, music and visits with our children and grandchildren. On May 3, 1990, FEARO announced that the first series of public events would be held over the following several months. It was time to get "fired up" once more for the next episode of the seemingly never-ending, nuclear waste story!

Open House On May 3, 1990, The Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office, (FEARO) announced that public "open houses" on the nuclear fuel waste management and burial concept, would be held during May and June 1990 in cities in the five provinces selected for the environmental assessment review process (EARP). In Québec, these meetings would take place in Québec City, Montréal and Trois Rivières. FEARO said it intended to use these events as an opportunity to outline the terms and conditions of the nuclear waste review. At last, the Environmental Assessment Review (EARP) Panel was moving the process into the public arena. It was also announced that Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. (AECL) staff would provide promotional displays and literature. Our COSUN group was infuriated by the fact that FEARO was giving AECL an exclusive forum in which to further promote its underground nuclear waste concept. AECL had already spent enough time and tax dollars trying to convince an increasingly skeptical public about the "merits" of its plans to permanently bury its lethal radioactive garbage. COSUN quickly challenged FEARO's plan and requested that organizations other than AECL be permitted to provide information at the open houses. The Québec City open house was scheduled for May 28, 1990 at Loews' Le Concorde Hotel. Phyl and I were attending a three week-long Elderhostel program at Laval University, which was devoted to French language skills training. Our plans were to skip class that day and show up at the open house with a box of COSUN literature. One of our COSUN cohorts, Natalie Beaulieu (fluently bilingual, and with a degree in geological engineering) came up from Sherbrooke to help us. Upon our arrival, we were told that FEARO would not allow us to set up a table in the meeting room for COSUN literature. So, the three of us "button-holed" everyone who came near, and handed them our fact-sheets and pamphlets.

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As it turned out, the two sessions in Québec City that day, produced a total of only six (!) members of the public, so our job was easy. Most of the time we sat around shooting the breeze with AECL and FEARO staff. FEARO had run small ( very small) advertisements for the open houses in newspapers across the country, but it was clear that if they were really serious about significant public response and participation (which I doubted) they would have to do a lot more than that! The Province of Québec did send two observers to the open house. We had already learned that the Québec Government had decided not to actively participate in the EARP. Although Québec's Gentilly II reactor continued to produce high-level nuclear waste, the Province was opposed to the idea of hosting a repository. I presume the reasoning was that non-participation in the process would underscore its position. Québec was keenly looking out for its own interests. In this case, I was delighted it was! But I was not sure that a boycott was the best strategy. The Spring, 1990 open houses were the prelude to the next set of public events called "scoping" meetings. These meetings were for the purpose of assisting the Panel in developing guidelines for AECL, as the proponent. AECL would then use these guidelines to formulate an environmental impact statement (EIS). FEARO explained that the meetings would also provide an opportunity for scientists, interest groups, government agencies and the general public to identify and prioritize concerns and issues related to the safety and acceptability of the AECL concept, including the social, economic and environmental implications of a possible nuclear fuel waste management facility. The advent of the scoping sessions brought the issue of intervener funding to a head. Earlier, FEARO had announced that funding would be available for groups and individuals to assist them in developing their presentations and submissions to the Panel. As the proponent, AECL was required to provide these funds, but the amounts were pitifully small, especially when judged against AECL's own public relations expenditures, the costs of the underground burial concept, and possible future nuclear waste dumps. Only two hundred thousand dollars were to be provided for the scoping sessions and five hundred thousand for the entire remaining environmental assessment. Environmental groups were outraged. Some of them calculated that the amounts needed to do a credible job should be up in the "low millions," and that the two hundred thousand dollars was little more than "seed money" for any significant interventions in the five provinces selected for the EARP. They were probably right. It would certainly cost a lot of money to hire the kinds of expertise needed to do a reasonable analysis and evaluation of the AECL concept. And that was only one of the many potential high cost items. This was one more indication that the EARP was off on the wrong foot. Inadequate intervener funding was another of the reasons cited in social science research as to why these kinds of public participation efforts frequently fail.

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However, COSUN, along with many environmental groups across Canada, submitted budgets to FEARO, in hopes of getting at least a sliver of the small pie. On August 27, 1990, COSUN presented a detailed budget request for fifty-one thousand dollars to do a proper scoping study for the Panel on legislative, regulatory and institutional issues related to nuclear waste management. As it turned out, COSUN received the munificent amount of one thousand dollars "…to assist in the preparation for and participation in the environmental assessment review of the Nuclear Fuel Waste Management and Disposal concept." Along with COSUN, most environmental groups received but a fraction of the amounts they requested. The "pittance" provided to the environmentalists was not the only departure from the principles of sound public participation. Timing was another. Prospective interveners were given only a few short months(!) to develop their budgets, and to actually complete their submissions in time for the Autumn 1990 scoping sessions. Increasingly, the word "boycott" entered into our on-line discussions about the EARP. Frustrations over the narrow terms of reference, inadequate intervener funding, timing problems (i.e., "hurry up and wait") mounted to the point that on the 19 th of October, 1990, Greenpeace Canada announced it would no longer participate in the EARP. In its press release, Greenpeace said that "These hearings are a propaganda exercise. They are meant to create the impression that there is a long term solution for disposing of thousands of tonnes of toxic radioactive waste. There isn't." FEARO's scoping schedule included a morning and an afternoon session in Montréal, on November 16, 1990, at Le Nouvel Hotel. COSUN chose the afternoon session to make its presentation to the Panel. Without doubt, however, the best presentation made that day, was from the "Raging Grannies," a group of elderly women appearing in outlandish costumes to sing songs and read poems. Their humor evoked the only real laughter during an otherwise deadly afternoon of presentations and discussions on a deadly subject. Their refreshing approach put the whole questionable enterprise of permanent nuclear waste "disposal" into some human perspective. The Raging Grannies were not the only ones to use a little humor at scoping meetings. Referring to AECL's "outhouse technology," the Concerned Citizens of Manitoba graphically illustrated the basic concept on which AECL had spent ten years and three hundred million dollars. At the Winnipeg meeting, they displayed an eight-foot tall outhouse into which simulated nuclear waste was unceremoniously deposited. As "the assistant" in full radioactive-protective garb poured the waste down the hole a "scientist" with a pointer illustrated the following main points;

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1.Put the waste in the hole. 2.Cover it up. 3.Walk away. Not too surprisingly, the red simulation liquid then leaked out from under the "shaft!" Alas, my own presentation to the Montréal meeting, for COSUN, was not only sober and serious, but made worse by a mean attack of sinusitis. After chiding the Panel about the EARP's narrow terms of reference, timing problems, etc., I provided some background information about COSUN's remarkable effort to block the Slowpoke reactor as well as its successful intervention (in an earlier incarnation) in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear waste dump siting episode in northern Vermont. On that point, I could hardly resist reminding Panel members that the Government of Canada itself had then expressed grave misgivings about underground repositories situated in watersheds draining into Canada . I raised the question with the Panel: "Did not the Government of Canada effectively reject the concept of underground burial of high-level nuclear waste in Cambrian Shield rock, when, in 1986 it successfully engaged in diplomatic efforts to prevent the U.S. Government from characterizing and conducting research in Cambrian Shield rock in a number of northern States? Has not our Government already said that it has no faith in such an undertaking?" Obviously, the Panel was not impressed with this argument, as it never responded to it. Nor did the Panel ever respond to my contention that AECL's concept assessment lacked legal legitimacy; that it was not sanctioned by any specific Act of the Canadian Parliament. It was purely an administrative device. In the absence of legislation, AECL simply made up its own rules, and changed them whenever it wished to do so. I also made a strong point about AECL's institutional lack of credibility in light of growing negative public opinion about the underground burial concept, as reflected in the Crown corporation's own commissioned polls. This point, I believe, did seem to resonate with some of the Panel members. However, the most significant point I raised concerned the propriety of using the Federal environmental review process to assess a so-called "concept" in the absence of an actual physical site. My own research into official government documents underlying the Federal process, revealed requirements that a Panel must hear from people affected by the proposal, particularly those who live near ". . . the proposed site." Since there was no "proposed site," how could the Panel hear from these "non-existent people?"

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A year later, the Panel did write and release draft Guidelines for the EARP which attempted to deal with the incredible ambiguities of conducting an environmental assessment of an idea or a concept, in the absence of a site. Some of the language in the Guidelines made me think of a wry slogan on a plaque which I have had for years. It reads: ESCHEW OBFUSCATION . The Guidelines certainly left out the " ESCHEW " part! During the early 1990s, I wrote several articles about the Canadian nuclear waste situation for the Nevada-based Citizen Alert newsletter. In the Fall of 1991, in one of the articles, referring to the "prose" in the Panel's draft EIS Guidelines, I aired the question: "How do you write guidelines for an environmental impact statement, in the absence of an actual physical environment? With great difficulty! For example, bend your mind around this paragraph under the heading ' Impacts on the Natural Environment. ' "The study strategy should use an ecological scoping process to incorporate a conceptual outline of the project within an ecological setting, and should evaluate the impacts of the Concept on the ecological habitats structure and function of the receiving environment. This conceptualization must explore the linkages between the Concept and ecosystem components through cause and effect relationships. . . " "Clear as mud, eh?"" Was there a legal question here? Did the Government have the legal right to embark on an environmental assessment of this generic concept for the burial of nuclear waste? Were there other legal issues in this EARP that should be explored? I decided to try to find out!

SUE 'EM? YOU'RE KIDDING! In the early 1980's, CCM's attempts to stop AECL with legal maneuvering got nowhere. Although Legal Aid Manitoba thought we might have a case over the use of the leased Crown land, the Provincial Government's Attorney General clearly did not want to challenge AECL's formidable power. CCM itself lacked the financial resources required for a credible legal challenge of its own. Some of the environmental groups began voicing the idea of a possible legal challenge to the nuclear waste EARP as early as the Fall of 1989. Much of this initial sabre-rattling was part of an angry reaction to the narrow scope of the inquiry established by the Federal Energy Minister, Jake Epp. My sour experience with legal approaches in Manitoba, should have taught me to emulate the philosophy of the legendary Robert Hutchins, Chancellor of the University of Chicago, during the 1940-50s. On the subject of physical exercise, Hutchins is alleged to have said "Whenever the urge comes over me, I lie down until it passes."

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Perhaps it was my American background, where the ethic seems to be " sue 'em now, and talk later " that motivated me, once again, to charge into the realm of the lawyers during the Autumn of 1990. While ambulance-chasing is definitely not my hobby, I have always been impressed with the results American activists and state governments have achieved using the court system when dealing with the nuclear waste issue. Finding friendly and interested lawyers was surprisingly easy, (much easier then finding friendly geo-scientists!). There were already several lawyers associated with the Canadian Environmental Network's Energy Caucus Nuclear Waste Group. Two of them, Peter Weldon, of COSUN, and Lloyd Greenspoon, of the Algoma-Manitoulan Nuclear Awareness Group (AMNA), were criminal lawyers. They were very valuable resources, and, while I personally viewed the whole nuclear waste burial concept as a sort of a "crime," the need for some specific administrative law background was evident. Four such lawyers emerged in rapid succession. An Ottawa lawyer, Paul Shuttle, produced a paper with an astounding array of possible legal strategies and bases for a challenge of the EARP. Long time friend, John Henderson, an administrative lawyer, was quite interested in the nuclear waste issue and spent some of his own time developing several very creative legal arguments. David Poch, while up to his ears in a legal challenge to the Canadian nuclear liability law, for Energy Probe, took time to critique some of the various legal strategies and issues being advanced. And, I discovered that Ian Lawson, of the Public Interest Advocacy Center (PIAC), in Ottawa, was very interested in the legal aspects of the nuclear waste EARP. After some internal discussions, PIAC agreed to take on COSUN as a client (at no cost to COSUN) and to do some of the legal research. My role became one of an ad hoc coordinator and information conduit between the various lawyers. I did not always fully understand their legal jargon, but was delighted that these lawyers were "on the case." The lawyers entertained and discussed a host of possible legal issues, including some related to the Canadian Charter of Rights. The main legal point which initially emerged from the discussions was the propriety of using the EARP for the nuclear waste concept, in the absence of a specific site. COSUN's scoping presentation to the Panel had questioned the use of an environmental assessment on a generic concept in the absence of a real environment, (i.e., a specific nuclear waste dump site). We pointed out that the EARP guidelines and procedures clearly assumed an actual physical environment. In his May 23, 1991 letter, PIAC's Lawson wrote to COSUN, that "If there is one complaint in common with most participants in the process so far (and also with those groups currently boycotting the EARP), it is that there is no site which is the subject of the review. This is an EARP of a concept, not a proposal with identifiable and quantifiable environmental impacts."

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By July, 1991, after consultation with the other lawyers, Lawson had developed a detailed, two-pronged legal strategy surrounding the issue of using the EARP for a concept. As the discussions between the lawyers progressed, I became downright giddy at the thought of the possibility of some judge telling the Government of Canada that AECL's proposal for an environmental assessment lacked legality! In my view, there was no other way to stop this ridiculous EARP. Alas, it was not to be! History repeated itself. The case was not pursued. With few exceptions, the larger organizations in the nuclear waste group rejected the idea. My old friends at CCM endorsed it at a meeting in October, 1991 and even offered a few hundred dollars to help cover court costs, etc. In retrospect, I think there were two reasons for the reluctance to pursue the legal avenue:

In the first place , some of the environmentalists, including the Canadian Environmental Law Association, were very uncomfortable with a challenge based on the conceptual nature of the nuclear waste EARP. These groups wanted to deal with potential environmental problems as early as possible, especially while they were in the proposal or planning stage. They were concerned that a successful legal challenge of a concept-based assessment would set a bad precedent. Our lawyers thought that they could get around this problem by demonstrating that this particular "concept," (like no other), was so inexorably dependent on the characteristics of a particular site, that it could not be assessed in the absence of a site. However, the biggest hurdle to the legal challenge was fear of the costs which might be involved, as a "worst case scenario." As the lawyers began to calculate the possible court costs, the estimates kept rising, up to one hundred thousand dollars. As well, if we lost the case, the Court could require us to pay the "court costs" incurred by the Government. I thought we might try to get some of the EARP intervener funding channeled into a court challenge, but FEARO was alert to such "chutzpah." Their funding guidelines restricted the use of lawyers to advisory roles only. There was absolutely no point in COSUN, CCM and a few other small groups undertaking a legal challenge of this importance and magnitude. Even if the money were available, a commitment by most, if not all of the nuclear watchdog organizations in Canada, would be essential to provide the needed credibility. By 1994, the idea of a legal challenge had taken a back seat to involvement in the EARP process itself. I put the idea on the back burner. My final attempt to persuade the nuclear waste group to go the legal route took place at a meeting on January 28, 1996, sponsored by the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP). Again, my initiative was inspired by more rumblings from within the nuclear waste group about FEARO's handling of the EARP. I presented a paper to the group which I prepared after consultation with my lawyer friend from the Eastern Townships --- John Henderson. It contained some very ingenious strategies including reference to recent environmental law precedents. We thought we could prove that

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the Panel was not even following its own Guidelines. Once again, I encountered considerable resistance, especially from the more influential individuals and organizations within the nuclear waste group. One, to our great astonishment, considering all the legal opinions and arguments gathered, even challenged the idea on the grounds that "the Panel has not broken any laws"! At that moment, I vowed I would not waste any more of my time and energy on the legal approach to the nuclear waste issue; a decision I should have reached several years earlier. The advent of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP), which was officially launched on April 19, 1990, provided an interesting sidelight to our ongoing efforts to deal with the nuclear waste issue. COSUN, as one of the Energy Caucus organizations, was invited to the initial CNP organizing meeting, November 16-17, 1989. At that meeting, we learned that a private foundation was interested in funding a campaign to phase-out nuclear energy. We also learned that this same foundation had been involved in a successful, fifteen- year long anti-smoking campaign, which culminated in Federal legislation (passage of a so-called "private member's bill") on that issue. The foundation was prepared to spend sixty thousand dollars for each year of the proposed three-year phase-out campaign, which included the cost of a full-time coordinator. It was never made clear to me why that foundation chose nuclear energy as an issue to pursue. Considering the broad range of possible "causes" in need of funding in Canada, why would anyone willingly invest large sums of money for the perverse pleasure of "beating their heads against the nuclear wall"? "Talk about suffering, down below!" as the old hymn goes. Unfortunately, COSUN's relationship with the CNP got off to a rocky start. Phyl and I happily participated in the productive two-day brainstorming exercise which resulted in a long list of possible action items. Many regional and local strategies were identified and discussed. We naturally assumed that some of the foundation's money would be used to help groups such as COSUN, pursue local and regional strategies, especially public education efforts, some of which would be targeted at the ongoing nuclear waste EARP. We were very unhappy when we discovered that this would not be the case. It quickly became apparent that the foundation had its own, single-focused agenda: It was to be an intensive lobbying effort to persuade members of Parliament to vote for a private member's bill to phase out nuclear energy. CNP planned to use the resources and backing of the Energy Caucus groups to meet the specific objective of running a campaign modeled after the successful anti-smoking effort. The CNP mission was underscored at its meeting on January 27-28, 1989, attended by COSUN's Peter Weldon, at which point the foundation representative expressed, in no uncertain terms, that money could not be diverted from the private member's bill campaign, to fight regional battles. Regional efforts would have to mesh with the campaign objectives in order to be funded.

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Though very disappointed by these developments, COSUN still decided to support the CNP effort, by serving on its steering committee, helping with its lobbying efforts, endorsing press releases and assisting in the development of educational materials. My own personal opinion was that CNP was really barking up the wrong tree with its single-minded legislative lobbying effort. My experiences (in Manitoba and Québec), had convinced me that strong initiatives at the local and regional levels were the essential ingredients for change. The two, large federal political parties of the day were overwhelmingly pro-nuclear, and the smaller New Democratic Party, was "schizophrenic" on nuclear issues. Spending a lot of time, energy and money on passage of a private member's bill, was, in my view, counterproductive. However, it wasn't my money! On November 20, 1991, the CNP sponsored private member's bill to phase out nuclear energy in Canada (Bill C-204)was defeated in the House of Commons with 65 in favor and 113 opposed. After one more aborted private member's bill initiative, CNP decided to change its strategy and assume a much more flexible and productive coordination role in the matrix of organizations and individuals confronting the nuclear establishment. It continued to develop excellent educational materials, widened its lobbying and public relations skills, and, began to use information technology to track and deal with nuclear issues world-wide. As well, CNP became directly involved in the increasingly contentious nuclear waste environmental assessment review process. During 1994, the CNP was monitoring several U.S. nuclear waste issues which had significant implications for Canada. When I was invited to a nuclear waste activists' meeting in Washington, D.C., on November 13 th and 14 th , I coordinated my efforts closely with the CNP co-ordinator. I was really looking forward to a visit to my old home town again. A new perspective on the nuclear waste issue was long overdue. Phyl and I were on our way to another networking foray into "the old country."

HOMECOMING Four days of driving, much of it through interstate highway construction, to attend a two-day meeting, is a grind that perhaps only the retired can afford to enjoy. But, the November, 1994 trip to Washington turned out to be well worth our time, energy and money. We stayed with our old friends, Alex and Jayne Greene at their beautiful, historic home in Rockville, Maryland. Visiting with them was a real bonus of the trip. We also found time for a visit with my brother Paul, who lives in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. I knew I had been away from the Washington area for a long time when I succeeded in getting us lost trying to take a short cut from downtown Washington, to Paul's house!

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The nuclear waste activists' meeting was held at a large downtown Washington church on Sunday and Monday, November 13 th and 14 th, 1994. Although we drove down to the meeting on Sunday, we decided not to fight the D.C. traffic on Monday morning. Happily, the Greenes' place was in walking distance of a Washington Metro station. Riding the Metro that Monday morning was a great experience for me. It moved quietly and swiftly from Rockville, to Silver Spring and into the downtown Washington area in about twenty minutes. This was a far cry from my 1960s' pre-Metro, forty-five minute long, bumper-to-bumper car commute to work. That the Metro was not built sooner, was a reflection of how formerly disenfranchised Washingtonians tried but failed to convince the "absentee landlord" Congressmen on the House of Representatives' District of Columbia Committee to undertake such projects. The meeting was organized by several key nuclear watchdog groups, including Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), and Minnesota's Prairie Island Coalition. Organizations from all over the US were represented. Phyl and I knew some of the US attendees as a result of our years of networking on the nuclear waste issue. It was good to see them again. The sense of urgency in the air was understandable when it became clear that the US Senate was actively considering passage of legislation, Bill S.167, proposed by several pro-nuclear hawks, which would establish an interim, above ground, high-level nuclear waste monitored retrievable storage (MRS) site in the State of Nevada. The waste would be placed in close proximity to the potential underground repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, even though that site was highly controversial, and might never be developed. The focus of the meeting was on the potential dangers of transportation of the nuclear waste from all over the US to the MRS site in Nevada. If the Bill passed and was signed into law, the waste would travel continuously, by rail and road through forty-three states over a thirty year time period. National, regional and local campaigns were planned in an attempt to defeat Bill S.167. Much preliminary work had already been done, including the preparation of detailed maps showing the exact transportation routes and the number of waste containers to be shipped through each state. Phyl and I were very pleased when most of the group took a strong position opposing any transportation of nuclear waste into, within or from the US to other countries, including Canada. The Canadian connection was not a totally academic issue at this point in time. Two other people from Canada were present at the meeting. Stephanie Sydiaha of Saskatchewan's Interchurch Uranium Council (ICUC) and Judy Bird of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Both were very concerned about another potential cross-border nuclear waste issue, this time involving aboriginal groups both in the US and Canada. The US part of the issue became public in 1994 when the Northern States Power (NSP) Company announced that the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico was interested in taking the utility's spent nuclear fuel (for a fee, of course!). The Mescalero reserve was to

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develop an above-ground, monitored retrieval storage (MRS) site and hold the waste until a permanent repository (e.g., Yucca Mountain, Nevada) was available. NSP was leading a group of thirty US electric utilities which were interested in contracting with the Mescalero for what some called a "rental locker" operation for high-level radioactive waste. Some members of the Mescalero group, along with the Governor of New Mexico and the state's congressional delegation, spoke out strongly against the plan. Throughout the debate, charges of environmental racism were raised. NSP's opponents declared that, once again, land belonging to people of color, was considered to be a suitable dumping ground. One of the organizers of the opposition to the plan, Rufina Laws of the Mescalero Apache reservation was a participant in the Washington meeting. The US Government-sponsored effort to "bribe" some aboriginal group to establish a temporary dump had failed miserably. Apart from the Mescalero, only one other aboriginal group entertained the idea of such a facility: the Goshutes in Western Utah. Unlike the Mescalero, the Goshutes decided not to negotiate directly with the utilities but only with the US Government. But the US Government office which searched for such a facility was in the process of being abolished. Canada entered into these machinations, when the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, decided it was interested in becoming the custodian of high-level nuclear waste. However, that Council had a far more ambitious plan in mind than a temporary holding site. It wanted nothing less than to host a permanent Canadian underground nuclear waste repository, which, when completed, would accommodate the entire inventory of Canadian and US commercial radioactive waste. The Mescalero and the US utilities could then ship the waste to Canada when the repository was completed(!).

all

As some of the members of the Canadian Energy Caucus had discovered, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could be interpreted to permit such a venture, in that it ". . . prevents limiting or prohibiting the importation [of] spent (irradiated) fuel elements of nuclear reactors" from the US and other countries .

--- Chapter Nine, Article 901.2c and Article 902.3a. According to the aboriginal representatives at the Washington meeting, Mescalero and Meadow Lake Tribal Council members had engaged in discussions about this scheme. I was also told that Meadow Lake Council members, who had already discussed the idea with AECL officials at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment at Pinawa, realized that the Canadian part of the deal would depend on the outcome of the ongoing nuclear waste EARP. Although the viability of this bizarre plan looked quite plausible for a while, it became clear over the next several months that the position of the two tribal councils did not represent

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the sentiments of many of their constituents. Ultimately, the aboriginal activists, who had worked hard within their communities, as well as networking with each other, prevailed. Both initiatives died out. But, based on my own experiences with this issue, and the conflicts that it causes within a community, it will take a long time for the scars to heal. The Mescalero - Meadow Lake connection was not the only cross-border issue to occupy our time at the meeting. Several people told us that they had heard about a scheme to export weapons grade plutonium to Canada to use as fuel in CANDU reactors. This was an option the US was exploring with Russia, to reduce the inventories of the weapons plutonium declared "surplus" by the two countries now that the cold war was over. Our attention had been brought to this when a Globe and Mail story on the issue appeared on July 8, 1994. As the start of a protest campaign in Canada the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP) had coordinated a "sign-on" letter, delivered July 15, to Prime Minister Jean Chretien objecting to the import of plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel into Canada. [ MOX fuel is a mixture of weapons-grade plutonium and natural or depleted uranium .] Chretien's response to the CNP letter, in November 1994, was another classic example of the kind of deception I have come to expect from our federal government on nuclear related issues. He wrote that ". . . it is premature at this stage to suggest how Canada will deal with this (MOX) matter." "Premature"? "How to deal with"? According to the people I spoke with in Washington, AECL officials had been holding meetings at the Canadian Embassy to promote the idea of using MOX fuel in CANDU reactors! I verified that AECL had been actively lobbying the US Government, with a Congressman's assistant who had actually attended such a meeting. [We have been mislead by our top politicians and technocrats so many times about the

realities and the status of government initiatives on nuclear projects. How I remember those days in early 1980 when we were told that the nuclear waste research project in Manitoba was "only in the planning stage," while, at the very same time, the bulldozers were going about their work digging the hole for the Underground Research Laboratory (URL) .] As to the potential negative consequences associated with the import and use of MOX-plutonium fuel in Canada --- an entire book could be written. Many of the problems were stated in submissions made to the US Department of Energy (DOE) by concerned Canadians in response to its 1997 "predecisional" environmental assessment of the project, known as" Parallex ." The assessment, confined to environmental concerns in the US, was for a proposed "test burn" of MOX fuel in an experimental reactor at AECL's Chalk River, Ontario nuclear research facility. Presumably, if the test was deemed "successful," Canada would then see major shipments of MOX on its highways over a very long period of time. DOE received more than twenty responses to its assessment document from Canadian sources. The principal message was "we don't want the plutonium in Canada!" Many of the

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responses deplored the fact that the Government of Canada had not conducted a similar assessment dealing with the potential environmental consequences of MOX fuel shipments once they crossed the border. Many also pointed out that MOX fuel produces nearly as much plutonium as would be "burned up" in a CANDU reactor. Judging by all the negative consequences identified by the reviewers of the DOE environmental assessment report, the MOX route is not a particularly great way to rid the world of weapons plutonium. My own response to the DOE report covered a multitude of concerns. I was particularly incensed by the provision that "All spent fuel resulting from the tests would be disposed of in Canada under the Canadian spent fuel program." By August, 1998, the plan to ship some MOX fuel to Chalk River, was still in the works, but for a variety of reasons, had not yet been implemented. Many US and Canadian environmental groups continued their opposition to the MOX plan. [ I especially enjoyed the "NIX MOX" slogan used by the US groups to describe their anti-MOX campaign .] All the depressing discussions at the 1994 Washington meeting, about aboriginal involvement in nuclear waste dumps, and possible plutonium shipments to Canada, drove us to take an extra long lunch hour at the Monday session. It was a beautiful day, so I suggested that we clear our heads by taking a walk down Connecticut Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue, and pay a quick visit to our alma mater, George Washington University (GWU). Some forty four years earlier, we had first met each other there, and had not visited it for most of those years. Many of the old buildings we knew had disappeared! When we tried to purchase some alumni sweat shirts at the "new" GW book store, we could not find any with the names of the University departments we had attended! All the names had changed. Indeed, "you can't go back, again." But, it was a fun excursion, and a good break from nuclear waste discussions. On our drive back to Quebéc, Phyl and I discussed the meeting and its significance to Canada. In view of the aboriginal and MOX plutonium issues, I hoped to persuade our Energy Caucus and CNP friends to "hitch-hike" on to the US strategy with its intensive, and multi-faceted transportation campaign. Alas, although the ideas were discussed, the suggestion was not adopted. But I suspect, that some day, it will be a high-priority item if and when the specter of large-scale nuclear waste shipments from other countries becomes a reality. The remarkable US activist campaign which emerged from the Washington meeting was successful, as Bill S.167 (dubbed "mobile Chernobyl") was defeated in the US Congress. Over the ensuing years, further attempts to push through similar legislation have also failed, with the help of effective lobbying efforts on the part of the activist groups. There is little question but that the efforts of the US activists have had a significant impact 27 of 52

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on the nuclear establishment's inability to get the waste "out of site and out of mind." But the US Department of Energy does not give up easily. It is still trying to determine if the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site itself is suitable as a permanent underground repository for high-level radioactive waste. It had originally planned to have such a facility for the waste operating by 1988. After all these years and two billion dollars later, that facility, if it is found suitable, is not expected to receive a nuclear waste shipment before the year 2010. Over the years since it was selected as the primary candidate site for a US repository, Yucca Mountain has evoked no end of controversy over potential technical problems. For example, scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico hotly debated a theory that the nuclear waste in the repository might erupt in an explosion, scattering radioactivity into the wind and water. Several DOE geologists cited earthquake potential as another major source of concern. But the technical issue that really caught my attention was that of water intrusion. The October 15, 1994 issue of the Las Vegas

Sun , reported that

" . . .(the) test discovers liquid seepage at Yucca site . . . Radioactive water from past nuclear testing has penetrated to layers below the proposed storage site. Scientists studying Yucca Mountain as a place to store the nation's high-level nuclear waste have found evidence that surface water from the days of atmospheric nuclear testing probably seeped to layers beneath the proposed repository site, a Department of Energy spokesman said Friday." The DOE spokesman, Greg Cook was reported as saying ". . . the finding is 'obviously of concern to us' because ground water intrusion within of the repository would make it more difficult to contain for 10,000 years the 77,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors that the government wants to entomb there." The account continued by quoting Carl Johnson, a geologist for the State of Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, which monitors the federal Yucca Mountain studies, that ". . . the finding means 'at least one very fast pathway' exists for ground water to move from the surface to below the repository site." Johnson said that ". . . samples collected from a bore hole on the southeast side of the repository site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, contained tritium and chlorine-36 isotopes, residuals from nuclear weapons testing. That means the water seeped from the surface to a depth of 1,450 feet within the 49 years since the first US nuclear weapons test was conducted in New Mexico and probably since nuclear testing began in Nevada in 1951." DOE's Cook said that

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"Water moving through the mountain is of particular concern because scientists fear if waste canisters are put in the mountain and water contacts them, they could corrode, increasing the risk of releasing radioactive materials into the environment." Water, water, everywhere! Even in the arid Nevada desert! But if water is a problem in the tuft rock formation of Yucca Mountain, than what of Canada's granite rock? There was no shortage of water at the underground test facility (URL) at Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba when I visited the place, in its early stage of development. It was a dank and wet hole from which water was continuously being pumped to the surface. During the 1986 Nuclear Waste Issues Conference in Winnipeg, physicist Marvin Resnikoff put the water issue into perspective during his talk, The Earth Does Not Stand Still . He explained how the hairline cracks of only 1/1000 inch, (0.00025 cm) , spaced three meters apart in a granite repository could permit a backfilled excavation to become filled with water in forty years. It seems that the "witches' brew" as Resnikoff called it, could, under various circumstances, find its way to the surface through these microscopic fractures in only a fraction of the time required for repository integrity . Water was also a topic mentioned by Walter Patterson, when he spoke at the same conference. Patterson, a native Winnipegger trained in nuclear physics and residing in the UK, was involved with many aspects of nuclear technology for decades. He visited the Lac du Bonnet URL underground facility in 1985, as an advisor to a Select Environmental Committee of the British Parliament. After the visit, the Parliamentarians asked his opinion of the operation. Patterson told the conferees, that for the first time on the entire Canadian trip, "I had to say I had not the faintest idea. I do not know why they are doing what they are doing: because if this is supposed to be research for an underground repository for final disposal of spent fuel, everybody in the business knows that the one thing you have to avoid is water -- and the place is soaking! Absolutely soaking! Up to here (gesturing) in water!" Nearly a decade after Resnikoff and Patterson gave their talks at the Winnipeg conference, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Panel was trying to come to grips with one of the principle questions that it was supposed to answer: Just what might be the environmental

impacts of the AECL underground nuclear waste burial concept?

EIS In 1988 Federal Energy Minister Marcel Masse trumpeted that the nuclear waste environmental assessment review process (EARP) was ". . . one of the most important environmental assessments" (ever)! But, who in Canada knew that during most of the 29 of 52

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1990s? In our nation's newspapers, as with the rest of the Canadian media, it wasn't exactly a front page story --- nor even a back-page one. Sadly, but predictably, the EARP failed to achieve what should have been one of its most important objectives; that is, significant public awareness and participation. Periodically, a government press release or a notice of public hearings would get a few lines of print in the newspapers. There were very few editorials on the subject. From time to time, FEARO issued an update, a newsletter or a calendar of coming events, and meetings. Some major environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, had abandoned the EARP in its early stages, roundly condemning it for a variety of reasons. Other environmental and social concerns groups, many of which were always on the verge of boycotting the process, continued to "hang in" in faint hopes of making some impact on the crucial decisions to come. Throughout the lifetime of the EARP, the Energy Caucus' Nuclear Waste Group, continued to network via computer, telephone conference calls, and periodic meetings. Some of the meetings were linked to the annual conferences of the Canadian Environmental Network (CEN), or to the regular meetings of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP). These gatherings usually produced many ideas, but few results. The fundamentally flawed EARP process lumbered on, unscathed. As expected, efforts to persuade Federal and provincial politicians to consider changes in the EARP had little to no impact. Of course, the EARP was only one item on the platter of the various environmental and social action groups. Most were swamped with other issues. This was especially true of those Ontario-based groups involved in a major provincial review of energy policy. My old CCM cohorts in Manitoba were working overtime to expand their watchdog role to encompass many of the activities of AECL's Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment (WNRE) at Pinawa. Two of the issues under scrutiny were

the two-megawatt Slowpoke reactor there, (still not operating up to capacity, and fated never to do so), and spills of radioactive coolant into the Winnipeg River. On the other hand, not much was going on in the Eastern Townships of Québec. By the mid-1990s, COSUN's membership had dwindled to a handful. After regular meetings were suspended, I maintained phone contact with the dozen or so key people who were still interested in discussing nuclear energy and waste related matters. Phyl and I also attended the regular meetings of the Lennoxville, Québec- based group, Citizens for Social Responsibility (CSR). But, as the Québec political separation issue heated up yet again, the energies for social action seemed to dwindle.

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In March, 1997, Phyl and I moved again, this time from Québec to Kingston, Ontario. The moving company charged us for twelve thousand pounds of household goods. That was more than two thousand pounds more than the weight of the shipment nine years earlier when we moved from Winnipeg to Québec . This increase came in spite of the fact that we had acquired very little while in Québec , and had divested ourselves of thousands of pounds of "stuff," including an aging twelve horsepower John Deere tractor complete with tiller, snow thrower and mower attachments. We concluded that there could be only one reason for the additional weight: It must have been all of AECL's supplementary "reference documents," which were part of its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that were responsible for our increased weight load! To move the boxes in which these documents were packed was to challenge the abilities of a professional weight lifter. The "bright side" was that it was only books being transported --not large shipments of nuclear waste --- down the TransCanada highway. At least, not yet. The Panel had asked AECL to provide much detailed information about the underground concept as well as possible impacts on the environment. One requirement that particularly caught my attention was for "A description of and comparison with, alternatives to the concept." (emphasis added) I planned to look at that one very carefully. Another intriguing question for me was how AECL would handle the social impacts of its concept in the absence of a specific site. AECL's weighty EIS and reference documents covered the following subjects: 1. Public Involvement and Social Aspects 2. Site Screening and Site Evaluation Technology 3. Engineered Barriers Alternatives 4. Engineering for a Disposal Facility 5. Preclosure Assessment of a Conceptual System 6. Postclosure Assessment of a Reference System 7. The Vault Model for Postclosure Assessment 8. The Geosphere Model for Postclosure Assessment 9. The Biosphere Model, BIOTRAC, for Postclosure Assessment In its basic EIS document, AECL asked the Panel to endorse its concept, including its technical and safety requirements and to accept its four basic recommendations:

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. . . that the strategy for long-term management of Canada's nuclear fuel waste be based on the concept of disposal in plutonic rock of the Canadian Shield." . . . that those who have responsibility for the safe management of used fuel -the federal government and the owners of the fuel - also have responsibility for implementing the disposal concept. In addition to addressing their requirements, the plan for implementation should address the requirements of any provincial government that could be affected by implementation and those resulting from the present environmental review. . . . that those responsible for implementing the disposal concept be committed to the principles of safety and environmental protection, voluntarism, shared decision making, openness, and fairness (sic!) . . . that Canada progress toward disposal of its nuclear fuel waste by undertaking the first stage of concept implementation - siting. In the light of all the behind the scenes maneuvering which we knew had gone on since 1980, between and among the AECL and various government agencies, including local governments, the prose about (the need for) ". . .shared decision making, openness, and fairness" reeked with hypocrisy! FEARO sent out a notice (as part of its widespread media communications to the public) setting a deadline of August 8, 1995 for responses to AECL's EIS. During the fall of 1994, relying heavily on use of the web computer network, Nuclear Waste Group members shared information on what aspects of the EIS each would review. The topics covered a broad range including the legal aspects, implications of the Meadow Lake involvement, internal inconsistencies in AECL's concept assessment program, scientific review of computer models, social and ethical aspects, uncertainties and risk methodology, aboriginal concerns, and transportation issues. My initial review of the AECL EIS material revealed many weaknesses. After touching base with my COSUN colleagues, I drafted for their review, a submission based around three specific areas of the Panel's Guideline.

My first point was that the Panel's requirement for a "detailed, unambiguous and clear" concept assessment, was not met. AECL had made frequent references to the need for "site-specificity" in order to provide conclusive determinations and evidence. I used verbatim quotes of several of these kinds of statements. For me, this aspect of AECL's EIS simply confirmed what I, and many others, had thought; that this concept could not be considered to have been fully assessed without a complete site-specific analysis. My conviction was strengthened that a legal challenge of the environmental assessment on this point could have succeeded, had it been launched on a

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timely basis. But that was now water over the dam.

Secondly, I made the point that AECL did not meet the Panel's Guideline requirement to address "potential negative impacts and uncertainties" related to the burial concept. Instead, the tone and content of the EIS was one of unbridled optimism; little more than a lengthy public relations pitch! AECL did provide us with a good hearty laugh on page 200 of the EIS, which states that "One way to protect a disposal vault following closure would be to establish a park or wildlife preserve on the site. Thus the use of the land would be controlled as specified in the applicable legislation, such as the National Parks Act or the Canada Wildlife Act." I could hardly contain myself when I wrote "Where was the Canada Wildlife Act five hundred years ago and how will it be enforced five hundred or ten thousand years hence?"

The last main item in my paper was that the Panel requirement for "'. . . a significant analysis of alternatives in sufficient detail to permit a meaningful comparison with the burial concept. . .' was not at all met." In three hundred forty-four pages of text, the EIS document devoted only fourteen pages to the subject of alternatives, essentially rehashing the same material and arguments made by AECL some fifteen years earlier. Worse yet, the EIS included AECL's concern that the public might go so far as to want to wait for technological advances, which could delay implementation of the underground concept. The statement on page seventy-eight of the EIS, that ". . . we believe that waiting for advances in technology is not a legitimate reason for delay" speaks volumes about how AECL had become blinded by its own vested interests. I concluded the COSUN presentation with four recommendations, mimicking the bureaucratic language used by AECL in its recommendations:

Any strategy for long-term management of Canada's nuclear fuel waste not be based on the concept of "disposal" in plutonic rock of the Canadian Shield, as requested by AECL.

Those who have responsibility for the safe management of used fuel - the Federal

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Government and the owners of the used fuel, in consultation with the public, undertake a comprehensive examination of alternatives to underground isolation, with special emphasis on above-ground, long-term, on-site dry storage, coupled with accelerator-driven transmutation technology. As a result of such an examination, the Government of Canada provide a clear legislative mandate for the development and implementation of a nuclear waste management policy and program based on appropriate alternatives to the AECL proposal.

To avoid a recurrence of the restrictive narrowness of this particular Environmental Assessment Review Process (EARP) in the future, as an essential component of the review and legislative initiative recommended above, environmental assessments must encompass the full range of issues and environmental consequences associated with the production , as well as management of nuclear fuel waste. Reactions to AECL's EIS were generally predictable. Social and environmental groups, especially those in the Energy Caucus' Nuclear Waste Group, identified many deficiencies, while most industry and scientific organizations praised the documents.

Compendium of Comments Received on the Adequacy of the Environmental Impact Statement on Nuclear Fuel Waste Management and Disposal Concept. The staff of the regulatory body, the However, I did find a few real and startling surprises in the Panel's two volume

Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), concluded that ". . . the EIS, by itself, does not adequately demonstrate the case for deep geological disposal for nuclear fuel waste." Also, Environment Canada's submission stated that it ". . . cannot support the EIS in its present form, nor the implementation of the disposal concept based on the documentation in the EIS." In general, however, "establishment" organizations which did raise technical questions about the viability of the AECL concept, continued to be very friendly toward the idea of underground "disposal" of high-level nuclear waste. For them, site specific studies were the essential next step in probing some of the unanswered questions in the EIS. The Panel did not "trash" the EIS, as COSUN and many environmental groups had urged. It did, however, request additional information from AECL to try to get answers to some outstanding questions, especially those related to the assessment of long-term safety of the burial concept. The Panel's own Scientific Review Group (SRG) had raised such questions in its response to the EIS. AECL supplied the requested additional information in May, 1996, with a somewhat defensive air. On page vi of its response, AECL stated that

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". . . reviewers expected information beyond what could or should be provided at a concept assessment stage." Their message seemed to be, "Hey, after all folks, it's

only a concept!"

For once, AECL found it necessary to fall back on the inherent limitations of its burial "concept," the virtues of which it had touted for so many years. The Panel scheduled the first phase of its public hearings (on social issues) over a three month period starting in March, 1996. I made the presentation in behalf of COSUN, at the March 28 session held in the North York section of Toronto. The subject was the transportation of nuclear waste. I started my presentation with a quote from the March 12 and Mail , which pointed out that:

th , 1996 editorial in the

Globe

"AECL has spent 24 years and a half-billion dollars answering questions about the permanence and security of various burial techniques for nuclear waste. . . but have they been asking the right questions?. . . With so much invested, it is easy to lose perspective." My presentation took the same position on transportation which most of the nuclear waste activists had adopted at the 1994 meeting in Washington, DC:

Nuclear waste should not be transported! I quoted from a statement made by Bill Magavern, Director of the U.S. Critical Mass Energy Project, to the U.S. Senate in March, 1995: "Transporting nuclear materials poses significant risks to populations along the route. With an increased number of shipments, the likelihood of a serious accident involving a cask of irradiated fuel waste increases. Adequate steps have not been taken to ensure cask integrity in the event of such a mishap. "Cask safety standards fail to incorporate the full range of trauma to which a container may be exposed in an accident. For example, temperature tolerance standards are lower than the temperatures that a cask might experience in a fire that results from an accident. Furthermore, regulations do not even require that testing be performed on full-scale models to ensure that the containers meet regulatory standards. Even accident-free transport causes radiation exposures along routes, as casks are unable to fully contain radiation." I seized the opportunity to confront the Panel on the issue of advanced physics research (barely referenced in AECL's EIS, although information was then, and is now available) into Accelerator Transmutation of Nuclear Waste (ATW). The risks associated with "permanent" underground burial, coupled with thirty years of non-stop transportation of nuclear waste, might conceivably be avoided by encouraging the development of promising new ATW technology.

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The premise of ATW is that protons, propelled by very high-energy accelerators would target the waste, producing neutrons which, through nuclear fission would convert most radioactive substances into ordinary, non-radioactive ones. I requested that the Panel invite ATW scientists to make a presentation during the hearings. Phyl and I attended the sessions the following day, March 29, 1996, on "Implementing and Management Agency." Why, I wondered, would the Panel devote time to the subject of "implementing and managing" the AECL underground burial concept, when its environmental impact has yet to be assessed? The underlying assumption seemed to be that, sooner or later the AECL concept would be approved, so we might as well get on with discussing its implementation. An indication of the Panel's bias? Ontario Hydro made a long presentation, complete with audio-visuals, extolling its qualifications to become the lead organization to implement a site selection program. Here was an organization which could hardly cope with all the technical problems it was experiencing with its nuclear reactors. It would not be long before the Provincial utility would be roundly criticized for mismanagement of its nuclear program. My guess was that Ontario Hydro viewed the nuclear waste burial business as one way to deal with its growing debt burden. On April 15, 1996 the Panel announced the dates, locations and topics for Phase II of the hearings. These were to be technical (scientific and engineering) sessions on the long-term safety of AECL's concept. The sessions would begin on June 10, 1996. Exercising admirable restraint, I opted out of Phase II. When doing so, I recalled the words of Moe Sheppard of the Atikokan (Ontario) Citizens Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, during his speech at the Concerned Citizen's Committee public meeting on May 2, 1980 at the Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, secondary school: "The important thing to remember in that (nuclear waste) fight, I believe, is to demand the right to say yes or no. All other arguments associated with technical expertise, economics, etc., are totally irrelevant. We should not be drawn into such arguments." I also opted out of the Phase III "community" hearings scheduled from January through March of 1997. COSUN was, for all practical purposes, history. The process itself seemed almost farcical. And, at that point, Phyl and I were involved in preparations for our move from Québec to Ontario. By early 1997, the seemingly never ending nuclear waste environmental assessment was drawing to a close, this ". . .(most) important environmental assessment. . ." still largely unpublicized and unknown by the vast majority of the Canadian people.

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SHAFTED? The nuclear waste FEARO Panel allowed participants to submit written closing statements until April 18, 1997. Amidst the chaos of our approaching move to Kingston, I prepared one, but missed the deadline by five days. My statement was returned to me by the FEARO staff. I wrote to the Chairman, asking for an exception to the deadline in view of my move. The essence of his response was - No Dice! In my statement, harking back to events during the 80's, I made the point again that ". . .the public does not accept the underground burial idea." Additionally, I emphasized the importance of exploring alternatives to the AECL waste burial concept. The Panel did not respond to my suggestion of March 28, 1996, that it invite ATW (Accelerator T ransmutation of Nuclear Waste) experts to testify at the hearings. On June 12, I wrote to the Panel once again about the need to investigate ATW technology. In his July 16, 1996 reply, the Panel Chairman stated that ". . . our mandate suggests that we be aware of other approaches for the management of nuclear wastes rather than assess other methods of managing them." I wondered just how aware they really were. He also dismissed my complaint that ATW received only three brief bibliographic references (on pages 322 and 323) of the EIS, and that the technology was certainly not discussed ". . . at a level of detail sufficient to permit a meaningful comparison with the (AECL) concept," as required by the Panel's own Guidelines . The Chairman considered that the few references were sufficient and ". . .are available for consultation if one needs further details to assess the information in the EIS." My interest in the general topic of transmutation began in the early '80s, when I read AECL's off-handed, one sentence rejection of it in its October, 1978 document, Management of Radioactive Fuel Wastes-the Canadian Disposal Program : " . . . However, the application of transmutation as a disposal method would require the development of new high efficiency separation processes and special irradiation facilities." Why was AECL so anxious to dismiss transmutation? No explanation was given as to why that would be a less acceptable option than the development of all the new paraphernalia required for another unproven technology; the permanent, virtually forever, storage of the waste in holes poked into vast underground granite rocks.

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The notion of disposing of nuclear waste by rendering it inert, through chemical, heat, biological or other methods, had been considered by some West German scientists in the 1970s, but was rejected by the nuclear establishment and their own government as being too costly, and too difficult to do. Some light was shed on the subject as it pertained to Canada, in a June 1977 article in Science Forum by science writer Jeff Carruthers. He pointed out that part of the problem rests with the Canadian nuclear establishment's dilemma over the lack of a government decision on the use of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing technology. Plutonium recycling was (and is) considered a real possibility, and the original idea was to build temporary above-ground mausoleums in order to buy time on the government's reprocessing decision. In the late 70s, Canada joined with other countries in opting for the permanent underground "disposal" option, but, the Canadian nuclear establishment continued to hope for a future reprocessing decision. Of course, reprocessing and permanent underground storage go "hand in glove." Leftovers, after reprocessing for plutonium extraction, would wind up in the "solid rock" of the Canadian Shield. Present Government of Canada policy bans reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. But, the operation of free trade provisions, and changes in world market prices for uranium ore may alter that policy. AECL, in its First Interim Concept Assessment Feedback Report, April, 1986, stated ". . . that no firm decision on reprocessing will be taken until after the year 2000 and the decision will depend on the uranium supply situation as well as the economics of recycling that prevail at that time." In his Science Forum article, Carruthers stated that some German scientists believed that the best possible solution to nuclear waste was to ". . . 'burn' the minor actinides and other long-lasting nuclear wastes by using a special nuclear reactor. Initial calculations suggest that ten to twenty years in a fast-breeder type reactor would work, with no energy loss since the wastes would provide energy themselves." Carruthers pointed out that there would be many technical problems relating to separation of the waste products. He concluded his article by pointing out that if transmutation proved to be successful, it could put to rest the big waste bugaboo of the nuclear industry. The public might then be more amenable to nuclear energy. "What they seem to be ignoring is the possibility that a failure to resolve the waste disposal problem could make nuclear power not just uncompetitive but unacceptable, in the public's eye," he wrote. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the single most powerful reason for the rejection of the transmutation option , in any form, is the fact that many in the nuclear establishment consider the spent fuel itself a valuable substance to be used for future recycling. The last thing that many pro-nuclear advocates want to do is to destroy the substances which could 38 of 52

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become the lifeblood of a newly-reborn nuclear industry. However, some of the more enlightened nuclear scientists have recently realized that transmuting the waste to reduce its longevity and potency must take priority over nuclear energy production. For me, the dirty and dangerous business of using fast breeder reactors and reprocessing, is a totally unacceptable way to produce energy or to transmute spent nuclear fuel. But for years, I have wondered whether a reasonably safe and relatively benign transmutation process could someday be developed. Those who dismiss such an idea as impossible, impractical, and a "never-never land" proposal seem not to have learned much from the history of scientific developments. Science does not stand still. Few of us nowadays think that the Earth is flat. And, primitive "outhouse" technologies, such as AECL's underground burial concept, will surely be quickly eclipsed by more sophisticated physics based methodologies. Not terribly long ago, some scientists were convinced that smashing or controlling the atom was too complex a problem and would never happen! Christopher Cerf and Victor Navosky, in their book, The Experts Speak, The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation , provide us with some marvelous quotations. For example: "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom . . . Nature has introduced a few foolproof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration." ---1923 Physics Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Robert A Millikan "There is not the slightest indication that (nuclear) energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." --- Albert Einstein, 1932. These eminent scientists' "learned" statements from a pre-atomic age now appear quaint, to say the least. But the present-day question remains: Could the stockpiles of high-level nuclear waste be "tamed" and, perhaps eventually, rendered inert? A 1998 paper on the subject, Disposition of Nuclear Waste Using Subcritical Accelerator-Driven Systems: Technology Choices and Implementation , by Francesco Venneri, Ning Li, Mark Williamson, Michael Houts, and George Lawrence, of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggests that significant progress is being made in ATW research. The paper states that

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"The goal of the ATW nuclear subsystem is to produce a three orders of magnitude reduction in the long-term radiotoxicity of the waste sent to a repository, including losses through processing. If the goal is met, the radiotoxicity of ATW-treated waste after 300 years would be less than that of untreated waste after 100,000 years." I have seen other ATW references that are even more optimistic, to the effect that the process has the potential to preclude the need for permanent underground burial facilities altogether. During 1996 and 1997, I monitored the progress of work being done on ATW and was in touch with scientists around the world who were deeply involved in that technology. I had told them of my efforts to try to persuade the Panel to learn more about ATW. They were very cooperative in supplying me with information and documents. One document was a 1997 (CD ROM) version of an ATW status report, prepared for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by scientists in six countries, including France, Japan, Sweden, Russia, and the US, and two international organizations. One particular statement in the introductory portion of that report really caught my attention: "Many countries are considering to permanently store long-lived highly radioactive material in stable geological formations, e.g., such as the Yucca Mountain in Death Valley in USA. However there is concern that geologic formations and the climate might change over millions of years. Moreover, the fact that the waste remains dangerous for many tens of thousands of years exacerbates these concerns. The concern that such repositories can become mines for Plutonium has become of even greater concern as the U.S. has made it known that nuclear weapons can be made from commercial Plutonium. Therefore, it is worthwhile studying an alternative approach that would separate the long-lived nuclei from the high-level waste by transmuting such nuclei into short-lived or non-radioactive wastes." The prospect of "plutonium mines" proliferating over the next centuries is not a particularly pleasant one. An underlying premise of the AECL burial concept is that the waste would not only become irretrievable, but the waste repositories themselves, would require "no institutional controls." Given the advance of science and technology, there is absolutely no reason to believe that an underground facility would need any fewer institutional controls than an aboveground one. It would be prudent to assume that those in the future who might want to extract the contents of an underground nuclear burial place, will have the capabilities to do so with whatever technologies, and for whatever purposes they may then have. As for ATW, whether or not the promising research into the technology will, in fact, lead to both a technically and socially acceptable solution for disposal of high-level radioactive

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waste, remains to be seen. But, for whatever its reasons, the Canadian Federal Environmental Review Panel avoided the subject as if it were the plague ! In February, 1997, at long last, the Panel completed its work, and submitted its final report to the Government of Canada. With a press release of March 13, 1998, the Minister of Natural Resources, Ralph Goodale, and Minister of Environment, Christine Stewart, released the report to the public and announced that "The federal Panel studying the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste and the safety and acceptability of Atomic Energy of Canada's concept to bury nuclear waste deep within the rock of the Canadian Shield has recommended a step-by-step approach to managing nuclear wastes. Accordingly, the eight-member Panel is recommending that the search for a specific site not proceed at the present time. "The Panel has undertaken an exhaustive review and consultation on a very complex issue. Its report will permit the government to come to an informed and balanced response," said Environment Minister Christine Stewart. The Panel, over its eight-year mandate, carefully examined the criteria by which the safety and acceptability of any concept for long-term waste management and disposal should be developed. It reached two conclusions:

Broad public support is necessary in Canada to ensure the acceptability of a concept for managing nuclear fuel wastes; and

Safety is a key part, but only one part, of acceptability. Safety must be viewed from two complementary perspectives: social and technical. Applying these criteria to Atomic Energy of Canada's "disposal" concept, the Panel arrived at the following conclusions:

While the safety of the AECL concept has been adequately demonstrated from a technical perspective, from a social perspective it has not.

The AECL concept in its current form for deep geologic disposal does not have broad

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public support, and does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada's approach for managing nuclear fuel wastes." The Panel has also recommended the creation of a nuclear fuel waste management agency to assume responsibility for managing and co-ordinating the full range of activities required to deal with nuclear fuel wastes in the long term. "This Panel report raises key issues which the government will give consideration to in its response. This will set the stage for the next steps regarding the long-term disposal of nuclear fuel waste in Canada," said Minister of Natural Resources Ralph Goodale. The release concluded with the fact that ". . . the Panel heard 531 registered speakers and received 536 written submissions." As of the report release date, the complete report was posted on a Department of Environment Internet site: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca The March 14, 1998, page 2 article in the

Globe and Mail called the report a

". . . setback" for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, ". . . which has spent $575 million over the past 15 years to verify the safety of the deep-rock disposal concept." The article noted the Panel's recommendation for ". . . the creation of a new Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Agency to conduct further consultation and to 'build and determine' public acceptability over the next three or four years." The conclusion that the public does not accept the concept, appears to be the overriding reason why the Panel did not recommend site selection as the next step in the nuclear waste management program. However, as George Ylonen and I agreed during a telephone conversation after the Panel report was released: We could have told the Government that, before they spent so much money on this EARP, and we would have charged only a fraction of what the EARP cost! COSUN and many other groups involved in the EARP had made the point over and over again, about public opposition to the concept. Although the Panel did not specifically acknowledge the many years of AECL opinion polling, showing high levels of public opposition to the burial concept, it arrived at the same conclusion. In truth, the Panel heard from but a very small segment of the Canadian population. Only 536 written submissions were received by the Panel; and those mostly from special interest groups, pro and anti-nuclear. The Panel acknowledged this problem when it stated that:

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"We recognize that it is difficult to determine whether participants in our hearings, both those opposed to and those supportive of the AECL concept, were representative of the larger public. We recognize also that it may be difficult to gauge with precision the extent of support for or opposition to the AECL concept, particularly in the absence of a real site and a real design. We judge, however, that significant numbers of the public are currently sufficiently opposed to the AECL concept that it would be ill advised to proceed with it now." In light of that conclusion, the Panel recommended that ". . . Until the foregoing (a four stage, step-by-step process) is completed and broad public acceptance of a nuclear fuel waste management approach has been achieved, the search for a specific site should not proceed." As for the technical side of the equation, although the Panel concluded that ". . . the safety of the AECL concept has been adequately demonstrated," it expressed reservations on this point in the report. In Section 5.2.2.1, the Panel stated that: ". . . we are very concerned about the number, nature and importance of the scientific uncertainties that are inevitable in such a new field over such a long time frame. Few precedents guide us, but we do have previous historical and community experience with similar undertakings to inform our view of safety. We are also concerned about the specific shortcomings in the AECL proposal that many eminent scientists identified. We are not greatly reassured that these same scientists nonetheless suggest that the concept is suitable for proceeding to the next stage." Nevertheless, despite the concerns about uncertainties , and specific shortcomings, the Panel reached the main conclusion that the Canadian nuclear establishment has been waiting a long time to hear -- safety of the concept ". . . has been adequately demonstrated." The Panel's "step-by-step" plan to acquire public acceptance, is spelled out in detail in Section 6.0 of the report (Future Steps). The four phases of the plan include: 1. Set-Up, 2. Concept Acceptance, 3. Project Acceptance, and 4. Implementation (if the project is accepted). The first phase, Set-Up, emphasizes the need for an immediate Government policy statement, an Aboriginal participation program and establishment of a Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Agency (NFWMA), which would be at "arms length" from AECL and the

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utilities and would ". . . manage and co-ordinate the full range of activities relating to the long-term management of nuclear fuel wastes." This phase would last for about one year. Phase II, Concept Acceptance , would have the new agency develop a public participation plan to determine which of the concepts for nuclear fuel waste is the most acceptable. NFWMA would ". . . develop practicable long-term waste management options for Canada." The agency would ". . . compare the risks, costs and benefits of practicable long-term options" and ". . . develop an ethical and social assessment framework." This would take about two years. Phase III, Project Acceptance , would ". . . determine whether a site-specific project based on the selected concept is acceptable." It would include ". . . a full environmental assessment and public hearings -- to ensure broad public support for developing the proposed facility at the selected site" If the project is accepted, development of a Phase IV Implementation plan, would follow. Specific time frames are not indicated for the last two phases of the plan. As for the "options" or "concepts," which would be considered by the NFWMA during the two years of Phase II, the Panel specifically included ". . . a modified AECL concept for deep geological disposal; storage at reactor sites; and centralized storage, either above or below ground." It is obvious that a "modified AECL concept" is the pre-ordained winner in any contest over any other possibilities. In the Panel's own words, when it listed the options for the new agency to consider, it ". . . retained deep geological disposal based on the AECL concept for several reasons: it is the technically preferred research option internationally; much effort has already been devoted to its realization; and it is consistent with current regulations." And, of course, the Panel had already concluded that the safety of the AECL concept has been adequately demonstrated from a technical perspective. In the light of the obvious bias toward the AECL concept, it is difficult to imagine how, in a two year time frame, the other options specified by the Panel could possibly prevail. However, just to demonstrate its even-handedness, they did leave open the door a crack (about 0.00001mm wide and 0.00001mm high!). As for any other options, the Panel added

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an intriguing proviso: "Should additional options become technically and economically feasible, they should also be considered. In addition, governments should direct the NFWMA to monitor closely all international progress on options for managing nuclear fuel wastes." After examining Appendix L of the report: Various Approaches to Long-Term Management of Nuclear Fuel Wastes , it seems unlikely to me that the Panel was thinking much about recent developments in ATW research. Amidst a discussion of the reasons for rejecting "classical" transmutation processes, only one sentence could conceivably be referring to present day ATW technology (without mentioning it by name): "A number of participants put forward transmutation options that were not discussed in the EIS." Perhaps the ATW door has also been opened a tiny, tiny crack. As of this writing, in this "El Nino" Summer of 1998, the Governments of Canada and Ontario have not as yet responded to the Panel report. Full acceptance of the report would mean that a decision to proceed with site selection (on some kind of site specific concept) would follow in only three years. The question is still out there, the same question that we asked at Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, in January, 1980: Will we or won't we --- Get The Shaft?

Upon Reflection Here it is, 1998, more than eighteen years since I became involved in the nuclear waste issue, fourteen years since Getting the Shaft, the Radioactive Waste Controversy in Manitoba , was first published, and ten years since I started the manuscript to its sequel(s). How time flies when you are having fun(?). My nephew, Brian Robbins, came up with the name SHAFTED! for a sequel to Getting The Shaft . His assessment is probably right, but, at least for the time being, I have used a question mark instead of an exclamation point after the book title ( SHAFTED? ), and as the title for the previous, and last chapter of this, my third major piece of writing on the subject. The question mark is there because I believe that it is still possible to prevent the actual development of a permanent underground nuclear waste dump in Canada.

A "Learning Experience"

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When Phyl and I met with George Ylonen and Marguerite Larson on that cold January evening in 1980, at the Croziers' farm house in Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, I had no idea that it would be a major turning point in my life. Here, in the late 1990s, I am still tracking and writing about the nuclear waste issue, because I believe it is the right thing to do. It has been, as they say, "a learning experience." My entire philosophy of life has been affected by my work on this issue. Nuclear waste concerns led to a re-evaluation of the place of nuclear energy in society, which created an interest in alternative forms of energy. Awareness of conservation and energy efficiency led to an examination of ecological economics, questions about our consumer society, a vision of a conserver society, green politics, and on and on! Above all, my experiences with the issue have changed the way I think about the functioning of our democratic institutions. There is much improvement to be made in that arena. [And "they" say that old folks are supposed to be set in their ways. . .] At the beginning of the 1980s, I believed that I had two distinctly different and completely independent interests in life: one was my professional work in civil rights, organization development, and human resources. The other was my avocational work on the nuclear waste issue. Gradually, the two merged into one philosophy. It became increasingly apparent that true human development within organizations, or society in general, cannot proceed in a healthy manner if we continue to plunder our natural resources, and systematically destroy the life-sustaining qualities of the only planet we humans happen to inhabit at the moment. In the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II in the mid-twentieth century, my generation sought what it considered to be "the good life," the American dream, rooted in upward mobility and the acquisition and consumption of more and more goods and services. Making the transition from that hedonistic, ultra-materialistic post-war philosophy, to a new ecological paradigm is very difficult. It requires a fundamental shift in values, and I find that it does not easily translate into one's own way of life. But that it must, to some extent, is an axiom. How we, as a society, deal with such questions as nuclear energy, and especially nuclear waste, has become, for me, the litmus test of the kind of future for humanity on planet Earth. In our 1950s exuberance and techno-arrogance, we rearranged the atom to suit our fancy, without seriously considering the long-range consequences of what we were doing. I did work in the US Atomic Energy Commission headquarters for several years during the late 1950s and remember that period very well. Although it is a hot substance, nuclear waste simply was not a hot topic! That 1950s mind set is coming back to haunt us in many ways. Chernobyl, adverse health impacts of low dose radiation, aging and leaking nuclear reactors, gross cost miscalculations, 46 of 52

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missing quantities of nuclear materials, the growing inventory of nuclear wastes of various kinds, and the awful specter of a "plutonium economy," with "plutonium mines," are some of the results of the lack of foresight we exhibited in those heady days. The very fact that by the late1990s, no nation has yet produced a truly good and publicly acceptable solution to the nuclear waste problem speaks volumes. But, where is the law of nature that states that every problem encountered by humankind, must have a good and acceptable solution? Perhaps, this is a problem for which no good or acceptable solution exists, at least, at this time in history. However, I still have some hope that science will find a better way to deal with these wastes, other than burying them in an underground hole. What is good and acceptable for one vested interest group, may not be for the rest of us. The nuclear establishment, by and large, is sanguine about the idea of burying the highly irradiated fuel from nuclear reactors. "Get it out of sight and out of mind and clear the decks for more nuclear development!" Mind you, their "outhouse technology" to bury the waste will be done in a very sophisticated and scientific manner. Nevertheless, whatever euphemism you care to use for the burial option, it still represents one more example of humankind's historical penchant for shoveling unwanted and unsavory substances, into the skin of the planet. It seems to me that Mother Earth sends us a message every time she regurgitates the poisons that we humans periodically inject into her. A dump is a dump is a dump! Call it a scientifically-designed, state of the art repository, if it makes you feel better, but even a "scientific" dump is a dump. Wherever it is, the nuclear waste is still potent, and some of it will remain quite lively (deadly!) for eons!

I truly resent the nuclear establishment's use of the term "disposal" to describe its underground burial plans. The question is not if these dangerous substances will reach the external environment, it is rather, when? Nor is it wise to base the answer to the "when question " on the primitive burial technologies and computer models of the late twentieth century. The relative infancy of the geosciences coupled with the " theo logical" time frames required to contain these wastes should have led the nuclear waste Environmental Assessment Review Panel to deem the AECL proposal technically unacceptable. Unfortunately, it did not. Instead, it gave the concept its technical endorsement, (albeit a lukewarm one). Back in the early 1980s, I began to believe that Canada would become the nuclear waste dump, not just for our own radioactive leftovers, but for much of the world's, as well. In the ensuing years, the probability of that belief becoming a reality has increased. Periodic statements by members of the nuclear establishment advocating the "world dump" idea, have, unfortunately, strengthened my belief.

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The inclusion of nuclear waste as an acceptable cross-border commodity in the 1980s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) underscored Canada's possible future role as the "keepers of radioactive waste," (a dubious companion activity to "hewers of wood and haulers of water"). More recent efforts to negotiate world trade agreements using the NAFTA model, if successful, could put Canada into an even more vulnerable situation. I hope that I am wrong.

Activism: That it is not impossible to thwart the aspirations of the nuclear establishment for the development of underground waste burial facilities, has been demonstrated by dedicated activists in various parts of the world. I use the word "activist" with some trepidation. The term has been overworked by the media and frequently misunderstood by the public. Unfortunately, for many, it has a negative connotation. For me, an activist is someone who is able and willing to use words well, but will go well beyond structured public debates, hearings, and press conferences. He or she understands the power of a whole range of advocacy strategies and tactics, and is not adverse to the appropriate use of them (preferably within non-violent, democratic parameters). For example, the Concerned Citizens of Manitoba, (CCM) group was not afraid to take risks; to hold demonstrations; stage sit-ins; use street theater; risk arrest; and confront politicians, in a not so polite manner. Although frequently criticized by "the establishment", CCM's efforts paid off in the form of municipal resolutions and Provincial anti-nuclear dump legislation. Furthermore, the Manitoba public learned about the issue through the media, because of some of CCM's "antics."

US activists have tied the nuclear establishment in knots with such similar tactics as mock highway shipments of nuclear waste, coupled with an aggressive use of the legal system. Perhaps an effective legal challenge in the late 1970s could have prevented AECL from undertaking its ill-conceived "march" across the Canadian Shield, disrupting one community after another in search of a compliant host. Perhaps its "concept verification" exercise would never have gotten off the ground. There was certainly no specific legislative basis for what AECL did. The Crown Corporation and Ontario Hydro should have been challenged on that point in the courts, right off the top!

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One thing I have learned over the past eighteen years is that reason, logic, facts, research, debates, etc., are all essential and important ingredients in the ongoing effort to deal with various environmental projects, such as attempting to deal with nuclear waste. But "head games" are not sufficient. Without the dedication, risk taking and the skills of activists, which leads to increased, heightened public awareness, change will not occur. A much higher degree of activism over the next decade, will be required to prevent Canada from becoming the international dumping ground for high-level radioactive wastes.

The Panel Report: It is clear that the words in the Panel report were very carefully chosen. This is reflected by the fact that some environmentalists as well as some pro-nuclear advocates have both praised and criticized the report. There is no doubt, as one reads the report, that the Panel was deeply divided on a number of key issues. A more classic Canadian compromise would be difficult to find. I suspect both pro and anti-nuclear groups will debate just "what the Panel really meant," for many years to come. But in my view, a report that can engender so much opportunity for widely varying interpretations really isn't worth very much at all! It is too bad that the Panel members did not do the honorable thing, and write a report which clearly stated the majority and minority opinions, expressing the dissenting views on key issues, along with the identification of the Panel members holding those views.

As for me, there is no room for compromise when it comes to the permanent underground burial of high-level radioactive waste. I will oppose any such plan! The bottom line is that the Panel succeeded in getting itself off the hook. It avoided making the inevitably contentious "go for a site" decision, by using lack of public acceptance as its rationale, and by setting up an elaborate step-by-step decision-making mechanism which will take at least three years to complete, and which is heavily weighted to arrive at exactly the same "go for a site" decision. It surrounded the AECL underground burial concept with enough of a "technically acceptable" halo to virtually ensure its chances of implementation during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Since, according to many a nuclear pundit, there is no great urgency to build such a facility, in some way the Panel's findings may actually have accelerated the site selection process. Witness the specter of Ontario Hydro, openly seeking the institutional leadership role at the FEARO hearings, and nosing around in closed-to-the-public meetings with the Lac Du Bonnet Council, in advance(!) of the Panel report.

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Consider the Pinawa Municipal Council (as reported in the May 19, 1998 Pinawa Paper ), passing a resolution requesting the Federal Government to establish a demonstration facility on the property of the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment --- and, using the Panel

report as the rationale! Early indications are that the nuclear establishment is now more aggressively pursuing the three-stage process spelled out in the Acres Consulting Report in 1978, and unchanged since: (1) test facility (URL), (2) demonstration vault (with some nuclear waste) and (3) final repository. In my view, the Panel has succeeded in conceiving an elaborate plan. It carefully lays out what it thinks would be required to "brainwash" the Canadian people into thinking that the technically safe(!) AECL nuclear waste burial concept is just fine. It sets out the parameters and design for such an agency which would administer a two year-long exercise in nuclear waste burial propaganda. I don't think it will work. AECL's own polls have shown over and over again how unacceptable the concept is, to the general public. But, who can say for sure? Much depends on how the definition of "broad public support" will be interpreted, by the government of the day, during and after the initial three year period. It is already clear just how the nuclear establishment itself, will interpret the Panel report --"the concept is safe, so all we need is a little more public relations in the right places!" Has Pinawa, Manitoba already achieved "broad public support"? Was the Local Government District of Pinawa's decision requesting location of the Stage 2 demonstration vault (1978 Acres Report) deemed to be sufficient to meet that requirement? I am certain that the Panel was talking about a much larger segment of the Canadian public. However, given the track record of our pro-nuclear Federal Government, and the knowledge that Pinawa will soon rank as an abandoned settlement without some large infusion of a work project, my guess is that the "broad public support" argument has already found acceptance. Again, I hope I am wrong.

Next Steps: There is no guarantee that the Government of Canada will adopt all or even part of the Panel report. However, I cannot envision our pro-nuclear Government rejecting the Panel's conclusion that the concept is, "on balance" safe. [ That would really surprise me to the

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degree that I might even be forced to write an epilogue to this manuscript! However, I would be delighted to do that in such an improbable event. ] But, suppose the Government asked me for my response to the report (ha!) --- what would I say? I would:

concur with the Panel's conclusion that the AECL concept does not have broad public support and should not be adopted as the Canadian approach to nuclear waste management. not concur with the conclusion endorsing the safety of the concept, given all of the misgivings expressed by the Panel. recommend that the AECL concept be indefinitely "shelved." not concur with the Panel's four point program. suggest that a task force be established to study the on-site monitored and retrievable storage option, with a view toward sustaining and improving it. urge that the Government of Canada join in the ongoing international research efforts in accelerator transmutation of waste (ATW) Most assuredly, I would not endorse the creation of a new agency which is given but two years to decide among three options, one of which is already identified by the Panel as the internationally preferred approach (i.e., some variation of the AECL's underground burial concept). If the Governments of Canada and Ontario accept the report, including creation of the new agency and the four-phase plan, there still is an opportunity to discuss alternatives to the underground burial concept. During that two year period, strong efforts could be undertaken to dissuade the new agency from proceeding with a "gussied up" version of AECL's underground concept, in favor of continued on-site, monitored retrievable storage, and participation in international research in various alternatives, such as accelerator transmutation. If that strategy fails and the new agency proceeds with implementation of a modified AECL underground burial plan, which would then culminate in a site selection effort --- what then? Or, if the Government simply gives the nuclear establishment a "green light" to put its public relations machine into high gear and it targets in on Pinawa, or another potential site in the Canadian Shield --- what then? In either case, I would say, it will be up to activists (whoever and wherever they may be) to make sure that "all hell breaks loose" in the land! Unless, of course, we all have a strong urge to get universally

SHAFTED! Walter Robbins

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