By Andrew de Souza

Nuclear waste protestors march through PA

Aug 3, 2011 | 10:57 AM

A group of northern residents are taking an 800 km trek from Pinehouse to Regina to protest a potential nuclear waste site in their community and on Wednesday they stopped in Prince Albert.

They want the province to ban nuclear waste facilities in Saskatchewan since several northern communities—Pinehouse, English River First Nation and Creighton– are being considered as candidates.

Organizer Max Morin said it’s important to take up such a demonstration because it not only affects the immediate communities where the sites will be located but everyone else in the province.

“This is not just a northern issue, it’s a southern issue, it’s all of Saskatchewan, one people,” he said. “We all know that radiation has no boundaries—it keeps going. They want to drive it from Ontario through our communities and that’s dangerous.”

Morin’s wife Debby said walking all the way would show how committed the groups were to the cause.

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“It shows the depth of our caring,” she said. “We’re willing to sacrifice the bottom of feet because that’s nothing compared to 40,000 tonnes of nuclear waste and what it’ll do to our communities.”

When the group arrived in Prince Albert, they held a demonstration at City Hall.

Mayor Jim Scarrow, and councillors Ted Zurakowski and Charlene Miller met with them to provide some water from Prince Albert to a collection the group was building from communities they would visit.

Zurakowski said it was important to show support for people concerned about the community's well-being.

“We need to share in that voice because when we talk about not only dangerous goods going through our community but nuclear waste, we need to stand up and voice our concern,” he said.

NWMO says concerns premature

Presently, three communities in Saskatchewan and five in Ontario are in the running to host a site.

However the Nuclear Waste Management Organization said the group’s concerns may be a little premature.

Mike Krizanc with the organization said there are still a lot of steps before any community is chosen, and even if one in Saskatchewan was deemed suitable, it would require a plebiscite of all eligible voters to be passed.

“This project will not be imposed on any community,” Kriznac said. “What we are looking for is an informed, willing community.”

“We don’t go around suggesting communities consider this. Any communities that we are talking to … they have invited us and they have said they are interested in learning about the process for choosing a site and interested in the project.”

Kriznac said the communities in Saskatchewan have only completed the preliminary step towards site selection, which looked at ground water, resource and land issues.

He said there were no show-stoppers, but it was now up to the communities to decide if they wanted to go through a two-year feasibility study that would take up to two years.

Kriznac said that altogether a final site won’t be chosen for around 10 years and site construction won’t begin until 2035.

He added that at any point along the way communities could drop out of the process.

The organization's selection process can be found here.

Meanwhile, even though there’s an incoming petition, the SaskParty government isn’t concerned either

Energy and resource minister Bill Boyd said it’s so far off they haven’t even talked about it.

“We really don’t see this as a priority for Saskatchewan at all. We have not seen any kind of proposal come forward at all so it’s really not on the radar,” he said.

Here in Prince Albert, 7000 Generations will leave Thursday at 10 a.m. and will make their way to Duck Lake.

A copy of their petition can be found here.

adesouza@panow.com