The Great Canadian Nuclear Waste Saga-Volume One

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SCENARIO
The year: 2101.
The place: southeastern Manitoba, Canada.
THE PROBLEM: Canadian and US atomic energy and environment officials are in emergency meeting
in Washington, D.C. to assess the situation and develop evacuation plans for a large region of southern
Manitoba, northwest Ontario and northern sections of North Dakota and Minnesota.
Just one month earlier, when the monitoring devices first detected the increasing levels of radiation,
Department of Energy officials in Ottawa had assured the public that the problem was not serious and
that there was ". . . no risk to the public." At that time radiation levels were still below the North
American guideline for "allowable" limits in the environment. The guidelines were established at the
Winnipeg convention of 2073 to allow for the construction and operation of the new generation of breeder
reactors which were needed to supplement dwindling uranium resources.
Authorities have concluded that the unexpected radiation release will increase and continue
"indefinitely." It is likely that a breach in the repository has occurred as a result of groundwater intrusion
which caused the waste to leak out into the biosphere. Just how many people and how extensive an area
might be affected is as yet unknown. Panic has already set in and many people are making hasty plans to
vacate the area, many not having a clue as to where they are going.
This was not exactly what the atomic energy establishment had in mind when it initiated its plan for the
"ultimate disposal" of high-level radioactive waste back in the 1970s. Although the Canadian
Government's timetable for development and operation of the repository was initially set back by negative
public reactions to underground geological research, the economic benefits from the commercial
repository finally prevailed and all levels of government agreed to move ahead with the plan.
Objections by citizens' and environmental groups were brushed aside by the authorities during the public
hearings on site selection in Ottawa and Winnipeg in 1990.
The eastern Manitoba site, located in the Canadian Shield in the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet,
was long considered to be the prime location for the repository complex. It had been selected in 1978 for
deep geological research and was the location of the first major underground radioactive waste test facility
(URL) of its kind in the world. Its proximity to the Atomic Energy of Canada's Whiteshell Nuclear
Research Establishment (WNRE) at Pinawa, Manitoba, made it particularly attractive to the nuclear
establishment.
The WNRE became the official national headquarters of the Canadian nuclear waste management
program in the 1970s, and the proximity of the rock formation, known as the Lac du Bonnet batholith to
the scientific community at Pinawa, made the location irresistible. Best of all, most people in the region
came to accept the inevitable with good grace, and with high anticipation of sharing in the expected
economic benefits.
The U.S. Government took an interest in the project from the start. Unable to perform similar research in
any of the several states because of fierce public opposition, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
the Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation became partners in the initialUnderground Research Laboratory
project under a Canadian -- US agreement. Later, the U.S. persuaded the Canadian Government and the
Province of Manitoba to expand the repository from a single- to a multiple-level layout to permit the
storage of spent fuel from U.S. reactors.
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Once again, objections from various environmental groups in Canada were ignored by the Canadian
Government. It was clear that the U.S. Government would pay any amount of money to gain access to the
Canadian repository. Also, during this period, European countries began negotiations with the Canadian
Government for possible storage of their waste in the repository.
The first repository was completed in the year 2010, covered a surface area of about thirty-two square
kilometers and included a surrounding buffer zone of some 500 meters. More than three hundred metres
deep, a veritable labyrinth of shafts, corridors, pillars and panels of rooms was blasted and carved out of
the ancient Precambrian granite; enough, in fact, to accommodate several million canisters of highly
radioactive waste which would meet Canadian and U.S. requirements well into the first quarter of the 21st
century.
Lac du Bonnet Repository No. 1, as it was called, was filled to capacity by the year 2050. It was sealed up
and decommissioned soon after the nearby repository No. 2 went into operation.
The breach of the first repository only 50 years later came as a shock. Early computer models followed by
extensive geo-physical research in the Underground Laboratory had convinced the nuclear establishment
that the statistical probability of a repository failure during the initial 500 years was virtually nil.
Categorical statements about the safety of deep granite geological storage had been made by U.S. and
Canadian scientists as early as 1981.
But now, the "impossible" has happened. The grim facts were placed before the public. There is no
available technology to deal with the problem of radioactivity escaping from a decommissioned,
completely sealed repository.
Long term negative health impacts on the affected population are now inevitable, even from a short
exposure to the radiation. And no one can calculate the future genetic damage. Now, the lives of hundred
of thousands of people have been disrupted and, perhaps, permanently altered.
There is fear and loathing in the land . . .
THE PEACEFUL PLACE
Phyl peered at me apprehensively over the latest copy of the Lac du Bonnet Leader. I had been dozing
off in the rocking chair. "Have you read the 'Letters to the Editor?' " she asked.
"No!" I replied. "I've quit reading them. I can't get excited over road easements, gravel pits and
garbage dump regulations."
"How about a radioactive garbage dump? Does that grab you?"
"A radioactive what?" I exclaimed. "You must be kidding! Where? Certainly not around here!"
Phyl's expression, as she handed me the newspaper, suggested that she was quite serious. "Well, you
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read this letter and see what you think."
My eyes focused on the letter from a Mr. G. Ylonen. "Good grief, according to this man, they really are
thinking about putting some sort of radioactive waste test facility around here, and it's going
underground!"
Phyl shrugged. "That's what I said. See, you should read these letters. You can get quite an
education."
"She's right," I thought. "But there must be some mistake! I can't believe that! As the man said,
`There goes the neighborhood!' Why, there's no place left in this world where you can find a little
peace and quiet! Someone's always mucking up your landscape! Why here in Manitoba?"
"Walt, where do you think they would put a radioactive waste dump! Certainly not in downtown
Toronto!"
"Why not?" I said. "That's where the reactors are that produce the stuff. Or, at least they should be
doing their experiments up in the far north somewhere - where there are no people around!"
Phyl smiled. "Maybe they think there are no people living here anyway. Why don't you ask them why
they are doing it here?"
Indignant, I retorted, "Damn right, I will! I fully intend to. But who are 'they' anyway? Who are we
talking about? Whose bright idea was this?"
"Ylonen must be talking about Pinawa," said Phyl.
Pinawa - the local code name for the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment, (or WNRE), at the
western entrance to the Whiteshell Provincial Park. I sometimes wondered just what they did there --
never really gave it much thought. The WNRE, with its nuclear research reactor, had been sitting there
for quite a while and seemed to be minding its own business. You could spot it from Highway Number
11 going north toward Lake Winnipeg. Phyl had once expressed a desire to go and tour the facility but
we never got around to doing it, although the previous summer, we did drive over to the Pinawa
townsite.
It was quite a shock, finding a suburban community of bungalows and split-level houses right in the
middle of the "bush." The lawns and gardens were well manicured and "downtown" there was a little
shopping mall, complete with post office.
Indeed, this bedroom community of Pinawa had all the earmarks of a well-heeled urban suburb. The
only catch was that the nearest city, Winnipeg, was about eighty miles to the west. This "suburb" was
an anomaly sitting out there all by itself in the middle of Eastern Manitoba.
Ylonen's letter kept nagging at me. I had not heard or seen anything about an underground
radioactive waste project in the area. Phyl remembered reading something about test drilling taking
place on the property at Pinawa but did not attach much significance to it at the time.
"Perhaps he's wrong," I said. "It's too peaceful here. This is no place for any underground
experiments for nuclear waste; not in the middle of 'cottage country.'"
I thought back six years to that spring day in 1974 when we first set foot on the property that was to
change the direction of our lives. A two-year-long search for a piece of Manitoba bush came to an end.
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"This is it!" I proclaimed, as I gazed over the fields to the south. Phyl nodded in obvious agreement. A
quarter section of dense bush, sprinkled with marshes, rock outcroppings and steeped in beautiful
isolation. Why, there was even a twenty-five foot elevation on the property. A veritable mountain (by
eastern Manitoba standards!).
It wasn't exactly like the Blue Ridge Mountains near our old Washington, D.C. stomping grounds, but
the irregular terrain had a decided eastern feeling about it; much different from the beautiful but open
prairies around Winnipeg. Here there was a slight resemblance to the hilly surroundings we had left
behind us in 1970.
We bought the property, complete with the old log cabin and two weather-beaten railroad shacks,
which had been advertised as "guest cottages," all in various stages of decay. Our dream of owning
some country property had finally come true.
The idea of owning one hundred and sixty acres of any kind of land was awesome for a couple of East
Coasters who once thought a third of an acre building lot in the suburbs of Washington was a vast
territory! However, we were soon humbled to find out that one of our neighbors farmed nearly one
thousand acres, and that was small by western Canadian standards.
Our original plan was to leave the land in its natural state. But we did decide to mark some hiking
trails, which were later to be expanded slightly for use as cross-country ski and snow-shoe trails. Much
of our spare time was spent there, hiking through the bush, watching the seasons change, bird
watching and catching glimpses of deer, moose, rabbits, and other wildlife.
Those were memorable days for us: simple but genuine and real pleasures to be shared.
Initially, our interest was in the land only. The old log cabin came as a surprise bonus, as did the
out-buildings. The cabin was in a bad state of disrepair. Rotted logs needed replacing or patching. The
little attached sun porch sagged on one side. Inside, however, it was snug and comfortable, with two
tiny bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen area. Although it lacked indoor plumbing, there was
electric power and phone service along with two wood stoves, one, a Québec heater, in good condition.
The cabin was fixed up and made livable for weekend retreats.
The bush had nearly taken over the land around the buildings and we worked until we had made a
respectable clearing. We greeted each weekend with great anticipation.
Much time was spent refurbishing the cabin, developing a large vegetable garden, and canoeing in and
out of the inlets and marshes of the Winnipeg River, only a half mile away from our property. Some
week-ends Winnipeg friends visited to cross-country ski, to hike in the bush, or simply to relax and
pick berries.
The immediate surrounding wilderness hid the fact that we were only eight miles north of the village of
Lac du Bonnet, at the edge of one of the major Canadian tourist and cottage resort areas. The entire
region was sprinkled with recreation residences of every conceivable description, from small trailers to
large, mansion-sized "cottages."
Slowly, the idea grew. Wouldn't it be great to live there - full-time? The inevitable decision was made.
As soon as the youngest of our three children was off to university, we would pull up our roots once
again and try our hand at country living. We were realistic enough to agree that the whole idea was a
bit wild, an experiment, but the adventure seemed worth the risk. I could continue with my consulting
and training work, while Phyl could start up a book and craft shop in the village of Lac du Bonnet. If
we didn't like it, we could return to the big city.
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I had already made a big break in the spring of 1976 when I quit my job with the provincial
government and became a freelancer. Phyl arranged to take an extended leave of absence from her
teaching job in Winnipeg.
The spirit of adventure even carried over to the house we finally built; or rather, the addition we put
on the log cabin. After considering all sorts of alternatives for type and location of house on the
property, we came right back to the old log cabin. It was 60 years old and had been once situated on
the banks of the Winnipeg River. When the area was flooded, as a result of the construction of the
large scale hydro-electric installations, it was moved to our land. Its roof was perfectly sound and it had
two reasonably good sides and a solid floor sitting on concrete pads, which were on Pre-Cambrian
granite.
The addition was designed for us by a Winnipeg architect. The construction was undertaken by a local
Lac du Bonnet builder who tried to talk us out of using the old log cabin as part of the house. He was
all for tearing it down and putting up a new place. No doubt from a purely practical standpoint, he was
right. But we clung to our romantic notions, and he and his helpers proceeded to build the addition
and tie it in with the old cabin just as the architectural drawings required. They did a splendid job of
linking the new cedar-wood addition to the old cabin.
Phyl and I were busy tearing out and rebuilding all the cabin's interior walls while the carpenters,
electricians and plumbers were at work. We actually moved in during all this pandemonium, when we
sold our Winnipeg house in November, 1977.
We lived on site for the fall and winter of that year, with time spent working on the interior of the
house, splitting wood for the new stove in the new living room, and gazing out onto the Manitoba
winter landscape.
Part of the experiment was a success. We had our log and cedar house, completely winterized, largely
heated by the sun and wood and insulated by mountains of pink fiberglass. The house had all the
comforts, and a warmth and charm that only logs and cedar can produce. Most importantly, it had
plenty of hot and cold running water.
The experience of finding a water source played a part in our future involvement with the radioactive
waste issue. A few test holes to the north and south of the house had produced no significant surface
water. The existing surface well, about one hundred feet north of the house, had been fine for weekend
use, but would hardly suffice for a full-time household. We could have hauled in water and stored it in
holding tanks, but chose, instead, the risky option of having a deep well drilled on the property.
Our research produced little information about locating a deep well. Finally, we were referred to a local
Lac du Bonnet man, Ernie Donin, whose card read, "Locating and Drilling - Professional Well
Locator."
Ernie was a lively fellow in his seventies. With his little shaggy dog trailing behind him, he came out to
our place one morning and walked around the property adjacent to the house. He said he thought he
could find a good supply of water and he gave me the name of Mike Futros, a well driller whom he
knew.
Mr. and Mrs. Futros came out to see me about a week later. He explained that no deep wells had been
drilled near our property, and that people around there generally believed that the granite rock could
not produce a good water source. Ernie thought differently. He felt that water could be found in the
Shield granite, almost anywhere, and in abundance.
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However, I began to question my decision. Should I take part in what amounted to an experiment
where the financial risk was considerable? The prevailing price for drilling through rock was $18.75
per foot and it wouldn't take too long before the tab could run up into the thousands of dollars. Could
the local belief about no water in these rocks be correct? We could be out a bundle of money and still
have no water. The deal was that you paid the well driller, water or no water. The contract was clear.
My misgivings extended to the manner in which we were locating the water. Surely there must be a
more scientific way of doing this. The idea of putting our bank account into the hands of this gentle,
elderly man who wandered around the property with a forked stick in his hands was more than a little
unnerving. The government water experts were of no real help. They talked in general terms and, in
the end, even they had suggested the use of a water diviner.
Finally, we told Ernie to go ahead. Having built the addition, and being spoiled city folk, we wanted
plenty of running water.
Ernie spent several hours doing his thing. As he did not permit his clients to watch him, I'm really not
sure exactly what it was he did. Once in a while, I would catch a glimpse of him, first on the west side
of the house and then on the east. About an hour or so later, he came over to me and announced that
he had found a water source about twelve feet from the northeast corner of the house. He was positive
about the location and the amount of water, which he thought was abundant, but he hedged on the
depth and finally, reluctantly gave me a figure of about sixty feet.
During the third week in May, 1977, the silence of our peaceful place was abruptly broken by the
pounding sound of the diamond drill chewing its way through the Cambrian granite. The assault to the
eardrums was profound.
The drill rig had started up on a beautiful Lac du Bonnet spring afternoon. Futros said he would drill
until it got dark, around 9:00 PM, and would start again early the next morning if it was necessary.
Naturally, I had hoped to see a great gush of water (or better yet, oil!) before the sun went down.
Nightfall arrived and the drill had reached the sixty foot mark and all that had been produced was a
small hill of fine granite powder. My anxiety began to mount as I visualized my bank account
dwindling.
After the crew left that evening, I walked over to the drill rig. A strange feeling came over me.
Suddenly, I knew that we would find water on that spot. I suppose Ernie must have had a similar
feeling when he stood there several weeks earlier.
My faith was shaken somewhat, however, when on the next day the drill bit moved through another
one hundred feet of rock, producing nothing more than additional pinkish gray powder. When the two
hundred sixteen foot mark was reached that afternoon without any sign of water and as I was already
poorer by a considerable sum of money, I completely lost faith in the whole operation. The Robbins'
bank account was at stake.
I told Futros to stop, but he wanted to go on. I reminded him that it was my money, not his, and that I
was already in debt to him by a substantial amount. He argued that we would find water very soon. He
seemed very sure of himself. Perhaps he detected something in the rock powder. As an incentive, he
offered to split the cost of the drilling with me from that point on. I relented and told him to go ahead.
When the drilling rig started up again, I headed for my car and drove to the village of Lac du Bonnet.
Why I left the site, I am not sure. But I had to get away from it. Perhaps it was the old adage about a
watched pot. But I had a strong feeling that when I returned there would be water in the well.
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After wandering rather aimlessly around the village for about two hours, I headed back. It was late in
the afternoon on that 25th day of May, 1977, when I drove up the lane toward the house. As I got
closer to the drilling rig, I really wasn't surprised to see smiles on the faces of the workmen and the
small group of interested bystanders that had been drawn to the spot by the sound of the drilling rig.
One workman ran toward me waving and shouting, "We hit water, and lots of it!" And, indeed, they
had. At two hundred forty feet the pinkish gray rock had given way to a reddish color and at two
hundred and eighty feet the well "came in." Water was being pumped from the hole at the rate of forty
gallons per minute, and had leveled off at a depth of sixteen feet from the surface.
The well drillers had a container of water all ready for me. It was ice cold, clear, and tasted to me like
ambrosia! Futros was overjoyed. Ernie had a big grin on his face and, so help me, I believe his dog did
too. I called Phyllis in Winnipeg with the good news. Poorer (but richer), we had an ample supply of
fresh water for all our needs in our new home.
The next day I settled accounts with Mike and Ernie. Ernie was embarrassed about his "slight"
miscalculation on the depth, but he was dead right on the location and the quantity of water. As I
wrote the cheques for the job, I thought to myself that it would probably be at least one hundred years
before the costs of the well would be made up by the consumption of the water. But there are some
things that you can't figure purely in terms of dollars and cents.
Soon the abundant water became a normal part of our everyday lives. Although it came up from its
great depth to our kitchen tap in a perfectly scientific and rational manner, for me it possessed a
certain aura of mystery. It also raised many questions in my mind. How did Ernie "know" there was
water at that location? How, indeed, did Futros and I "know"? What would have been the result if we
had drilled a foot away from the spot Ernie had chosen? Would we have found water at his estimated
sixty feet, or even closer to the surface? Did we tap into the only underground stream for miles
around?
Our brief research told us that there is a veritable labyrinth of rivers and streams underground,
running cold and deep, through the ancient Pre-Cambrian rock. The strangest thought of all was that
we had tampered with some of the deep secrets of the world below us. Nature was permanently altered
and had given to us one of her most valued treasures. For that we were thankful.
To some extent, the well drilling experience and the feelings that we developed about the water
influenced our decision to resist the efforts of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., (AECL), to develop an
underground radioactive waste research facility in the area.
Intellectually, we knew that people puncture the earth's surface every day, usually to extract resources
of one kind or another, as well as to bury the wastes that result from the consumption of those
resources. But somehow we felt that there was something different about the AECL experiment. Our
feelings were to be confirmed by the events yet to unfold.
Our own experiment with rural living was not a rousing success. Although we met our first goal - the
building of the log and cedar house - the second turned out to be elusive and in the end, unattainable.
We had hoped to set up a book and craft shop in the village of Lac du Bonnet. We thought to keep the
shop open during the summer and perhaps reopen during the Christmas season, attracting both local
and cottage trade. We had many ideas, including developing an effective outlet for marketing local
handicrafts, providing a place where actual craft work could also go on, and developing a center for
many interesting and lively activities.
The problem was that we could not find a suitable rental property. We dealt with local real estate
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agents and business people, all of whom seemed less than enthusiastic about our plan to set up a shop
in the village.
One place available was a decrepit metal structure that was literally falling apart and, in fact, was
replaced by another metal building a few years later. The few other possibilities we encountered were
on the fringes of the small commercial area of the village. Our discouragement grew.
At the time, our only source of income was from my management training and consulting business. The
logistics of running training workshops and consulting in Winnipeg, Regina, and elsewhere became
very complicated by the distance between our place and the city. I was always apprehensive about the
weather and winter road conditions, particularly when I had to meet a planned schedule in Winnipeg,
and I could no longer maintain frequent business contact with clients or potential clients.
Therefore, we spent time looking for other things to do. I started writing articles and sold a few for
publication. Phyl resurrected an old hobby and began to make little stained glass animals. For
recreation, we went out on our ski trail with our Siberian huskies, Skeena and Chukchi. On more than
one occasion, we spent time de-quilling Skeena, an ex-garbage marauder from Whitehorse, who took a
liking to porcupines! Skeena was "on permanent loan" to us from our daughter, Wendy, who had
recently returned from adventures in the Yukon.
The efficient Norwegian wood stove gave the house a very cozy warm feeling during that particularly
cold winter of 1977-78. Providing wood for the stove, tending our large vegetable garden, picking wild
berries, felling trees, planting Scotch pine tree seedlings, all occupied our time during the spring and
summer months. Indeed it seemed an idyllic life, but not a satisfying life-style for two city-oriented
people who had spent their adult lives in various professional and intellectual pursuits. We began to
suffer from a sense of isolation and boredom, particularly during the winter. We realized how much we
missed urban amenities.
Neighbors of ours, Dorothy and Jim Crozier and their family, lived in a snug farmhouse about a mile
from our place, down at the end of the road; a road which Jim Crozier had originally built by himself.
They went out of their way to help us whenever they could. And on occasion, we needed their help!
The fact that we were outsiders in a rural environment became more and more unsettling to us.
In the absence of a viable economic and intellectual life-style, and in the presence of a growing feeling
of isolation, we finally decided to give up on our experiment with country living. Taking small comfort
from the fact that we were not the first people to go through this kind of trauma, we decided to pack it
in and return to Winnipeg to buy a small house there and resume our professional and business lives,
and to use our Lac du Bonnet home as a year-round retreat.
Much time was spent there, but gradually the place began to take on a different meaning. It became a
somewhat elaborate cottage. Garden tending, grass cutting, fishing and relaxing were now the main
activities, much the same as they had been before we moved out there.
We both looked forward to 1980 as the beginning of a new chapter, enjoying the benefits of the city
while relaxing on weekends and holidays in the country. With all the comforts of home in both places,
we thought we had achieved the best of both possible worlds. It was a life-style that would not be hard
to take.
But it was not to be. The dream was shattered early that year. The specter of radioactive waste cast a
long, dark shadow over our lives. The peaceful place was to become a battleground and we would soon
become locked in the struggle.
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AWAKENING
We could have chosen otherwise. Our retreat was ideally suited for a hermit-like lifestyle. We could
have ignored the whole issue of radioactive waste, used our secluded place on weekends as a
springboard for our canoe trips and as a summer place for gardening, berry picking and just relaxing.
Although at the time we were not certain where in the area AECL would do its underground research,
we gathered from George Ylonen's letters to the editor of the Lac du Bonnet Leader that it would be
on the other side of the Winnipeg River between the Village of Lac du Bonnet and the existing AECL
facility at Pinawa. Since that was about ten or more miles from our place, why should we get stirred up
over this thing?
After all, we bought the property with full knowledge that the nuclear research reactor at Pinawa
would be one of our neighbors. Was anyone really upset about AECL's plans other than Ylonen? Did
he have some special ax to grind? I began to question my own reaction to the situation. The initial
anger began to fade. We tried to put it all in the back of our minds. Unsuccessfully.
It kept nagging at us. Maybe our general awareness of things nuclear had gradually increased. The
accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the United States had occurred less than twelve
months earlier. Other stories about nuclear accidents were appearing with greater frequency in the
media. But there was something more basic and more profound than our awareness of the possible
hazards of the nuclear age. And that was a realization that our chosen life-style, a big part of which
included our Lac du Bonnet retreat, might be in jeopardy.
The most significant factor of all was that we had absolutely no say in the matter! No one asked for our
two cents' worth. All we knew was what we read in Ylonen's letters to the editor and it appeared from
those that a unilateral decision had already been made by the Lac du Bonnet Rural Municipal Council
to support AECL's project.
The feeling of being left out of things that could affect our future was, no doubt, one of the major
reasons for our continued interest and increasing involvement in the radioactive waste situation. Our
background as social activists in the U.S. during the civil rights movement of the 1960s had taught us
much about "grass roots" democracy. We had become accustomed to a growing populist notion about
government. It was normal, as far as we were concerned, for people to be involved in decisions
concerning things that might affect them.
However, that was the '60s and we were no longer in the United States. But, as naturalized Canadians
in the '80s, we had become increasingly aware of the environment in "our backyard."
Try as we might, for whatever reasons, we could not shake off the feelings of uneasiness that we
experienced when we thought about the project. We perceived it as a potential treat. For us, the very
notion of anything to do with radioactive waste stood in stark and forbidding contrast to the bucolic
serenity and the natural beauty of our own cherished environment at Lac du Bonnet. In every sense of
the word, AECL's plan was, to us, blasphemous. We decided to act.
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We raised the issue with our Lac du Bonnet neighbors, the Croziers. In his usual straightforward,
matter-of-fact way, Jim Crozier outlined his own concerns about the project. And Dorothy expressed
her misgiving about it in no uncertain terms.
The Croziers told us that George Ylonen and some others had already got together and started a
Committee of Concerned Citizens. Would we be interested in meeting George, along with one of the
other organizers, Marguerite Larson? You bet we would! The Croziers arranged the small meeting at
their place on an early February Saturday evening.
We had spent the day at Lac du Bonnet, relaxing, cross-country skiing, and splitting firewood. That
evening we drove through the crisp Manitoba air, over the road that fronts our property and winds
into, and ends at, the Croziers' farm. As always, their dogs heralded our arrival, barking and running
back and forth from the car to the front door. We shed our boots, scarves, parkas, hats and gloves.
(I don't think I will ever get used to the sheer logistics of getting in and out of houses in this part of the
world during the winter months!)
The word "cozy" must have been invented to describe the Croziers' home. Having settled back into the
comfortable living room chairs, we began to elaborate on the concerns we had shared earlier. Soon the
dogs started barking again, signaling the arrival of George Ylonen. So, at last, here was the fellow who
was blowing the whistle on AECL, sounding the alarm to the community that there was something
going on which was worthy of attention and concern.
Introductions were short. We got right down to business. In his very direct and rapid-fire style, this
farmer and hard rock miner quickly outlined his concerns and ideas about the AECL project. He
expressed his displeasure with the municipal council and its approval of the AECL project; he
criticized AECL for its slick public relations approach to the community. He told us that AECL had
been holding "educational" meetings in the community with small groups of local people, explaining
the nature and benefits of the underground research project, as well as extolling the virtues of nuclear
energy in general.
I had wondered what the brown paper bag contained. George Ylonen had been clutching it ever since
he came into the house. From it he extracted a tattered copy of an AECL report. It was marked
"WNRE-359-1, Radioactive Waste Repository Study, Part I, by Acres Consulting Services Limited,
prepared for the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment, Pinawa,
Manitoba, March, 1977."
The words, "Not For Publications," appeared on each and every page of the 191 page document. The
frontispiece of the study included an abstract which read,
This is the first part of a report of a preliminary study by Acres Consulting Services
Limited of Niagara Falls, Ontario, for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. It considers the
requirements for an underground waste repository for the disposal of wastes produced by
the Canadian Nuclear Fuel Program. The following topics are discussed with reference to
the repository: (1) underground layout, (2) cost estimates, (3) waste handling, (4)
retrievability, decommissioning, sealing and monitoring, and (5) research and design
engineering requirements.
The room was silent as each of us, in turn, thumbed through the tattered document. Tension mounted.
The report was obviously too lengthy and complex to be digested in a single reading that evening. But
sections on a "test facility" and "demonstration repository" caught everyone's attention. Was this
what was planned for us? The mood became downright depressing. As I leafed through the document,
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I felt as if I were aging ten years.
But Jim Crozier finally broke the ice. "Well, Walt, you know those one thousand Scotch pine seedlings
you planted last spring? Guess you'll be the only Christmas tree farmer in Manitoba whose trees will
glow without lights."
In the more relaxed atmosphere evoked by Jim's quip, I finally got up the courage to ask George a
question uppermost in my mind. "George, where the devil did you get this report? It's marked 'Not
For Publications.' " A boyish grin came over George's face. "Walt, I can't be too specific about that.
Just say a friend of mine found it in the garbage dump and loaned it to me."
As it turned out, a number of items from the mysterious "garbage dump" came our way over the next
several years, including some internal AECL documents on radiation levels in the Winnipeg River. I
did not find out who our friendly garbage hound was, until late in 1982. The gentleman in question
told me at one of the Committee's meetings that the garbage dump no longer contained such little
gems.
"Shredder technology" was now depriving us of one of our best sources of information.
George lent us the garbage dump version of the Acres report. Later we obtained a somewhat more
official version of it dated November, 1978. I say "somewhat" because inside the front cover of this
version was a disclaimer which simply stated:
"This report is a reissue of a previous report on consultant's work done two years ago. The views
and conclusions are those of the authors at that time and do not necessarily represent the official
position or policy of AECL today. In particular, the timetables of events are no longer valid."
The same disclaimer appeared on Part II of the "Radioactive Waste Repository Study," also dated
November, 1978. The abstract for Part II read:
"This is the second part of a report of a preliminary study for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.
It contains the requirements for an underground waste repository for the disposal of wastes
produced by the Canadian Nuclear Fuel Program. The following topics are discussed with
reference to the repository: (1) geotechnical assessment, (2) hydrogeology and waste
containment, (3) thermal loading, and (4) rock mechanics."
Later, when we had the opportunity to study these reports in detail, one thing was quite clear.
The so-called "test facility" envisioned in the Acres Consulting Report released by AECL
was, as the report stated, ". . . planned as the initial stage of the final repository." Italics
added
If we were going to get the test facility in Lac du Bonnet, would we also get the final repository? That
became the thorny question.
Dorothy Crozier served up some coffee and scrumptious cake as we chatted informally with George,
getting to know one another a little better. At that point, Marguerite Larson arrived and joined us at
the table. We had met briefly on a previous occasion but now we would be working closely together on
the new organization.
We quickly brought her up to date on our earlier discussions and she, in turn, gave us a thumbnail
sketch of the events which led up to the organizational meeting of the Committee of Concerned
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Citizens.
Marguerite shared George's concerns about the one-sided public relations campaign being waged in
the community by AECL and the lack of public input into the municipal council's decision. She also
felt the AECL's geological research activities would ultimately lead to a full-scale repository and she
had obviously done her homework on the subject of radioactive waste, as she described in grim detail
some of the deadly characteristics of plutonium.
The Acres report, the persuasiveness and obvious sincerity of George and Marguerite, plus the
concerns of the Croziers, added up to one inescapable conclusion. Phyl and Walt Robbins would do
whatever they could to help the Committee of Concerned Citizens, and themselves in the process.
The Committee of Concerned Citizens (CCC) would meet again on Sunday, February 24, 1980, at
Marguerite Larson's place. We agreed to be there and indeed, looked forward to the event with great
anticipation. Ironically, I thought, we would probably get to meet more Lac du Bonnet people on that
Sunday than during the eighteen months we lived there prior to our return to Winnipeg.
Driving over rural Manitoba roads was always an adventure, particularly in winter and spring. The
thought of being stranded in a ditch at minus thirty degrees (C.) on one of those isolated back roads
was always in the back of my mind. In the spring, those narrow pathways placed you and your car only
inches from the quicksand-like mud, commonly known as "gumbo." One false move with the steering
wheel and you were up to your windshield in a sea of mud. This kind of travel was an accepted way of
life for natives of the area, but for me it was always a harrowing experience, even though I knew
intellectually that the people around here always helped one another in these predicaments as a matter
of course.
When we arrived at the Larson's place, many cars were parked in front, and though we were on time,
it was clear that a crowd of people had arrived early. After adding our boots to the great pile in the
entryway, we were politely ushered into the house.
The scene was worthy of an artist's brush. Men and women of all ages, and a few children, were seated
in a large circle. They were not happy. You could cut the tension in the room with a dull knife. Judging
by the looks on their faces, I wondered whether a more apt name for the group would be "Committee
of Frightened Citizens."
After all the introductions, the meeting got underway, and Marguerite reviewed the previous meeting.
Then people started voicing concerns. I counted forty people in the room and not everyone spoke out;
but most did, and everyone listened carefully to everything that was said.
The main concern was that someday AECL would use the site for a full-scale radioactive waste
repository. Many of those present were not opposed to AECL doing geological research in the area, but
they wanted some kind of iron-clad guarantee that the site would not be converted or enlarged into an
actual repository. The assurances given by AECL that this would not happen clearly did not wash with
the Committee of Concerned Citizens.
The local governments in the area came in for their lumps, particularly the Council of the Rural
Municipality of Lac du Bonnet. There was a great deal of resentment over the secretive manner in
which the AECL approached the Rural Municipality Council and obtained permission to do the
research.
Phyl and I were not alone in our feeling of being left out of the decision-making process. The fact that
local government officials did not actively consult with the people before making the decision was
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central to the general discontent.
Someone pointed out that there were nearly as many seasonal residents paying municipal taxes in the
area as there were permanent ones, and that these "cottagers" from Winnipeg were probably
completely in the dark about the project. Hundreds of these cottages were located within a five-mile
radius of AECL's underground research site.
There seemed to be different notions of just what it was AECL was going to do first. Some believed
that the project was restricted to bore hole drilling. Others thought that AECL would construct a
"near surface test facility" which might be expanded later on. And some were sure that AECL was
going to construct an underground research laboratory deep in the rocks, maybe thousands of feet
down.
Several people had been to what they believed to be the site for the project and said that survey work
had already begun. They had seen markers, survey cuts and various pieces of heavy equipment.
Some of the people had been to the AECL public relations meetings and confirmed the latter
impression. They said that AECL people referred to the facility as the "underground research
laboratory."
Finally, the discussion centered on the need to "get out the word" to the community at large, including
the several thousand seasonal residents who spent much of their time at their cottages along the
Winnipeg River and its tributaries.
The decision was made to sponsor an open public meeting at the Lac du Bonnet High School on the
evening of Friday, May 2, 1980. The time was chosen to give the seasonal residents from Winnipeg an
opportunity to attend on their way out to their cottages and summer homes.
Quickly, people began volunteering for various chores: to locate a suitable moderator, to arrange for
the space, to provide refreshments, etc. I volunteered to help with the publicity and to be one of the
speakers.
During the discussion of media coverage, it was decided that there should be specific spokespersons
who would be the main contacts with the public and, if required, the media. After considerable
discussion about this role, Marguerite Larson, George Ylonen and I agreed to act as spokespersons for
the Committee.
The meeting lasted for about two hours, after which refreshments were served. The mood of the group
became a bit more cheerful once the decision to hold the public meeting had been made.
Someone suggested that we get into our cars and drive over to the spot believed to be the AECL site.
That sounded like a good idea, so we set off in a convoy of cars and trucks, headed down the highway
to the east of the Larsons' place and, after a short drive, turned right onto a municipal road, and
finally to the destination.
Sure enough, there was evidence of survey activity. The snow was deep but did not hide the stakes and
the red flags. Some of the group decided to hike into the dense bush which hid the large rock formation
that we were later to learn was a portion of the "Lac du Bonnet batholith," as AECL termed it. The
rest of the people remained in their cars, continuing the conversations which had started back at the
Larsons' place.
The exploring party returned about forty-five minutes later with a report that they located more
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survey markers. Someone suggested that the markers be removed, but the idea was rejected. Political
action was definitely preferred over direct action as the form of protest.
It was getting late, and Phyl and I used the drive back to Winnipeg to rehash the meeting. As I
reflected on the meeting, I realized it was unlike any other I had ever attended. In the first place, no
one was actually leading it. It was sort of a "leaderless" group discussion, but it was very productive
since it resulted in a definite plan of action and the assignment of responsibilities for various tasks.
As I reflected on the Committee itself, it occurred to me that, as an organization, it was completely

unorthodox. Thus far there was no formal membership requirement; no officers, no scheduled meeting
dates, no by-laws, none of the usual trappings of organizations. And yet, people met, spoke, listened
and reached consensus to act.
Now, I am not exactly a stranger to "organization." But I could find nothing in either my experience or
my studies of the subject that described or explained the workings of the Committee of Concerned
Citizens. My assumption that the Committee would eventually develop into a more formal organization
turned out to be incorrect. For a variety of reasons, the "members" of the CCC preferred not to
become more structured. This, of course made it difficult for the spokespersons to describe or explain
the CCC to outsiders.
It is a bit awkward when people ask (as they often do), "How many members do you have?" or, "What
are your regular meeting dates?" Our answers must sound very strange and vague when we say,
"Well, we don't exactly have members in the normal sense of the term. There are concerned citizens in
the Committee but they are not `members'. They are active in identifying problems, raising issues,
developing strategies, and the like. The decision-making process is usually consensus, and the number
of people involved can range from a handful up to sixty or more."
Puzzled expressions are understandable when we say, "There are no regular meeting dates; we meet
when the spirit moves us, whenever there is a need for information sharing, evaluation of the situation,
or a new strategy." "Who calls meetings?" we are asked. "Anyone can call a meeting, but usually it is
the spokespersons, that is, Marguerite Larson, George Ylonen and Walt Robbins." (Ylonen dropped
the role of spokesperson in the fall of 1980 when he was elected Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Lac
du Bonnet, but more about that later.)
Various people do the phoning to notify everyone about an upcoming meeting. Agendas are quite loose
and anyone is free to bring up anything that concerns him. But there seems to be a kind of grapevine
effect operating. Most of the people who come to the meetings are pretty well up on things. Some have
little tidbits of information or current community events to share. Sometimes, the main ideas come
from the group, and sometimes the direction is set by the spokespersons. When the group is really
effective, strategies are developed quickly, and the spokespersons wind up with much work! Since my
area was publicity in Winnipeg, I got pretty heavily loaded down with media release writing and
distribution activities.
One of the most amazing things about the CCC is the ability of its people to come together at the drop
of a hat. Fairly sizable groups of people can be assembled overnight. Someone's house becomes
available. Coffee, cakes and sandwiches appear as if by magic. (It isn't magic, of course; somebody has
to do a lot of hard work and preparation.) Meetings normally last about two hours and then dissolve.
But some plan of action nearly always emerges.
During that first meeting I pointed out that, in order to serve as a spokesperson, I needed more
information about AECL's plans for its research. The group readily agreed, and someone suggested
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that I contact the AECL public relations office at the WNRE. The group raised many questions for me
to pose to the AECL, and I had some of my own. The list was rather long.
Since I had no real desire to visit the reactor site at this point, I opted to phone and spoke at some
length with a Mrs. Jo Hilliar, one of the public relations officers who had been conducting small group
meetings in the area and visiting people's homes to talk about the project.
Mrs. Hilliar was very anxious to explain things to me. She pointed out to me that AECL was
undertaking a fifteen-year long program for safe disposal of high-level radioactive waste. She was
puzzled when I suggested that it might be more appropriate not to store radioactive waste
underground, but rather leave it on the surface for better monitoring and control (a gut reaction of
mine that was to be strengthened with the passage of time).
She went on to give assurances that radioactive waste would not be involved in the underground
research. The intense heat of radioactive waste would be simulated by electric heaters(!). I wondered to
myself how much money this would mean for Manitoba Hydro with its vastly overbuilt excess capacity.
The idea of using electric heaters sounded preposterous on the face of it.
My question to her about why the research was not done in some remote northern location evoked a
reply that I was to hear many times. It was convenient to do it here! Convenient for whom? Not for me,
or the people in the Committee of Concerned Citizens! No doubt the AECL folks would rather work
out of their comfortable bedroom community at Pinawa than sit in some remote camp up north. The
convenience rationale never did sit well with us.
When I raised the economic question, she downplayed any possible adverse effects on the community.
In fact, she downplayed any significant positive effects! The net benefit added up to only fifty jobs
during the two-year construction period, and no more than ten permanent jobs of a "janitorial
nature." As usual, the local people would be consigned to the clean-up squad.
There could be no assurance that any of these jobs would go to permanent residents of the area since
AECL would follow standard government bidding procedures. The "economic benefit" proponents of
the project obviously never grasped that point. Very few of the multi-millions of dollars were likely to
wind up in the pockets of the local residents of the area.
Mrs. Hilliar equivocated on her answer to my question about what would happen to the facility after
the research was completed. Perhaps some other scientific body might want to use it. It could become a
lab for geological research in Canada was the tenor of her response. Exercising admirable restraint, I
did not volunteer the notion going through my head that it might be used as a tourist attraction
featured as the "Great Mammoth Cave of Manitoba"!
Somehow I could not believe that AECL would walk away from their deluxe multi-million dollar hole
in the rock. (As this is being written, word is that the site will be restored to its original condition. We
expect to be around to monitor it to make sure that every rock is put back in its original place!)
As Jo Hilliar talked, I began to get some conception of the magnitude of the project. Although she and
her colleagues have tried to downplay the significance of the whole enterprise, as an excuse for not
having public hearings, it became clear to me that this was no small "near surface test facility" with
some inclined ramps, nor was it the rock collection exercise that AECL told the provincial government
it would be. This was going to be a three hundred-metre-deep facility with rooms, toilets, candy bar
machines and coffee breaks: the works!
Mrs. Hilliar was very pleasant on the phone that day, as she has been to me ever since. But her answers
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to my questions did nothing to assuage my concerns about the future of the project.
The members of the ad hoc group planning and organizing the May 2nd meeting swung into high gear.
There was much advance work to be done. Nevertheless, Phyl and I had planned to visit our three
children in Toronto and Ottawa during the spring school break: first to Toronto to spend time with
our son, Jim, and younger daughter, Li, then to Ottawa to visit our elder daughter Wendy, and her
husband. The bus trip we took from Toronto to Ottawa would prove to be more than just another trip.
BATTLE LINES
It was my first inter-city bus ride in years. Unquestionably, it is the way to enjoy the countryside while
traveling. When you drive your own car you (hopefully) keep your eyes on the road most of the time.
You really do not get to see very much of the scenery. A response to a "Hey, did you see that?" is
usually met with a "No, l'm watching the traffic!" The bus, on the other hand, seemed to hug the road,
purr along quietly, and invite you to sit back, relax and simply look.
It was a nice, pleasant four and a half hour ride from Toronto to Ottawa. Patches of snow here and
there would soon give way to the strengthening early April sun. It was good to see the eastern
landscape again. I suppose someone born and raised in the prairies feels the same way when returning
home to the familiar big sky and spectacular sunsets.
We were really looking forward to our visit to Ottawa. My memories of the city were very positive. I
recalled it as similar to Washington, D.C., without the massive traffic congestion and pollution. I had
often thought that if we were ever to settle back in the East, Ottawa would be a very desirable location.
It would be very good to see our children again and to reacquaint ourselves with the city.
My knowledge of the geography and the towns between Toronto and Ottawa left something to be
desired. I did not have a map with me and very few of the small towns had familiar names, that is until
Madoc. That rang a bell. I nudged Phyl. "There's a sign for Madoc! I didn't realize it was this far
east."
The article about Madoc in the number eleven issue of Harrowsmith Magazine had been of more than
passing interest to us. It related the story of a town and, in particular, one person in that town by the
name of Ron Vastokas. According to the article, AECL had approached Madoc requesting permission
to do some geological research in a rock outcropping just outside the town.
At that time AECL was still applying its policy of not going into communities where it was not wanted.
Vastokas led the citizens' group in its one-year battle with AECL and won. AECL pulled out of Madoc
under public pressure. Vastokas and his successful effort gave us some hope that we could prevail in a
conflict with AECL to abandon its plans for Lac du Bonnet.
Vastokas and his group had used earthquake data to prove that the Madoc chunk of rock was not
always as stable and quiet as it appeared to be. Perhaps what we needed was a good ground rumble in
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Eastern Manitoba, not enough to do any harm, but enough to rattle a few dishes (and a few brains) in
Pinawa and shake a little faith in the myth of the absolute stability of the Canadian Shield.
Later, we did a little checking on the subject of earthquakes and tremors in our part of Canada, and
lo! According to the Federal Division of Seismology and Geothermal Studies,
"The earthquake felt in southeastern Manitoba in the early 1900s is probably the 1909
event near southern Saskatchewan . . ."
So much for the "solid rock" theory.
All of AECL's descriptions of the Precambrian granite rock picture it as changeless, having been that
way for millions of years. Utter nonsense! We also learned that seismic records for Manitoba go back a
very short time, not even two hundred years. And most importantly, there is really no positive way of
predicting what the ground under our feet might do in the future. People would have to learn to live
with the uncertainties of AECL's statistical probability estimates, hoping that they are right for a very,
very long time.
Mother Nature gave us a message in 1982 when she once again proved that the Canadian Shield is not
to be taken for granted by producing a series of significant earth tremors in the Maritime Provinces.
My only personal experience with an earthquake was on a trip to San Francisco for the U.S.
anti-poverty agency during the late 1960s. I was sitting alone in an office at the top of one of the city's
taller buildings, writing my trip report, when the papers slid out of my grasp and the hanging light
fixture started swaying to and fro. We were having an earthquake, and I had not the faintest idea what
to do. It was a very strange feeling. I grabbed my papers (first things first!) and ran to the elevator,
pushed the button and stood there and waited.
The quake stopped. I was shaken by the experience in more ways than one but was amazed that the
people working in the offices around me continued to act as if absolutely nothing had happened. Those
San Franciscans were amused by my reaction to what they considered to be a routine event. They
seemed resigned to their fate if something big did happen.
As it turned out, we did not make an issue out of potential earthquake threats. In the first place, we
doubted that AECL would fall for that one again, and secondly, Manitobans, who are accustomed to a
high degree of underfoot security, would not likely be persuaded by such arguments.
As we got closer to Ottawa, the thoughts about Madoc, earthquakes, and Vastokas kept going through
my head. What can we do to further the case of the concerned citizens? Then the obvious hit me! Of
course! We will be in Ottawa. That's where the action is. That's the headquarters where the decisions
are made. That is where the Minister of Energy, Marc Lalonde, holds court. Why not spend some time
in Ottawa doing some good old-fashioned lobbying on behalf of the Committee of Concerned Citizens?
Why not?
Phyl liked the idea. The major flaw was that we had made no advanced preparations for visiting with
government officials. How would they respond to an unannounced visit from two of "the people"?
I had never thought of myself as part of that conglomerate fondly known as "the people." Probably
because I spent the greater part of my life in the role of the bureaucrat, and much of the time I was
required to meet and deal with "the people." As everyone knows, bureaucrats are anything but "the
people." They are nameless, faceless entities, imbued with a passion for anonymity. Bureaucrats are
(hopefully) there to serve the people and deal with their problems.
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My role as a spokesperson for a citizens' advocacy group was strange and new to me. After spending
years in the U.S. and Canada serving the public, I would now be making requests, perhaps demands,
upon public officials. This would not be an easy role because of my empathy with the job of the civil
servant, but I had one thing going for me. From the 1930s on, I had acquired a healthy disrespect for
many politicians. In any event, the whole exercise in Ottawa would prove to be very interesting.
We gained access to Marc Lalonde's office through the efforts of an assistant to Cyril Keeper,
Winnipeg MP (Wolseley). Unfortunately, the Energy Minister could not drop everything to see these
two unexpected visitors from Manitoba. Somehow, we thought that might be the case. However, you
never know unless you try. But all was not lost.
A Ms. M. Loveys, an assistant to the minister, volunteered to meet with us but almost apologetically
asked if it would be all right for her to bring along two AECL officials. Sure, why not, we agreed. And
so the meeting was set for the next day.
This was as close to the "horse's mouth" as we were going to get, but it wasn't bad for starters,
considering the short notice. As I recalled, it would have been pretty difficult for anyone to gain access
to a cabinet member in Washington on short notice.
We went back to our hotel room and did some brainstorming on how we would approach the
upcoming meeting. We needed information. What's happening now at the Lac du Bonnet site? A
phone call to the Larsons' place produced a surprised Marguerite who was astonished at our plan to
meet with the public officials. She said they had been observing increased activity at the AECL site,
including helicopters, survey crews and vans with Ontario license plates.
Our meeting was on April 3, 1980, at the Department of Energy building in Ottawa. We looked at a
city map and decided to walk from our hotel, thinking we had plenty of time. That was a mistake.
Having completely misjudged distances in Ottawa, we finally hailed a cab and arrived just in time for
the meeting.
Ms. Loveys introduced herself and the two AECL officials. One was a "Senior Media Relation
Officer," Mr. Brad Franklin, and the other a "Senior Advisor," Mr. F.N. McDonnell, PhD., P.Eng. It
was the first of many such symbiotic relationships we noted between public relations and scientific and
technical staff in AECL.
We settled into the meeting. They listened as we recited the concerns of the Committee of Concerned
Citizens that some day the site at Lac du Bonnet would be used as a radioactive waste repository and
that we believed the people had no real voice in AECL's decision to proceed with its project. We
thought there should be public hearings before anything else was done.
Franklin responded. In fact, he did most of the talking. The engineer said very little. Later, we learned
that this was standard practice in AECL which had some misgivings over the ability of its scientific
people to communicate with us ordinary lay folk. [We also learned later that AECL was providing
training courses in how to speak "laymanese" for these scientists and engineers!]
As for Ms. Loveys, I kept glancing at her, waiting for her to say something significant, as the assistant
to Mr. Lalonde. She remained silent as Franklin dominated the meeting. His smooth, pacifying
approach was impressive. He was giving us a taste of the public relations that the people in the
communities around the Manitoba AECL site had been getting for some while now. It was pretty
convincing. We had nothing to worry about. This was just a minor research project, a little rock
drilling, no radioactive waste.
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The guy was a real pro. Then he shook us. He asked if we had met a man named George Ylonen. So
there it was! The "enemies list" was already being compiled. These Ottawa big shots were well aware
of the details of what was going on and who was who in Lac du Bonnet. Our friend George Ylonen,
who had done nothing more than write some letters to the editor of the local paper, hold one small
meeting, and attend meetings of the Rural Municipal Council, was already well known at the higher
echelons of the AECL bureaucracy in Ottawa. I was stunned by the question. We simply answered,
"Yes, we know him."
Our entrancement with Franklin's skills also ended when he told us that the whole project was only in
the "thinking" stage and that no work was actually taking place, and that it might not even be
approved. That really did it! That is where they lost us.
We proceeded to inform them that we had just checked with people at Lac du Bonnet and we asked
how they could explain the helicopters, survey crews, heavy equipment, and vans which were working
on the site at that very moment.
We caught them by surprise. There was no real explanation; just more generalities and more attempts
to assure and pacify us. I think that they knew that we knew that they were giving us a "snow job."
During a break point in the meeting, Ms. Loveys took us aside and suggested that we place our
concerns and requests for a public hearing in writing to the Minister, and that we would get a prompt
written response from him.
It was after that meeting that the full impact of the situation at Lac du Bonnet came home to us. We
were now more convinced than ever that our original concerns were well founded and that we would
fully commit ourselves to the cause of the concerned citizens.
And what was that cause? A chance to be heard and to hear all sides of an issue. That should not be
too much to ask in what is regarded as one of the most free countries in the world.
Phyl and I were exhilarated when we left the meeting. To clear our heads we simply started walking
without a clue as to where we were headed. Perhaps public hearings on the AECL project would be
just around the corner. As we walked, we talked, only dimly aware of our surroundings. After several
hours we came upon familiar landmarks and found our daughter's place. She told us that we had
probably made a complete tour of Ottawa even though we didn't see much of it.
Later, back at our hotel, I was stretched out on the bed listening to the CBC news. My ears perked up.
Incredulously, I was hearing something about radioactive waste research at a place called New
Liskard, Ontario. The report went on about a man named Owen Smith who had just sent out a letter
to all the people in his area, asking them to wrap up their own kitchen garbage and mail it to the
Whiteshell Nuclear Reactor Establishment at Pinawa, Manitoba.
Apparently, AECL was eyeing his area for some drill sites. It seemed there was a lot more to this whole
affair than we realized. Our nuclear friends at the meeting had said nothing about New Liskard. How
many other places, I wondered, are going through this exercise?
Owen Smith. I jotted down his name. Then we decided to call him. I checked er with the information
operator, and quickly had him on the line. I told him about Lac du Bonnet. He told me about the
citizens' group in his part of Ontario. The fight had been going on for some months and the issue was
coming up for a vote in all the municipal councils in the region.
He said he thought the councils would reject the AECL geological research plans but he and the
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citizens' group were doing all they could to make sure. Then he gave me the names of some people he
said he was sure would help us in our dealings with AECL. They were representatives of an
organization called Friends of the Earth. That had a nice ring to it, I thought. He suggested we set up a
conference call with them. We did that immediately.
We talked for a long time, racking up an enormous telephone bill. But it was well worth it. We got all
kinds of advice, names, references and bits of history. My head was swimming by the end of the call.
No doubt about it, we were the new kids on the block when it came to radioactive waste. It appeared
we had arrived at the beginning of the third act of a three act play.
What had started out to be a nice relaxed holiday with our family in Ottawa turned out to be an
emotionally-charged experience over radioactive waste. Our oldest daughter was accustomed to the
activist nature of her parents, so she took a fairly amused, but blasé, view of the whole event. After all,
her young life was distinguished by its attendance at many a civil rights demonstration in Washington,
D.C. in the latter part of the '60s. So here were the old folks, at it again! Ho hum, what else is new?
This time it's the environment. Who knows what they will be up to by the turn of the century?
In spite of it all, we did have a good visit with our children and the time went by all too rapidly. We
were off to Winnipeg and the upcoming May meeting preparations.
On our return from Ottawa, we contacted the May meeting subcommittee. First things first, however.
We drafted the letter to Marc Lalonde, asking for the public hearings. The content was checked out at
a large meeting of the Committee of Concerned Citizens before it was mailed to Ms. Loveys. The letter
requested that work be suspended on the AECL underground research and that the Minister provide
for public hearings at the earliest possible date. We asked for detailed information about the project,
its status and future.
The letter also outlined the main concerns which had been raised at the previous CCC meeting at the
Larsons', including the possibility that the test facility would develop into a demonstration and then
commercial repository. We also questioned the validity and the value of assurances from public
officials and suggested that something more legal and binding be put into place to protect the people of
Manitoba.
Our first attempt as "press agents" took the form of an April 14, 1980, news release which summarized
the contents of our letter to the Minister. Both the letter and the release were given wide distribution to
interested parties in Manitoba and Ottawa. Copies were sent to rural newspapers and radio stations as
well as Manitoba MPs and MLAs. The media picked up the story, although it hardly got top billing.
But it was a start.
Several notable politicians acknowledged receipt, including Jake Epp, MP (Provencher), whose
constituency included the site of the underground radioactive waste research project, and Premier
Sterling Lyon, who said he was forwarding our information to his Energy Minister.
On May 8, 1980, we received an acknowledgment and a promise that a reply ". . . will be forthcoming
in the near future" from Marc Lalonde's Correspondence Secretary. We never received a reply,
although later the Minister did respond to another letter which accompanied our petition in August,
1981.
The May 2nd meeting was getting closer and we had not yet reached one of our most important
audiences, the seasonal residents. The question was, how do you get information out quickly to
hundreds of people who come from all over Winnipeg and elsewhere for weekends at their cottages?
Cottage developments in the area were widespread geographically and far too numerous to approach
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systematically in the short time available.
Then someone came up with a solution. Hand out notices to them at a stop sign at the intersection they
all pass through on their way across the Winnipeg River bridge. We decided to wait until the end of
the weekend and catch them on their way back to Winnipeg.
A one-sheet handbill was quickly drawn up and reproduced in large quantity. It highlighted the fact
that the AECL site was close to the cottage developments.
I helped one of the local women hand out the notices. We were a bit concerned about the RCMP
cruiser watching us much of the time we were there, but they did not interfere. The two of us moved so
fast that the traffic was unimpeded. Only a few of the motorists rejected the flyer. We were even able to
get a few words in with many of them. Darkness arrived about the time all the flyers were gone and the
traffic was thinning out.
Actually, the flyers served two purposes: to announce the May 2nd meeting, and to simply acquaint
these seasonal residents with the fact that an underground radioactive waste research project was
planned in the midst of their weekend and summer homes.
About 150 people turned up for the meeting. We had hoped for more. The agenda was distributed and
the program included introductory remarks by Marguerite Larson, a talk by George Ylonen on his
concerns about future possibilities for the AECL site, and my report on our request to the Federal
Energy Minister for public hearings. Time was set aside for a question period and a showing of a
controversial National Film Board movie on nuclear power called No Act of God.
Our guest speaker was Mr. Moe Sheppard of the Atikokan (Ontario) Citizens Committee for Nuclear
Responsibility, and a member of the municipal council there. Our discovery of the Atikokan conflict
with AECL over the issue of test drilling forged one more link in the loose chain of communities locked
in battle over AECL's march across the Canadian Shield in search of some places to drill holes in the
rock. Sheppard, himself a miner, was in the forefront of the citizens' movement in Atikokan. While
Phyl and I were in Ottawa, the meeting committee had contacted him and he readily accepted the
invitation to be our guest speaker.
The difficult job of moderator was undertaken by Richard Loeb of Beausejour, Manitoba, who had a
reputation for being both fair and firm. Both qualities would be needed for an emotionally-charged
and controversial meeting such as this. As it turned out, the meeting put all his skills to the test.
A half dozen hecklers, comprised of AECL staff and local supporters, began their catcalls and shouts
right after the singing of "O Canada." For a time it appeared that the meeting would never get going
or would completely disintegrate into a shouting contest or worse. The moderator was using every trick
in the book to maintain order.
The meeting lurched its way through to Moe Sheppard's address. The noisy crowd became silent as he
eloquently delivered an unforgettable statement of the rights of citizens in a free society to protest.
Sheppard expressed this philosophy to me once in a letter. He said,
"The important thing to remember in that 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."
He was optimistic that
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". . . one day governments will be truly accountable to the people who enfranchise them."
The meeting deteriorated again during the question period. But at that point, the tide turned for the
Committee of Concerned Citizens as people began rising from the audience to criticize the behavior of
"the goon squad." As the meeting ended, people lined up to sign our petition for public hearings and to
take copies of the fact sheet. We had clearly won the evening. Or, more precisely, AECL and its few
vocal supporters had won it for us.
It would have been a great media event had the media been there. It would be some time before the
media would actively respond to events in Lac du Bonnet. Sadly, the Winnipeg media, which had been
invited, stayed home.
The first public meeting was, as they say, a learning experience. AECL's behavior confirmed that the
powerful Crown Corporation had no intention of even attempting to deal with our group as equals. We
were in a David - Goliath situation and the only chance we had for mere survival was through the use
of "hit and run" tactics, and a form of guerrilla warfare using nonviolent methods of protest.
AECL had clearly demonstrated that either we conformed and listened to reason (AECL- style), or we
would be denigrated at every turn. There appeared to be no room for civil discussion or compromise.
AECL would "have" Lac du Bonnet and that was all there was to it. No citizens' movement would
stand in its way.
But we knew we were not alone. Our network of friends and allies was growing rapidly, as was our
understanding of the complexity and magnitude of the issue.
Phyl and I were soon to learn that we had only scratched the surface.
THE PEOPLE -- NO!
In those few short months early in 1980 we received the equivalent of a short course in the politics of
radioactive waste. Our first meeting with the Committee of Concerned Citizens, the trip to Ottawa, the
emotion-filled meeting in the high school auditorium, all added up to one overriding conclusion: that
we were in this thing for keeps!
Phyl and I had planned our second holiday trip to the U.K. the previous winter and it was to last the
whole month of July, 1980. We were really looking forward to the trip. When we were there in 1978,
Phyl had just taken a picture of Merlin's Cave at Tintagel Castle, the legendary home of King Arthur
and his Court, when she proceeded to slip, fall on the wet grass and break her ankle. It was clearly a
case of sorcery triumphing over chivalry. Our original plan to visit Wales was scrapped.
On the 1980 trip, however, we set our sights on Wales as the primary objective. Our days there were
filled with the wonderful sights and sounds of the Welsh countryside. We attended the world-famous
Eisteddfod (festival of choirs) at Llangollen, and visited castles and woolen mills.
Whole days went by without a thought or word devoted to the subject of radioactive waste; a welcome
relief after several months of immersion in the subject. But on rare occasions the issue would cross my
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mind. It seemed like a dream and it was far away across the ocean in Canada; and, who knows, maybe
by the time we returned, the Energy Minister would have acceded to our request for public hearings
and the whole matter would be resolved!
At the town of Festiniog, we decided not to take the famous train ride to Mt. Snowden as we were
running a bit behind our schedule. What else could one do there since the train was the main
attraction? We hunted up the tourist information office and began searching the notices and brochures
on the bulletin board.
Right smack in front of my eyes on a yellow poster were the words (you guessed it) "nuclear waste."
This was too much! We both stared at the poster with its heading of
"M.A.D.R.Y.N. MUDIAN AMDDIFFYN DYNOLIAETH SHAG YSBWRIEL NIWCLIAR,"
with the English translation,
"MOVEMENT TO PROTECT HUMANITY FROM NUCLEAR WASTE."
The poster went on to announce a national rally at Machynlleth, Wales, on July 30, 1980. The slogan
read: "Wales Unites to Protect Her People and to Prevent her Mountains and Valleys From Becoming
Nuclear Wasteland."
I'm not sure why I assumed Canada and the U.S. were the only places in the world with this problem.
Nuclear reactors and, therefore, nuclear waste can be found all over the world. Perhaps it's because
when you get caught up in your own problems in your own backyard, you tend to lose sight of the
bigger picture. That there was a bigger picture was quite clear as we stood more or less stunned in that
northern Wales tourist information office.
A glance at the road map pinpointed Machynlleth as a small town to the southeast of our present
location and right on our intended route to Tintern Abbey. We would have dearly loved to attend the
rally, but our charter flight would take us back to Winnipeg on July 30. However, we discovered that
Machynlleth was also the location of a Center for Alternative Technology which was being suggested as
"(the) Village of the Future?"
After a short drive from Festiniog, followed by a climb on foot up a steep hill, and a small entrance fee,
we were in the alternative technology village. It was quite lively, with people working and living there.
As we toured, we saw an impressive demonstration of an alternative life-style. The whole village was
entirely independent of outside energy sources.
The place was heated and lighted by a wide variety of alternative, locally-produced sources of energy.
These included biomass, windmills, small scale hydro, active and passive solar collectors. We saw thirty
different types of working solar collectors and a dozen varieties of high and low speed windmills. The
village fed itself primarily from its own organically-produced food, including its fish farm. As far as we
could determine, there was almost no waste. Virtually everything was recycled.
Most importantly, these pioneers of a "conserver society'" were working at jobs that they genuinely
enjoyed. Based on our very short visit, it appeared to be a healthy and intrinsically rewarding place to
live and work.
Everything was being studied and measured in the Village. This was sophisticated science and
technology. We could see that contrary to popular belief, their opposition to nuclear power, and the
waste it generates, did not mean a return to the Dark Ages. Quite the contrary. What these people were
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doing might just serve as a model for a sane future.
As we talked to the villagers, we got the impression that there was a large capacity for creative and
meaningful tasks in this kind of enterprise. It was a labor intensive economy with a difference, a far cry
from our classic, short-term, make-work, job-creation solutions to unemployment.
I'm sure the place was not a Utopia. A longer stay would have revealed various kinds of difficult
problems. But here were people living with nature in an inter-dependent relationship, as contrasted
with the rest of us who had approached life with a rapacious attitude toward our natural surroundings.
The short trip to the village had a profound impact on my own value system. I realized the potentials
and the possibilities inherent in what they were doing there. I also realized that they would never
create a nuclear waste problem: but, unfortunately, their surrounding environment was being
threatened by the clumsy attempts of technocrats to use Wales as a radioactive garbage dump.
We had lunch at the village restaurant. The soup, bread, tea and dessert were delicious, homemade and
all organically produced on site. We asked about the radioactive waste issue in Wales and got the name
of a Mr. Paul Wesley who was in the nearby town of Machynlleth, and who was one of the leaders of
the M.A.D.R.Y.N. citizens' group. He operated a book store in the town and we were told he would be
happy to talk with us. All we needed to do was to drop in.
So we did. Wesley was a soft-spoken, articulate man and, indeed, was very willing to spend an hour
with us that Saturday afternoon, talking about radioactive waste. He even apologized for the
interruptions when he periodically attended to a customer for a book sale. We established instant
rapport with him as he related the background which led up to the upcoming national rally.
His account was startling in its similarity to our experiences in Canada:
Geologists from the national atomic energy office were trying to find a place in Wales where they
could do some initial exploratory work in the rock formations,
Welsh communities had been given assurances that only test drilling for research purposes would
be undertaken, that no radioactive waste would be used in the research, and that
the research site would not be used for actual repositories.
As he paraphrased the statements of the British nuclear waste authorities we were hearing exactly the
same terminology, the same phrases, the same ideas that we had been exposed to over the preceding
months, right up to and including
"They say they only want to verify their concept at this stage."
That same unscientific jargon had been used by the Canadian atomic energy people in their literature
and speeches. It was not until the fall of 1982, when the Canadian Nuclear Association sponsored an
international conference on nuclear waste in Winnipeg, that we fully realized the extent to which a
group of world "establishment" scientists had learned to sing out of the same hymn book. But standing
there in Wesley's book store in Machynlleth, Wales, we wondered aloud if we could go anywhere in the
industrialized world and not hear the same litany.
The talk with Wesley clarified one of the main reasons for the existence of the Committee of Concerned
Citizens and, indeed, any of the citizens' groups. If, as is the case, each community is told that it is only
the target of research, and that the actual radioactive waste will go elsewhere, then the entire logic
track dissolves into a pile of jumbled contradictions.
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Elsewhere must be somewhere. Somewhere could be anywhere. And the anywhere could be "here"! And
if you have any reservations about being the recipient of a radioactive garbage dump, you will
normally react defensively when confronted with this convoluted reasoning.
However, there were major differences between the situation in Wales as compared to Manitoba's.
Fierce Welsh nationalism obviously played a large role. (It is interesting that we do not hear much
about Québec from AECL concerning this issue.)
Another difference is that the Welsh citizens' group was taking a much tougher stance than ours.
Wesley told us about their communications network. Anytime a geologist from the British nuclear
authority ventured into the Welsh countryside, he or she was spotted: the word would go out to the
citizens' group headquarters. A delegation would be quickly assembled, and the geologist would be
approached and "invited" to leave the area. We gathered that they always did!
The Welsh obviously meant business, while we in Manitoba seemed unable or unwilling to proceed
beyond the point of conducting a war of words with various politicians and bureaucrats.
But what we had in common was that neither the Canadian nor the British governments and the
atomic energy authorities really seemed to care very much about the concerns, thoughts and feelings of
the people on the radioactive waste issue. It was almost as if there was some kind of race going on to see
which country could get the stuff out of sight first!
A storehouse of memories returned with us to Canada -- of the wonderful places we saw and the things
we did. Sure, the radioactive waste issue did intrude upon us, but the pleasant memories of our visit
are the ones that will linger into the future. Our return to Winnipeg meant gearing up again for
normal activities: Phyl with her teaching, and me with my consulting and training. It also meant a
continuation of the conflict with AECL.
Looking back at that conflict, as it began to develop in the spring and summer of 1980, I realized that
the Committee of Concerned Citizens had made some impact on people's awareness of the situation in
Lac du Bonnet. Quite a war of words had taken place and the CCC had been strengthened in many
ways.
Perhaps the most significant achievement was the alliance formed between the Committee and some of
the seasonal residents of the area. Representatives of the largest cottage owners' association began
attending meetings and assisting us in our activities.
The educational efforts and the media exposure were beginning to show some results. But not enough.
Politicians and bureaucrats were still brushing us off as if we were mosquitoes on a hot Manitoba
summer evening. As it turned out, the cottage owners' association was having similar problems with
the municipal government. These people paid their school taxes to the municipality, even though their
children attended school in Winnipeg, and they felt, rightly, that they should have some say in what
was going on in the Lac du Bonnet area.
The cottagers had many complaints and they felt that the (then) reeve and the R.M. Council were
ignoring them. These complaints were quite significant as they concerned the manner in which the area
was being developed, including the lack of effective planning for recreational land and water facilities.
While the CCC had developed a petition on the radioactive waste issue, the cottage association had
circulated its own petition on the development of the area in general. The petition covered a wide range
of issues including water safety, riverbank erosion, road facilities, health and sanitation. Now the
cottage owners were beginning to add the AECL radioactive waste issue to their long list of concerns.
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A controversy developed over the CCC petition which had first been made available at the May 2nd
meeting. Its wording was adapted from the petition circulated earlier in Atikokan, Ontario, by the
citizens' group there. Our petition read:
"We, the undersigned citizens, request that the federal and provincial governments hold
open public hearings in which all sides of the nuclear waste research issue in the Lac du
Bonnet area are represented. These hearings must be held soon and all work on the project
suspended immediately. Further, we expect all municipal councils to rescind any approvals
to Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd."
A post office box number was included so that the petitions could all be returned to us.
The CCC never made any real attempt to organize a serious petition campaign. There was no
systematic canvassing of the region. Indeed, the petitions simply circulated from one place to the next
and were eventually mailed back to us as the sheets became filled up with names.
We had learned from Moe Sheppard and others involved in the Atikokan experience that the value of a
petition drive was dubious, at best. The approximately seventeen hundred signatures collected in
Atikokan did not prevent AECL from continuing its drilling activities in the area. We were told that
the seventeen hundred signatures represented a number well above that of the voter turnout in the
previous Atikokan municipal election!
There was not much point in putting all our energies and resources into a petition drive given
Atikokan's experience with it. However, we were gratified by the spontaneous response to the petitions.
The numbers did mount up quickly and had reached seven hundred by the end of the summer. This
supported our belief that there was a significant concern in the area over AECL's activities.
The supporters of AECL, mostly members of the small and local Chamber of Commerce, not
surprisingly, drew up their own counter-petition in support of the AECL project. They claim to have
got five hundred signatures on theirs.
The two petitions caused some confusion. Some people told us they had signed the pro-AECL petition
thinking that it was the CCC petition. I imagine the reverse was also true. The moral of the story is that
it pays to read what you are signing!
We debated how we should handle the petitions. In theory, we could have published the names of the
petitioners in the Winnipeg Free Press, since there were no strings attached when people signed them.
But the consensus was that the petitions should be treated seriously, and with great care. The decision
was made to send them directly to the Premier of Manitoba, Sterling Lyon, and the Federal Energy
Minister, Marc Lalonde. Our reasoning was that these were citizens petitioning elected officials and
lawmakers to take a particular position and act in their behalf.
The petitions were submitted in May of 1981. Copies of the letters accompanying the petitions were
released to the media and the Manitoba provincial and federal politicians. In the letter to Marc
Lalonde, we reminded him that we had not received an answer to our April 14, 1980, letter which had
originally been solicited by his office.
We got a quick response from the provincial government. Mr. Gary Filmon, Minister of Consumer and
Corporate Affairs and Environment, wrote us on behalf of Premier Lyon on May 26, 1981. In his
two-page letter, Filmon did not once mention the petitions with the seven hundred names. Instead, he
went to great lengths to assure us that the Government of Manitoba would protect us and would
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" . . . take every precaution to assure that no resident of Manitoba is needlessly exposed to
serious health hazards or otherwise placed in peril." He concluded with, "It is my
intention, and that of this Government, to ensure that this obligation to the citizens of
Manitoba is met."
Filmon 's letter would have been complete had it been accompanied by appropriate violin music; more
assurances and more intentions. But the letter did reveal something interesting in the thinking of the
provincial government. Much to our dismay, it was clear that the Government of Manitoba was
actually open to the idea of a waste repository in the province! The letter did not close the door to that.
Although Filmon said his government had not agreed to the development of such a facility in the
province, he went on to "assure" us that
" . . . if any proposal for such a facility in Manitoba is brought forward, it will not be
considered until it has been subject to complete scientific analyses, and until residents of
the entire Province have had an opportunity to express their views and opinion."
He further "assured" us that
"It was not the intention of this Government to permit AECL to proceed with the
development of a storage facility unless it can be proven to be safe beyond reasonable doubt
to the satisfaction of the Government and the people of Manitoba."
So, in this backhanded manner, the Manitoba Government was laying out the conditions under which
a radioactive garbage dump could be considered. And in the process, Filmon had managed to ignore
the specific matter of the petitions and our requests for public hearings on the underground
radioactive waste research facility. Filmon's letter had the net effect of causing us to become even more
wary of the motives of government in this radioactive waste issue.
Marc Lalonde, on the other hand, did at least acknowledge the petitions. In his August 7, 1981, letter
to us, he wriggled off the hook for not having responded to our original letter to him a year earlier by
pointing to the fact that we had met in Ottawa with his representatives in April, 1980.
He quickly dispensed with our request for public hearings in a bureaucratically-written paragraph
which could only have been drafted by AECL's "gifted" public relations staff, and adding insult to
injury, he concluded his letter by urging us to read the AECL information concerning the
underground research laboratory. Would that he could have seen the coffee- and tear-stained copies of
the piles of AECL documents that we had in our possession.
So much for Mr. Lalonde, Mr. Lyon, Mr. Filmon, and our seven hundred petitioners. But the story of
the petitions has an even more grim postscript.
The CCC wrote to Howard Pawley, new Premier of Manitoba, on May 28, 1982, outlining many of its
concerns to him, including its rejection of AECL's environmental impact study of its project. Nowhere
in our letter did we mention the petitions as it seemed to be a forgotten issue by then.
Something in our letter to the Premier triggered a startling response from AECL. On June 10, 1982,
the new vice-president at Pinawa, Mr. R. E. Green, wrote a six-page letter to the Premier, responding
point by point to our letter. We were dismayed to read that our petitions, which had been sent in good
faith to Mr. Lalonde in May of 1981, had been subjected to an "analysis" by the staff of the AECL's
Research Establishment.
Mr. Green provided the Premier with a detailed statistical breakdown of the residency status of all of
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the seven hundred persons who had signed the petition. His point was that some of the people who
signed our petition were not bona fide tax-paying residents of the Lac du Bonnet Municipality.
This was one of the best demonstrations we had seen of AECL's intent to keep its underground
research project on the level of a local issue only. Green's message was clear. If you did not live in the
immediate vicinity of the AECL research site, your opinion did not count!
In retrospect, I realize that Green really missed a golden opportunity. He could have further confined
his analysis to include only those residents who actually lived on the site itself, the site manager, the
beavers and the chipmunks. Then he could have declared that there were no concerned citizens and no
opposition to the project!
The CCC was very upset by the discovery that the petitions were treated in this shabby manner. When
they were originally drawn up, care was taken not to confine them to a specific geographical area. We
felt that anyone who was concerned about the AECL project had a right to sign our petition.
Radioactive waste projects, we thought, were everybody's business. So in our follow-up letter to
Premier Pawley on June 24, 1982, we stated that
"We are surprised that one of the most powerful and wealthy organizations in Canada
would go to such lengths to berate a citizens' group which Mr. Green believes is but a small
pressure group, representing almost no one, and which (in Green's words) has declined
significantly."
We expressed our anger over the manner in which our petitions were handled by the Government of
Canada. Indeed, would Moe Sheppard's hope that
" . . . one day governments will be truly accountable to the people who enfranchise them . .
." ever become more than just that: "a hope" !
Actually, AECL's manipulation of the petitions should have come as no surprise to us. The corporation
had already demonstrated its remarkable sense of social responsibility and corporate ethics when it
first tip-toed into eastern Manitoba with its vague plans for underground radioactive waste research. It
had, in fact, used the same secretive, stealth-like approach in 1977 at Madoc, Ontario.
The Harrowsmith magazine story, in issue number eleven, related how, on March 16, 1977, about
16,000 acres of Crown land surrounding the Madoc rock outcropping (Mount Moriah) were
withdrawn and put into reserve under orders of the Ontario Deputy Minister of Natural Resources.
According to Harrowsmith, this was accomplished without the knowledge of the residents of Hastings
County. When the people of Madoc finally learned of it, they began their campaign which resulted in
AECL's complete withdrawal from the area.
But the approach worked in Manitoba. Dealing directly and quietly, first with the provincial and then
with the municipal levels of government, AECL was able to get the technical approvals it needed before
many people were aware of what was going on. And, of course, AECL had more cards in its Manitoba
deck than it ever had in Ontario. The largest one of all was its existing research station at Pinawa.
The public had become used to the WNRE and its experimental nuclear research reactor there. There
was, of course, the periodic accident or radioactive oil spill into the Winnipeg River which would cause
a slight stir in the community and even in the Manitoba legislature. After a few soothing words from
AECL's standard "everything is safe recording," the scene would quickly return to normal. By and
large, a peaceful coexistence prevailed between the nuclear establishment and the Province of
Manitoba.
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In retrospect, one of the first hints of things to come appeared in a Winnipeg Free Press article on
August 5, 1978. AECL reported that it had found
" . . . suitable rock formations in the Pinawa area" in its search for nuclear waste disposal
sites.
The article also pointed out that Manitoba Finance Minister, Donald Craik,
" . . . told the legislature that six or seven areas were being considered across Canada as
possible repository sites, including one in Manitoba."
Craik's disclosure did not evoke much reaction at the time. The record shows that MLA Lloyd
Axworthy (Fort Rouge) questioned Craik to be sure that if AECL proceeded with a Manitoba
repository, the government would allow for public representation and make public information on its
environmental impact.
AECL had identified the so-called Lac du Bonnet batholith as a desirable area for its geological
activities. It had started the test drilling within the confines of the WNRE's own premises.
One of the first major steps to extend this research was reflected in an internal Manitoba Government
memorandum of May 30, 1979, from R. W. Winstone, Chief Crown Lands Branch, to J. A. Barr,
Director, Lands and Surveys. Winstone told Barr that the Whiteshell Nuclear Establishment Manager
of Administration, R. M. Smith, had come by his office to be assured that nine specific sections of
Crown land (approximately fifteen thousand hectares) were uncommitted; and that
" . . .on the strength of his verbal request, we have placed a pencil entry in the register to
hold these lands."
In his conversations with Winstone, Smith indicated
" . . . that their long-range plans include a large research program on management of
nuclear waste."
Smith told Winstone of AECL's intent to do the research in Manitoba but to set up the actual waste
disposal in Ontario. He also told Winstone that AECL planned to drill down into the rock with shafts
extending outward.
"Any radioactive material would be in glass, sheathed in steel, and would be completely
safe."
Smith also was careful to tell Winstone of the potential expenditure in Manitoba
" . . .in excess of five million dollars in addition to related staff and construction benefits."
[By 1983 that figure had edged up close to the twenty million dollar mark and was still rising.]
And so the stage was set. The formal request for a Crown land lease for about one thousand acres of
the land reserved for AECL came from WNRE's General Manager at that time, Mr. S. R. Hatcher. In
his letter of September 10, 1979, to Manitoba's Environment Minister, A. Brian Ransom, Hatcher
referred to the geological research that was already underway ". . .on the Lac du Bonnet batholith
underlying the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment." In that letter he said he
" . . .would like to extend our research to include studies on the large outcropping
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approximately ten miles northeast of WNRE."
The legal descriptions of the desired Crown land placed it in the Lac du Bonnet Municipality in
Manitoba. Hatcher elaborated on the nature of the research. And presumably, it was on the basis of his
description of the project that the Manitoba Government agreed to lease the Crown land to AECL.
The importance of Hatcher's description of the project in September, 1979, lies in the fact that it bears
no resemblance to, nor does it mention, the "underground research laboratory" project that surfaced
the following year. Hatcher's letter stated that
"The studies could include drilling and some excavations at up to fifty locations, with
depths of 10 - 1,000 meters. This would take place over the next five years. Samples that are
removed would be examined in our laboratories."
Just a few months earlier, the WNRE Administration Manager had told the provincial government
officials that radioactive material could be used but would be sheathed in glass and steel. Hatcher's
letter said nothing of that. In fact, Hatcher assured the Minister that no radioactive waste would be
used at all. Perhaps AECL had second thoughts and decided not to push its luck on the radioactive
waste issue. Perhaps it wanted to avoid a controversy over this point while negotiating the lease. At any
rate, the issue of the use of radioactive materials in the research heated up later on.
Hatcher's letter contained the formal AECL request that
" . . . land be withdrawn from staking for mineral rights and permission be granted for
AECL to prospect, drill and excavate rock in the designated area."
He asked that
"The surface rights of this land be leased to AECL for 21 years" (and that) "the lease
include an option to do further work on this land at a future date."
So, in 1979, AECL quietly, without fuss or fanfare, set itself up for a nice long stay in the Lac du
Bonnet batholith. It would undertake a five-year rock sampling exercise under a twenty-one year lease
with the prospect of " . . . further work at a future date," a nice, cozy arrangement. Somehow, in a
short period of time, AECL had shifted its public position which originally identified Manitoba as "one
of six" possible sites for a full-scale radioactive waste repository to a research project which,
presumably, would include no radioactive waste. Having initially put the whole foot in the door, AECL
would now go more slowly, and still, as was the case in Madoc, the general public was in the dark.
Media coverage about AECL's geological activities in Manitoba was virtually absent. With the
exception of Winnipeg journalist John Harvard, who did a TV story on the test drilling at the WNRE
for CBC in 1978, there is no evidence of significant media coverage of these events. Radioactive waste
management, one of the most contentious issues of our time, had not yet caught the Manitoba public
eye.
Nor did AECL, knowing full well just how controversial the whole issue was, go out of its way to
publicly advertise its intentions. Quite the contrary. A rebuff in Manitoba on the heels of rejections
throughout Ontario could be a serious blow to its long-range objective of attempting to isolate
radioactive waste in the Canadian Shield.
A Crown land lease was granted to AECL by the Manitoba Government, effective January 1, 1980.
But not before AECL had greased the skids with the local governments in the area nearby the
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projected site. The councils endorsed the AECL plan. The endorsements were acquired by AECL to
fulfill its own policy of the day, not to go where it was not wanted.
The only council in the area which did not endorse AECL's plan was that of the Local Government
District of Alexander, which concluded that it did not want to get involved in what was a larger
political issue. The Local Government District of Alexander never actually opposed the project,
however.
The Lac du Bonnet Council was the crucial one since that was to be the location of the project. At its
regular meeting of January 8, 1980, the Lac du Bonnet Council discussed the question of the
twenty-one year lease to Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. The Council felt a five-year lease was more
appropriate.
In her January 9, 1980 letter to Dr. W. T. Bowen of the provincial government's Environment
Department, Council Secretary-Treasurer B.L. Neisteter wrote that the Council preferred that the
lease be established for five years and that applications for renewal be dealt with through the process of
requesting recommendations and comments from the Council. Ms. Neisteter added that
". . .Due to the possible public controversy regarding same, I trust this will receive your
immediate attention."
But the Council backed off its five-year lease position as a result of a letter of assurance from WNRE's
Hatcher. It endorsed the twenty-one year lease. On May 7, 1980, Ms. Neisteter reported to the
Manitoba Department of Natural Resources that the Council, at its May 6, 1980 meeting, reached a
consensus " . . . not to object to the twenty-one year lease."
It was all very cool. The lease permitted AECL, Pinawa, Manitoba,
"To have and to hold the said Lands for the purpose of drilling, prospecting and the
excavation of rock for geological research programs, and for no other purpose."
A special condition was attached which stated that
"No dangerous nuclear waste materials are to be put on or under this site in any fashion."
This was consistent with the earlier agreement reached between Mr. Hatcher and then Manitoba
Environment Minister Brian Ransom.
The lease contained no reference to an "underground research laboratory," but was so broadly written
that, as we later learned, it could include almost anything.
Scrupulously following its stated policy of the day, AECL had, in its own peculiar view, acquired
"community approval" of its research. It had taken the most narrow, technical approach it possibly
could by dealing directly, smoothly, and quietly with the local governments.
In AECL's eyes, "public involvement" had taken place, particularly since it had been holding its
regular public relations meetings in the area while the wheels of government were at work processing
the papers.
I still shake my head over the notion of one of Canada's most powerful organizations, listed well up in
the Financial Post's "Industrial 500's," approaching these small rural councils to get their permission
to do radioactive waste research. The Lac du Bonnet Council has a lot of expertise in certain areas
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dealing with municipal administration, but experts on the politics of radioactive waste management
they are not! But then, who is?
I have often wondered what would have happened if, during those critical months of early 1980, the
Lac du Bonnet Council had taken a different stance, similar to that taken by many of the Ontario
councils. Would AECL have pulled out? Would the provincial government have backed off its earlier
agreement with AECL? Would AECL have come out on the short end had the Council thrown open
the doors to the public and held its own hearings?
One can only speculate, but I personally think AECL would have continued with its project, changed
its approvals policy more quickly (as it did subsequently), and ignored the Council.
After all, this Council was being asked to rubber stamp a decision already made by the provincial
government. AECL's policy not to go where it was not wanted was really designed for Ontario. And
AECL must have been thinking about this problem because it changed its approvals policy shortly
after the Fall of 1980 municipal elections when George Ylonen pulled off a political surprise, unseated
the incumbent, and became the new Reeve of Lac du Bonnet.
I have a hard time envisioning AECL leaving an area which, certainly, was its best fallback and, in the
minds of many, its preferred location from the start.
WORD GAMES
The general mood of the people in the Committee of Concerned Citizens was one of anger and
frustration during those early days of 1980. Periods of optimism were brief and quickly gave way to
gloom as the AECL power exerted itself on the region and on the provincial government. It was clear
that both levels of government had been put into a position from which they could not easily, if at all,
retreat.
In spite of everything, however, the Committee continued to meet, to share information, to formulate
ideas for future strategies and, most importantly, to bolster the morale of its members.
The experience of our Committee in this respect was not unlike that of other groups confronting
AECL. There would be surges of energy, effort and activity. These would be followed by periods of
relative quiet. To the outside world it would appear as if the movement had died out. The people in the
Committee knew otherwise, knew that there would be another burst of activity sooner or later.
One of the goals of the Committee was to keep the cause alive. In this day of information technology,
the best way to do that was by skillful use of the media. But the media have a low threshold for
boredom. News becomes passé in hours. A frequent question from a reporter was, "Is this really
anything new?" If we were to succeed in our effort to stay alive, we would need to be as inventive as
possible. Happily, AECL and our own provincial government gave us the grist for our mill.
We learned to use the words and ideas of our adversaries to our own advantage. As we reviewed the
documents, such as AECL reports, public statements, and provincial government memoranda, we
realized that they had left themselves open for challenge on many points. We decided to make the most
of this opportunity, knowing full well that the probability of gaining any substantive ground in the
battle was very low.
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As it turned out, the effort was successful to the degree that it kept the Committee of Concerned
Citizens alive and kicking. The CCC was able to widen its circle of supporters and increase the general
understanding of its position on the issues.
The first of the many "word games" had to do with the apparent escalation of the AECL project.
George Ylonen was probably the first person in the area to notice. In his December, 1979 letter to the
editor of the Lac du Bonnet Leader, Ylonen pointed out that Mr. R. G. Hart of AECL had stated in
1976 that
"one square mile would be needed to store all the wastes we produced in the next one
hundred years."
In January, 1975, an AECL brief submitted to the standing committee on National Resources and
Public Works had changed the time span to
" . . .the next fifty years;" and the size of the facility would require an underground area of
about sixteen kilometers (ten square miles).
Now, in December, 1979, said Ylonen, the AECL is planning an
"industrial-scale repository thirty-two kilometers in size (twenty square miles)"
Ylonen may also have been the first to realize that the nature of the AECL plans had changed quickly
from the drilling of a few test holes on AECL's own Pinawa research reservation to a planned "near
surface test facility" about three hundred feet deep with inclined ramps to the thousand-foot deep
vertical test facility described in detail in the Acres Consulting report. This would be the first stage for
the industrial scale repository. Ylonen also noted the remarkable similarity between the configuration
of the test facility and the so-called "underground research laboratory" planned for the Lac du Bonnet
location.
Our first effort, then, was to challenge the validity of the Crown land lease itself. There were many
words in the lease that were wide open for interpretation. Nevertheless, the provincial government
staunchly maintained that the lease constituted a legal and binding contract which could not be
terminated without a serious breach, and that it could not be changed without full agreement of both
parties.
We obtained a copy of the lease from the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and went over it
"with a fine-toothed comb." The most glaring omission in it was any reference to the name of the
actual project itself, the Underground Research Laboratory (URL). But at the moment there was more
interest over the terminology in the "special condition" of the lease which prevented AECL from
putting any dangerous nuclear waste on, or under, the site.
We questioned the word "dangerous." Would AECL ever acknowledge that its radioactive waste was
"dangerous"? We doubted it. What would prevent AECL from bringing radioactive waste into the
laboratory in a form and manner deemed to be "safe?" Nothing, as far as we could see. That AECL's
credibility with us was poor on points of what was, or what was not, safe is an understatement! We
made our concerns over the interpretation of the word "dangerous" known to AECL, the Provincial
Government and the public through the media.
Very unexpectedly, Gary Filmon, then provincial Environment Minister in the Sterling Lyon
government, wrote to us on October 9. 1981, that the special condition in the lease had been changed to
accommodate our concern and " . . . to make it perfectly clear that nuclear waste materials will not be
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permitted on the site." The revised wording was attached. Much to our horror, instead of simply
dropping the word "dangerous" from the paragraph, an entirely new paragraph had been inserted and
approved by AECL and the provincial government. It now read,
"No nuclear waste materials are to be permitted on the site or stored at the site. It is
understood that radioactive tracers and sealed sources will be permitted use in the research
program, subject to approval by the Atomic Energy Control Board."
The rationale for the change was best summed up in an internal Manitoba Government memorandum
from R. W. Winstone, Chief of the Crown Lands Branch, to Dr. W. G. Bowen, Assistant Deputy
Minister of the Environmental Management Division. Winstone had proposed the new wording based
on correspondence from AECL. He went on to say that,
"It appears that if we simply delete the word 'dangerous' from the previous lease, we may
actually negate the authority of the lease to let AECL do positive research work with
'radioactive tracers and sealed sources.' "
Surprisingly, we now had a clear admission that something radioactive, that was considered
"dangerous" by AECL, would be used in the underground research. We seemed to have smoked out
something. In fact, AECL did intend to experiment with dangerous materials: radioactive materials.
And, it had taken advantage of the opportunity we had provided to get its lease changed to include the
use of these materials in a very specific manner.
We got rid of the word "dangerous" all right, but now we had to contend with two new terms: "sealed
sources" and "tracers." What were they?
We had been informed of the changes after the fact and never consulted during the discussions
between AECL and the Provincial Government. Nor, we learned, had the R.M. of Lac du Bonnet
Municipal Council! And it had endorsed the original lease.
Subsequently, whenever we publicly objected to the use of "sealed sources and tracers," AECL staff
distorted the facts by stating that the Committee of Concerned Citizens had requested the change, that
it was done to accommodate us! When it came to the art of playing word games, AECL walked off with
many prizes.
Bloodied, but unbowed, we decided to take on another word in the lease; this time, "waste." What,
exactly, is "radioactive waste" ?
One of the Concerned Citizens noticed that AECL's official reports made a clear distinction between
"immobilized used fuel" on the one hand, and "immobilized reprocessing wastes" on the other. One
AECL report stated that,
"A significant difference had been noted in the design constraints for immobilized fuel
compared to those for reprocessing wastes . . .(and that) . . . elevated temperatures in the
vicinity of the vault persist much longer for used fuel disposal than for waste disposal."
Although the lease specifically excluded radioactive "waste" from the site, did it exclude "immobilized
used fuel"?
We pursued this one with the provincial government's Dr. Bowen, and at the same time we asked him
about the interpretation of the meaning of "radioactive sealed sources and tracers." In his letter to us of
July 17, 1981, he assured us that the lease prohibited
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" . . . all nuclear wastes, whether it be spent fuel or reprocessing wastes."
As for the tracers and sealed sources, Bowen provided us with data that confirmed that AECL was
already using the radioactive sealed sources in its bore holes. Bowen explained that,
"The radioactive sources used, which are sealed and retrievable, are cobalt-60, cesium-137
and americium-147 beryllium."
He attached some information on how the sources were to be used. He was unable to provide any
specific information on the use of "tracers" because apparently none had been used to date at the site.
But he did provide us with a document giving us an overview of the " . . . general considerations for
tracing ground water movement, and the types of tracers generally used."
The document was entitled "Underwater Movement in the Underground Research Laboratory." Among
the possible tracers to be used was radioactive tritium with a half-life of 12.26 years,
" . . . which can be followed for periods of several years, but is not so long-lived that it
might cause a radioactive contamination problem at some future date."
And, of course, the discussion of possible use of tracers in the groundwater was followed by the now all
too familiar AECL litany of " 'no risk to the public' statements."
We had not anticipated how quickly the then theoretical issue of the use of radioactive materials would
become a reality. On January 7, 1983, the Winnipeg Free Press ran a major news story with the
headline, "Sealed radioactive capsule lost at Lac du Bonnet site." Rumors about the problem had been
circulating for some weeks before the story appeared. AECL finally decided to release the information
to the media.
The story related AECL's version of the events. The capsule, containing radioactive americium 241,
used for geological exploration work, was lost on December 13, 1982,
" . . . as it was being winched to the surface from the 455 meter (1500 foot) hole."
And, of course, there was the usual disclaimer:
"The americium 241 is sealed within three nested steel containers and poses no danger to
the environment. . ."
The article also made reference to an earlier incident at the underground research site. The previous
month, AECL reported that
" . . . two low level radioactive valves had slipped through the detection system at the
Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment at Pinawa and were used on the laboratory site
for two months before being discovered."
The reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press, Ritchie Gage, had contacted the federal and provincial
environment offices and reported that both had been informed of the incidents by AECL. It was good
to know that government files were being kept up to date.
The article concluded with AECL's report of three leaks into the Winnipeg River of oil-type coolant
from heat exchangers from the Whiteshell research reactor. Such radioactive leaks had become fairly
commonplace. Provincial authorities were reported as being concerned about such leaks, " . . . but they
are a part of the operation of such a plant."
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On January 10, 1983, the Winnipeg Free Press ran a follow-up news article reporting that AECL
announced that its contractor had used a magnet to recover the radioactive capsule intact.
The incidents were discussed at the next meeting of the Committee of Concerned Citizens. By this time,
Jean Chrétien had replaced Marc Lalonde as Federal Energy Minister. The CCC decided to write to
Chrétien and release the letter to the media, another opportunity for some publicity. Among other
things in the letter, we objected to the sloppy manner in which AECL was handling radioactive
materials at the site. What might lie in store for us when AECL really got going, particularly with its
tracers? After all, it was just beginning!
One other term in the lease that concerned us was "research." Exactly what kind of "research" was
permissible under the Crown land lease, and when is "research" not "research"? George Ylonen's
earlier observations about the escalation and the changes in the nature of the AECL project prompted
this line of inquiry. The Crown land lease was approved by the Province of Manitoba on the basis of
AECL's request to take core samples of the rock and study them in its laboratories.
Had not AECL exceeded the "research" terms of the lease with its escalation, in the "underground
research laboratory" concept? We thought so, and we decided to challenge the Provincial Government
on the point.
The CCC's September 14, 1982, letter to Manitoba's Attorney General in the Howard Pawley
government made the point as clearly as possible. We had high hopes that Roland Penner would be
sympathetic to our point of view. He had a well-deserved reputation for championing the causes of the
"little guy." Perhaps he would see beyond all the technicalities and deal with the real human issues
that were at the root of this conflict.
But, as Attorney General, he was confined to the legal matter at hand and his September 16, 1982,
reply to us was short and did little more than pass our problem back to its usual place, in the
Provincial Environment Ministry.
However, Penner did say something about the lease with which we took serious issue. He said,
" . . . I note the lease includes the development of a research laboratory . . . "
We knew, having been over that lease carefully, that it did no such thing. We were genuinely puzzled
by his comment on this point. To clarify matters, we decided to meet with him. I agreed to try to set it
up.
On October 22, 1982, I went to the office of the Attorney General in the Manitoba legislative building
to arrange the meeting. As I talked to his secretary, his voice boomed out of his office. "Come on in.
I've got some time now. Let's talk about it." The offer was hard to refuse. I walked into the office.
Penner smiled and said, "How's that for service!" Pretty good, I thought. But I would have much
rather had some of the CCC people with me. However, one does not often get spontaneous
opportunities to chat with the Attorney General on the issue of radioactive waste.
Somewhat hesitantly, I reiterated our position. Politely, I suggested that he may have misread the
lease; that the word "laboratory" did not appear in it. He seemed surprised. "I'm certain there was
something about a research laboratory in that lease!" Penner exclaimed. He asked me to wait while he
went out to find the file. A few short minutes later he returned, grinning and pleased over the fact that
a file could be procured so quickly. As an old bureaucrat, I, too, was impressed.
His review of the lease revealed no specific reference to the "underground research laboratory" or, for
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that matter, any "laboratory". However, he observed that the general wording of the lease, "geological
and geophysical research," could be interpreted to include a research laboratory. He didn't think we
would have much of a case if we challenged the lease on that basis. Penner was confirming what we had
concluded a long time ago, and that was that the wording in the lease could be interpreted almost any
way AECL wanted to interpret it. Alas, it appeared that we had lost another word game.
I decided to raise another question with him; namely the meaning of the term "radioactive sealed
sources" as provided for in the lease. I speculated a bit. "Suppose AECL decides to use spent reactor
fuel or reprocessing wastes, and refers to that as "sealed sources." Penner reacted quickly. "No way --
the law may have its deficiencies but it is not an ass!"
What about AECL's contemplated use of radioactive tracers? Scientists disagree on the health effects
of low level radiation. I pointed out that we did not relish the idea of drinking radioactive tritium
cocktails, not even weak ones. Penner acknowledged the point and the controversy but suggested that
we would not have much of a case. AECL had not actually used the tracers and the legal argument
would revolve around the question of strengths and amounts used.
I thought about the controversy over the effects of low level radiation. AECL always minimized the
effects, comparing radiation with substances such as cigarettes. But the fact remains that some
scientists concerned with the health effects of radiation claim that the low levels can cause more
problems than the high levels. They take the view that low doses can form tumors, whereas the high
doses kill the cells completely.
As long as scientists disagree on this point, why should the public be exposed in any way to these
materials? Why should AECL be given the right to send these substances around through the
underground water pathways? There was no telling where the stuff might wind up. Perhaps in
someone's drinking water!
But the Committee of Concerned Citizens did not have the financial resources to take on a legal case of
this nature anyway, so the point was academic. It was clear that the Manitoba Provincial Government
was not going to insist that AECL confine its tracers to its leased Crown land. So we were back to
square one on the issue.
Feeling completely defeated after the meeting with Penner, I called George Ylonen and Marguerite
Larson in Lac du Bonnet and told them that for the time being we were not going to get anywhere with
government on the issue of tracers, sealed sources, or the interpretation of the word "research." All we
had got out of the whole exercise was a bit of publicity, but perhaps it was worth that. It seemed we
had explored the last word game for the time being.
FLASHBACK
1980 was a busy year for Phyl and Walt Robbins, what with our professional activities, the work with
the Committee of Concerned Citizens, our holiday in the U.K. and two trips to visit with our daughters
and son in Toronto and Ottawa.
During our second trip East, we spent Thanksgiving with everyone in Ottawa. From there, I went on to
Washington to visit my mother and brothers. Washington had changed a good deal since my last visit
several years earlier. The Metro was operating, new public buildings graced the landscape, and some of
my favorite restaurants had changed their names (and menus!).
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The bigger picture of nuclear waste had opened up to us during our spring trip to Ottawa and our
holiday in the UK. My curiosity had got the better of me and I wanted to find out what was going on in
the US.
Until Three Mile Island, I had not given much recent thought to the problem of nuclear energy. The
trip to Washington revived many memories of my own involvement as a former member of the nuclear
establishment in the 1950s.
Getting the "Q" clearance for access to atomic secrets was a prerequisite for employment with the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission. The investigation process took over three months. Impatiently waiting out
this period while working at my job with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, I tried to visualize the
scope of the investigation. For three months everything about me from the time of my birth (and
before) would be checked and double checked by highly-trained investigators.
Friends, relatives, associations would all be carefully assessed. Every so often, someone would come up
to me and say, "Hey, Walt, there was this guy who came around and asked a lot of questions about
you. What's up?" And, of course, there was the inevitable wag who felt compelled to tell me how he
had told the investigator about my close friendship with the Soviet leaders in the Kremlin.
As expected, I got the "Q" clearance and was ushered, unceremoniously, by a security officer into the
atomic club. And, indeed, a club it was; an exclusive, tight-knit cadre of dedicated, even zealous,
believers in the power and potential of the atom. And I was one of them -- without reservation.
The well-guarded building at Germantown, Maryland, north of Washington, D.C., became my

workplace for the next two and a half years. One of my tasks was to revise the system for evaluating the
jobs and determining the pay levels for all the employees of the Commission. Another was to design a
new salary structure for what was then a very rare breed of cat: nuclear engineers.
Both jobs were interesting and professionally stimulating for me. They provided me with the
opportunity to learn much about the organization, management and people that comprised the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission.
At that time, the weapons side of the AEC dwarfed the fledging reactor development program. There
seemed to be some rivalry between the two, particularly when the budget "pie" was sliced.
Nevertheless, optimism for the power reactor program was high. President Eisenhower endorsed it and
even came out to dedicate the new building at Germantown. And, as we all stood in the rain, we were
amused as good old Ike mispronounced his AEC Chairman's last name. [It was often impressed upon all
AEC employees that Chairman Lewis Strauss expected his surname to be sounded as "straws."]
There was a feeling of invincibility in the air. Anything could be accomplished given the resources, the
brains and the money. During our carpool rides back and forth to work, we speculated on the future of
atomic energy. The sky was the limit. The scientists and engineers around us talked of atomic powered
aircraft, even automobiles. And, of course, limitless electric power which, if not free to the consumer,
would be at negligible cost. [Hence the (in)famous phrase: "Too cheap to meter."]
We were living in the dream world of no limits. Unfortunately it would come back to haunt all of us in
the not too distant future.
My job gave me the opportunity to travel. Although I did not visit all the AEC installations, I did tour
some of the more interesting ones, including the "Rube Goldberg" type contraptions in the
experimental reactor location in Idaho's Snake River Valley. I can recall vividly climbing around
partially-constructed reactor cores and listening to the enthusiastic talk of the people who were certain
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that their particular toy would become the wave of the future.
The visits to the Argonne National Laboratory, to the Brookhaven installation on Long Island, to
Savannah River, Georgia, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, all came to mind as I recalled those exciting
days with the U.S. AEC.
I remembered how I marveled at the safety precautions, particularly those which concerned radiation
exposure. On all tours we were always cautioned to remain on the designated side of the yellow line,
clearly visible on all the floors. On the other side of the line the radiation was "beyond the allowable
limits." Looking back now, I wonder how I, or anyone else, could have simply accepted that confident
declaration of absolute safety and security, but we did.
As we now know, the "allowable limits" have been adjusted to more conservative levels several times
over the years since the '50s. The yellow line of that era is not in the same place as the yellow line of
today. And I'll wager it moves considerably more before the turn of the century. In fact, I'll predict it
disappears altogether.
As I recalled my experiences with the AEC, I remembered how incredibly closed and secret a world it
was; perhaps not as much as the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency, but it
couldn't have been far behind.
We were so much of a club that some of us even planned to build our own private enclave of
contemporary homes in a beautiful wooded and hilly area of Montgomery County, Maryland, about
halfway between the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and the Germantown AEC headquarters.
Phyl and I were disappointed that we had to drop out of the venture when the costs spiraled well
beyond the original projections. Perhaps some of the same people who miscalculated the costs of the
housing project were responsible for the gross underestimations of the costs of the nuclear power
reactor program. I sometimes wonder.
What was really impressive about the AEC was not its science or technology, nor its secrecy, but rather
its non-accountability. We were exempted, by law, from most of the normal processes of government.
On paper, there was political direction and control, but the Commission really operated as a
self-governing entity. The Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy was composed largely of
very good friends of the AEC. They were our advocates. But we really didn't need much advocacy, as I
recall, because there was virtually no opposition to what we were doing. AEC was the somewhat
mysterious darling of the public because of what it might offer in the future.
It looked over the atomic weapons program in conjunction with the military. And it was the gleam in
the eye of the big and growing U.S. corporations which were quickly gathering up the largest of the
plump "cost plus contracts" to do all sorts of fascinating things related to the new field of reactor
development.
It was often difficult to tell where the AEC jurisdiction ended and the contractors' began. We in AEC
identified more with these corporations than we did with the Federal Government. Somehow, it
seemed more satisfying and glamorous than thinking of ourselves as just another government
department.
Indeed, the whole psychology of the organization was one of exclusivity, secrecy, autonomy and
non-accountability. It is my impression that the nuclear establishment has not changed much in these
characteristics over the ensuing years.
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Disappointed that I never got to witness an actual atomic bomb test, I had to settle for next best: the
frequent showings of secret films of the tests. Wide-eyed, we watched as whole Pacific islands
disappeared. And those were only the little bombs of the '50s.
I won a bet with my boss, Duane Swindle, that the world would not reach Armageddon before 1960.
He was sure it would. I was sure that mutual deterrents would save us all. Today it looks as if Duane
might win any next bet about the year 2000 if the world doesn't quickly scrap all those monstrous
devices, and particularly the new little sneaky and hard-to-detect models that someone could carry
around in his pickup truck. Can briefcase miniatures be far off?
But what of the radioactive waste problem? Well, the stuff was being stored in various places in pools
of water, away from people, in such places as Hanford, Washington. So why worry about it? The
mission was to build reactors that worked and the waste would take care of itself. People who could
smash atoms could surely figure out what to do with the waste. Couldn't they ?
Actually, I recall little, if any, discussion about the waste problem. Maybe the reactor engineers talked
about it in their technical jargon over evening cocktails. But unlike all the other nuclear subjects
generally discussed by employees of the AEC, waste was not one of them.
The Washington of 1980 was the reality for me on that side trip from Ottawa. I brought myself back
into the present as I visited with my relatives and talked with old friends. The AEC had long ceased to
exist, having had its functions divided up between several different government agencies, the key one
being the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
My first phone call on the subject was to an old friend of ours, Sandy Gottlieb, whom I remembered as
the director of an organization called SANE, which was advocating a sane nuclear weapons and testing
policy very early in the game. Sandy had left SANE but was able to put me in touch with other
organizations concerned with the problem of radioactive waste.
Chief among them were the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists,
both of which had Washington, D.C. offices. In fact, they were both housed in an office building not far
from my final stomping ground there with the Office of Economic Opportunity (O.E.O.), the
anti-poverty agency. I quickly arranged appointments to see people in both organizations.
The tiny offices, very few people, piles of paper, old furniture and other trappings of underfunded
advocacy groups all greeted me, along with a very warm human welcome.
If it hasn't already been done, someone should write a book contrasting the well-heeled
"establishment" bureaucracies with these shoe-string environmental organizations and title it "The
Posh and the Meager." It really is amazing how much information and knowledge these small outfits
amass. The one-year's briefing I received from the two groups in a period of several hours left my head
swimming. For example, Thomas Cochran, Senior Staff Scientist for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., was a walking encyclopedia of facts, figures, names, and events. You name it -- he knew
it, and he was a delightful character on top of it all.
There was no way we would be able to follow up on all the leads and acquire all the literature that had
been generated on the subject of nuclear waste in the US. We would be lucky to see a fraction of it.
What was important was to find out something about the direction of the radioactive waste program
and the concerns and activities of the critics and concerned citizens.
What I brought back from Washington was a strong feeling that the US was not much further ahead in
its efforts to deal with the issue than it appeared to be in the 1950s. Alternatives were being explored.
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But obviously without much success. In the opinion of the people in both organizations, and of others
with whom I spoke, the US was far away from any realistic and acceptable solution to the problem.
Further, people all over the US had reacted just the way we did to the notion of a radioactive waste
project in their backyard.
Perhaps one of the most disquieting features of my discussions with certain people in Washington was
the feeling I got that they would not be altogether unhappy to see the problem go elsewhere and north
of the border might be just fine. After all, wouldn't it make sense to confine the stuff to some remote
place such as Manitoba? Or northwest Ontario?
Having lived both in the US East, and in the Canadian Midwest, I realize now that there is indeed such
a thing as an "eastern mentality," and that it can often be brutally chauvinistic, and supremely
arrogant.
Time ran out and my visit to Washington came to an end. On the plane back to Winnipeg, I began
thinking about the upcoming October, 1980, Manitoba municipal elections. Both George Ylonen and
Marguerite Larson had decided to run for office; George for Reeve and Marguerite for Councilor in
her ward. I wondered if our pre-election strategies would bear fruit.
VOX POPULI
Under normal circumstances, elections in the R.M. of Lac du Bonnet (and in most rural municipalities)
are humdrum affairs. In some wards, it is even difficult to persuade anyone to run for the council. The
job of Reeve or Councilor is time-consuming, and not exactly financially rewarding.
Now, things were different. Several issues had emerged, including the dissatisfaction of the cottage
owners' association with the incumbent reeve and council. As property owners and tax payers, they
were entitled to vote in the municipal election.
They say if you want to change things, run for office. George and Marguerite entered the race late and
with good results; but not quite good enough. With support from both the permanent and seasonal
residents, George won the post of Reeve with a good majority. Marguerite lost in her ward but only by
five votes in a four-way race. In this case, "a miss was as good as a mile."
Initially, one of the new councilors supported George in his frequent requests for public hearings on
the radioactive waste issue, but the other three, all holdovers, did not, even though one had promised
his constituents in writing that he would do so. But then, we all know about politicians and campaign
promises.
AECL was not sitting idly by during the election campaign. On September 12, 1980, it broadsided a
newsletter in the region which was obviously designed to influence the election. Soothing in tone, it was
chock-ful of assurances.
The Committee of Concerned Citizens retaliated. One week before the election we distributed our own
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newsletter which refuted the AECL newsletter point by point. We even had the "chutzpah" to mail a
copy of it to everyone in the AECL company town of Pinawa!
Scuttlebutt had it that our newsletter angered AECL and its small coterie of Chamber of Commerce
followers in Lac du Bonnet. It contained some humor, and if there is one thing that AECL does not
have, it is a sense of humor. However, what may have bothered them the most was our comment that
the whole project was basically unscientific. We really came down hard on AECL's continued use of
the phrase "concept verification" as a description of what they were doing. We said the wording
implied prejudgment of the results. Whatever happened to the good old terminology about testing an
hypothesis?
It was not long afterward that AECL changed its terminology to the slightly more open-minded
phrase, "concept assessment." To "verify" suggests you are going to prove what you already know to be
the case. To "assess" suggests that perhaps you don't know it all; there is some uncertainty.
AECL, which had proved to us that it was a master of word games, actually was pushing the idea of
verification. Over the years of the conflict, we heard one AECL statement after another ringing with
certainty about the infallibility of its concept. Later, we learned that AECL's own Technical Advisory
Committee, and various other anti-nuclear groups, had already suggested the wording change. Our
reminder may have helped push AECL to move to clean up its vocabulary, but not its act.
George Ylonen had run for the office of Reeve on a wide range of issues of importance to both the
permanent and seasonal residents of the area. But all, by then, knew of his strong position in
opposition to AECL. His victory was sweet for the Committee of Concerned Citizens and it came as a
shock to AECL and its supporters. We wondered how the pro-AECL community newspaper would
greet Ylonen's victory.
The newspaper had editorialized extensively on behalf of AECL prior to the election. Its post-election
edition on October 28, 1980, was a classic example of journalistic understatement. The election results
appeared in box score form under a heading: "Major Changes in Area Governments." The paper
could not bring itself to headline in so many words that Ylonen had unexpectedly defeated the
incumbent reeve.
Ylonen's victory must have given AECL some real headaches. Suddenly, here was AECL's chief critic
in the area and the major force behind the Concerned Citizens Movement catapulted from relative
obscurity to the top political position in the municipality. What would this do to AECL's party line
about the public opinion in the area?
Public opinion is very important to AECL. The vote must have been more than a little unsettling to the
Corporation, particularly in the light of statements made a few months earlier in the House of
Commons by Roy MacLaren, Parliamentary Secretary to Federal Energy Minister Marc Lalonde.
On Monday, June 2, 1980, in response to questions from Bill Blaikie, MP (Winnipeg-Birds Hill),
MacLaren stated that
"A citizens' liaison group formed by the Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet
found, according to the Reeve, that between 96 percent to 98 percent of the citizens in the
area approved of the project."
Ylonen's victory in October, 1980, demolished MacLaren's figures. The problem was that the damage
had been done. MacLaren had been provided with the distorted figures, and, like so many statements
made in the House of Commons, it remains unchallenged and stands on the record to this day.
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And what of the source of the data, the so-called "Citizens' Liaison Committee," referred to by
MacLaren? AECL had rarely acknowledged the existence of our Committee of Concerned Citizens, or
any other kind of organized opposition to its plans for the area. Its spokespersons were careful to single
out individuals or refer to opposition in terms of a handful or even "one or two" people.
One wonders to what degree AECL may have actually misled its political "masters" in this regard. Be
that as it may, AECL was sufficiently concerned about the CCC to push the buttons necessary to
establish its own "front" group. The RM Council was "inspired" to establish a "Community Liaison
Committee" headed up by a local clergyman (nice touch) to conduct liaison between itself and the
community.
Through its published minutes of a meeting held on May 6, 1980, the Council and the pro-AECL
Reeve initiated the formation of the new committee and decided to contact various community groups
and interested citizens to achieve a membership goal of twelve to fifteen persons. Naturally, the CCC
and those known to be in association with it were not contacted. But we didn't let that stop us. Two of
our group volunteered to be members!
However, at the time MacLaren attributed his figures to the new committee, it was still in the process
of being formed. When it finally did meet, the new group debated how to test the public opinion in the
area. In point of fact, although the group toyed with the idea of running a questionnaire, it never
actually did undertake any public opinion survey. The presence of our two people on the new
Committee took the steam out of it as a tool for AECL manipulation of public opinion.
The Liaison Committee had a very short half-life. After a particularly stormy meeting on October 6,
1980, AECL lost interest in it. It had lost any chance of being an effective, local adjunct of AECL and
it was permitted to quietly fade away. Technically, it may still exist, on paper.
Undaunted, AECL produced a new public opinion strategy. It decided to run its own opinion poll.
Immediately after the fall election, two of its corporate headquarters' employees ran a telephone survey
to test public opinion in the area. However, the survey was not published until October, 1981, and went
under the modest title of "Public Perceptions of Community Information on the Proposed Underground
Research Lab in the Lac du Bonnet and Pinawa Areas - 1980 November."
Why AECL took a year to publish the report is not clear. Perhaps it was ordinary bureaucratic delays.
but more likely it was to let time erase the memory of the election upset.
The report itself was rather comical, as many AECL reports tend to be. Of a total sample of three
hundred interviews in the area, one hundred of them included the Pinawa Local Government District.
Fully one-third of the respondents were "nukes"! And the report made frequent references to the very
large support it was receiving from that group. Think of what Gilbert and Sullivan could have done
with that!
The results of the phone survey were a far cry from MacLaren's 96 percent to 98 percent statement to
the House. The telephone poll still came up with results favorable to AECL, but to a much lesser
degree. It concluded that full-time residents of the RM were more positive (or neutral) than they were
negative, and the cottage owners were more negative (or neutral) than they were positive about the
AECL project.
The question of public opinion was never really resolved because the powers that be have refused to go
along with our request for a referendum (probably out of fear of losing it). We felt it was useless to
speculate over public opinion when there exists a valid tool with which to gauge it. However, we were
not constrained from stating that in a showdown, we thought we would win.
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The idea to request a referendum came from the experience of the town of Massey, Ontario. AECL had
selected the area around Massey as a site for some bore hole drilling, but, ostensibly, not for any major
project such as an underground laboratory. Like most other Ontario communities, Massey fiercely
resisted AECL's efforts. Its fight to keep AECL out of its area was well publicized in the national
media. Pursuing its new "approvals" policy, AECL started work near Massey despite protests from
local government and the public.
Massey's Municipal Council requested that the Government of Ontario hold a referendum in the area.
The Ontario Environment Minister declined mainly on grounds that the matter was not within his
jurisdiction. Massey's council proceeded to hold its own referendum, with the result that over
eighty-eight percent(!) of the voters wanted AECL to leave. But AECL continued to pursue its
activities in Massey, despite the vote of no confidence.
In its May 28, 1982, letter to Manitoba's Premier Pawley, the Committee of Concerned Citizens of
Manitoba requested the Manitoba Government to
". . . proceed now to undertake a scientific public opinion poll or a full-fledged referendum
which would include all property owners in the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet and
the Local Government District of Alexander. Until all the people affected have the
opportunity to say 'yea' or 'nay' with complete protection of anonymity, AECL's
statements about public support on this issue are pure speculation."
In a follow-up letter to the Premier a month later, the CCC underscored the need for a referendum.
We told Mr. Pawley that
"We certainly are willing to stake our position and our very existence as a concerned
citizens' committee on the results of a referendum . . . "
Reaction to the referendum request was predictable. The Manitoba Environment Minister, Jay
Cowan, told a delegation of approximately sixty concerned citizens, at a meeting in Lac du Bonnet on
August 30, 1983, that the province would not hold a referendum on the issue. His reasons for the
government's position were vague and weak, but the position was clear. Cowan reconfirmed the
government's position to us in his October 13, 1982 letter in which he dismissed the subject of a
referendum by stating that
". . .we addressed (the topic) during our August 30th meeting, but in response to your
letter to Mr. Pawley, I can say that we will continue in the future, as we have in the past, to
listen and give consideration to the views of the Committee of Concerned Citizens (and any
other local citizens) who have concerns about the proposed AECL Underground Research
Laboratory."
When it came to the referendum issue, the voice of the people would not be heard!
Its new "public opinion be damned" policy was hinted at by AECL in its December 1980 Second
Annual Report. After a long lamentation over its inability to convince the general public of the merits of
its radioactive waste management program, the report went on to state that
"Some alternative approaches are needed for approving research activities."
With its usual Greek chorus response, AECL's Technical Advisory Committee, in its June 3rd annual
report on the program, expressed "real satisfaction" with the new approvals policy after having
promoted the idea in the first place.
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The new policy, in its simplest terms, meant that AECL would, as it did in the case of Massey, Ontario,
conduct its geologic research with impunity; no need to bother with messy political and sociological
aspects. And while denigrating participatory democracy even further, AECL went on to give greater
emphasis to the very thing that was sticking in the public craw, its public information approach,
already deemed to be, by many, a one-sided public indoctrination campaign.
The bottom line was best expressed in a letter dated January 21, 1981, from Mr. D. S. Hay, Chief of the
Control and Implementation Division, Environment Canada, to Ms. Carol Fisher, a member of the
Winnipeg CrossRoads Environmental Resources Group.
Ms. Fisher, quoting from a newspaper report, was concerned about "initiatives" to have the approvals
process changed in order that
". . . research areas (for nuclear dumping) may be obtained without forcing local councils. .
."
Hay, noting public resistance to AECL research, said that
"In the face of such lack of progress coupled with the general as opposed to local public
pressure to do something, governments must be tempted to use their muscle to impose a
solution, i.e., having received no agreement through the discussion process, to proceed with
expropriation of a site and construction of a facility anyway."
Citing the need for the greater good, Hay went on to again reaffirm his point that
". . . if local agreement cannot be reached voluntarily, then eventually solutions will be imposed."
Hay's candid assessment is consistent with our belief that in the final analysis, and in spite of all the
assurances to the contrary, the central government will do what it wishes, when it wishes, and where it
wishes in the matter of radioactive waste storage.
The Committee of Concerned Citizens fought long and hard to try to get a real voice for the people.
Clearly, the objective was not being met. Other strategies would be necessary. There was a strong need
to focus attention on the project itself. AECL would surely win if it succeeded in keeping the issue
largely restricted to the local level.
Enough pressure had to be brought to bear, and attention directed squarely on the issue, in some
dramatic way, so that we could gradually build up the larger constituency and influence that we were
seeking. The most simple and direct way was to literally point a finger at the piece of Crown land
AECL was using for its experiments.
The first large billboard-type sign was erected just two miles from the site. In big red and black letters
it announced:
"WARNING: UNDERGROUND RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS TEST SITE: ONE MILE

EAST: ONE MILE SOUTH
signed: Committee of Concerned Citizens."
The two four-by-eight sheets of plywood were securely nailed to the two-by-four frame and the entire
construction was nailed to sturdy posts fashioned from local trees and implanted firmly in the ground.
Anything new on the Lac du Bonnet landscape attracts attention. Changes are few and far between.
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New signs of any kind are rare. And this particular sign was placed in a farmer's field (with his
permission) in a very visible location, half way between the main road to the major cottage areas and
the remains of a large stone quarry.
Erected on the Thursday night prior to a long summer weekend at the beginning of July, 1981, the sign
could not be ignored.
It soon became the talk of the area. The next issue of the Lac du Bonnet Leader ran a lead editorial,
complete with a picture of the sign, entitled "The CCC Strikes Again." The editorial reflected the
paper's displeasure that the story of the sign had gotten out of control and reached the Winnipeg
media.
"One can only surmise," went the editorial, ". . . that at the speed at which the daily press
out of Winnipeg picked up the story, that the Concerned Citizens' Committee erected the
sign and called the Winnipeg press at practically the same time."
The Leader went on to question the motives of the Committee and to accuse us of seeking "cheap
publicity," and then announced,
"Let's not stand in the way of progress."
No doubt AECL, too, was annoyed with the story in the July 13, 1981, Winnipeg Free Press which
placed in a prominent position the headline "Citizens Group Snickering over Nuclear Site Sign."
The Leader editorial was right about one thing. It was cheap publicity. The total cost of the sign,
constructed with all volunteer help, was under fifty dollars. We delighted in the Leader calling even
more attention to our creation -- free of charge!
There was some concern in the CCC that the sign would quickly be torn down by supporters of AECL.
Yet it stood, undisturbed, for about three weeks before that happened. The frame was still intact, but
the sign itself was lying on the ground in six large pieces.
A group of us surveyed the demolished sign. Undismayed, we thought that it would be even more
effective if we reassembled it, put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, and re-erected it. Now, battle
scarred, the sign looked even better than it had when it was new.
That particular sign probably informed more people in a very short time about the proximity of the
AECL project than anything prior or since, either by AECL or the CCC. It stood for the better part of
a year, unmolested, until it finally disappeared in the early Spring of 1982.
It more than achieved its purpose of calling attention to the site. When the CBC "Points West" TV
program covered the story of the AECL project in the Fall of 1981, it used pictures of that sign for
promotional purposes.
The sign project had stemmed from the absence of any public identification of the site by the AECL
itself. The thousands of cottagers and tourists driving within one mile of the location, on their way to
and from the recreation areas, had no way of knowing how close it was to them. Of course, AECL had
chosen not to advertise it. There was none of the usual hype over a multi-million dollar project -- no
traditional billboard with its message "FUTURE HOME OF THE URL A MULTI-MILLION
DOLLAR PROJECT TO BENEFIT CANADA AND THE COMMUNITIES OF EASTERN
MANITOBA" -- no Minister of the Crown pointing out with pride how much he was doing to improve
the economy of Western Canada and Manitoba.
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We made the public service announcement for the AECL, free of charge.
When the first sign disappeared, the CCC erected sign number two and placed the new, improved and
much larger model in an even more conspicuous place -- right in the middle of the field adjacent to the
main crossroads, just a few miles north of the Village of Lac du Bonnet.
It was a double sign, one side facing toward one intersection, and the second facing the other. The
words that were most visible from the two main roads were "Underground" and "Radioactive."
A crew of five concerned citizens erected the sign in the middle of the night, during a violent
thunderstorm. I joined them that night and we counted on the element of surprise next day -- on
passers by doing double takes as they approached this heretofore signless field. Theological speculation
abounded as the lightning flashed and the thunder clapped and the heavy wind roared. At one point
we were all calling for "Auntie Em" as the wind nearly aborted the project. However, the storm
suddenly abated, (as if George Burns were on our side), and the sign was completed. The local RCMP
cruiser kept driving slowly around the area, but if they knew we were there they did not bother us.
That second sign was an anti-climax. Our point had been made with the first one. However, no one
disturbed it, except the snow, wind and rain. It still stands at this writing, in parts. The message
persists.
LOBBIES
The dual strategy, adopted very early by the CCC, to go the political route while keeping the public
informed through the media, and whatever other means, seemed logical for a citizens' group
confronting a mammoth adversary such as AECL.
The one politician who took up our cause without any special prompting from us was Bill Blaikie, MP
(Winnipeg - Birds Hill). Not only did he give us frequent moral support, but on several occasions raised
questions about the AECL project in the House.
For instance, on May 12, 1980, Blaikie put the question directly to the Prime Minister. After pointing
out that the Committee of Concerned Citizens had requested that the project be suspended, and that
public hearings be held to provide a forum for discussion for all the related issues, he asked,
"Will the Prime Minister instruct the Minister of Energy to respect the tarnished, but still
viable, idea of participatory democracy and grant this request for public hearings into this
project?"
Roy MacLaren, parliamentary secretary to Federal Energy Minister Marc Lalonde answered that
"The question of waste disposal procedures is under active consideration with provincial
governments, particularly the governments of Ontario and Manitoba, and I shall be glad to
report to the House any further developments in this area."
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MacLaren would not directly address our request for hearings! The Prime Minister responded to
Blaikie's broader request for a moratorium on nuclear power with what Blaikie later termed " . . . a
cute but entirely cynical answer . . . " to a very serious question. Mr. Trudeau said,
"I will be happy to discuss the question with the Premier of Saskatchewan, the Province
from which most uranium comes."
Blaikie's own party, the NDP, was in power in Saskatchewan at that time.
Blaikie raised questions about the AECL project in Lac du Bonnet on other occasions with the same
stone-walling results. But at least he was asking! He was the only politician we had discovered who
really had a grasp of the full implications of the Lac du Bonnet project and its relationship to the whole
nuclear energy question.
He could see, as we had seen, that Lac du Bonnet might hold the key to the ultimate fate of the entire
nuclear establishment in Canada, and maybe elsewhere. If the waste could not be swept under a
granite carpet reasonably soon, the ball game might just be over for the nukes!
Other politicians we encountered had somewhat different responses to our lobbying efforts. During
CCC meetings, Jake Epp's name kept popping up, as well it should. As the Member of Parliament for
Provencher (which included Pinawa and Lac du Bonnet) and a former federal cabinet minister in the
Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark, Epp carried considerable influence in many
quarters. However, most of the people in the CCC felt that Epp wasone hundred percent in AECL's
corner.
Nevertheless, the Committee decided that he should be contacted. A small delegation was chosen to be
representative of both permanent residents and seasonal residents of the area, about eight people in all,
including Phyl and myself. The meeting was arranged to take place at his constituency office in
Steinbach, Manitoba.
It was a beautiful late spring Saturday in 1980, one of many such days we devoted to the radioactive
waste issue. The drive to Epp's office took us around the south side of Winnipeg onto the TransCanada
Highway and then south to Steinbach. We overestimated the driving time and arrived one half hour
early. This gave us some time to wander around the new shopping mall and drive slowly through the
prosperous-looking southern Manitoba town.
As we parked near Epp's constituency office, some of the other members of the delegation were just
arriving. We all went together into the modest building that housed the office.
Epp's secretary had allotted us exactly one-half hour. Epp had a number of other appointments that
day. Promptly at 11 AM he walked in and invited us into his inner office.
A model of sartorial splendor in his pin-striped suit, he sat behind his desk exuding a politician's
confidence and affability. Unfortunately for him by the time he arrived, we had all worked up quite a
head of steam. We were "loaded for bear!"
The smile vanished from Epp's face as each of us in turn stated our feelings about the situation at Lac
du Bonnet -- with considerable emotion. We asked questions about the future of the site; why no public
hearings; Epp's support of AECL. The MP started to defend AECL's motives and the project itself on
economic grounds. He felt it would be a boon to the economy of the area. Although we tried to pin him
down on this point, just who and how much, he could not or would not be specific.
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In fact, the more we probed on this point, the angrier he got, and it was apparent that no real answers
would be forthcoming. His defensiveness simply raised our suspicions that he and other supporters of
AECL possessed some generalized shared vision of a nuclear future for the area, with an attendant
economic paradise for all who lived there.
Epp was also upset when we flatly stated that we would not accept assurances from politicians who
would not be around in ten or fifteen years to back them up.
As an honorable man and a model of the parliamentary system, Jake Epp naturally assumed that
assurances from Ministers should be sufficient. After all, what more could people want? In fact, he had
written to the Federal Energy Minister himself on May 2, 1980, stating that
"It would be my view that most of the fears in the area could be allayed by positive
statements from you on behalf of the federal government that the laboratory facility, in
fact, would be used for research purposes only and not for the storing of nuclear wastes."
The letter was replete with comments on the desirability of the project, such as "I should point out to
you that the facility is a welcome addition to the economic base of Eastern Manitoba."
But he went overboard when he said,
"I should point out the increased activity of AECL is welcome; secondly, it is a considered
opinion of the vast majority of people in the area that the laboratory should be built in the
Lac du Bonnet area."
His considered opinion, like that of the Government of Canada and the AECL, had no basis in any
kind of fact. Our very presence in his office suggested that he might be wrong on the question of public
opinion and, certainly, Ylonen's political victory in the Fall may have shaken his conviction even
further on that point.
The stormy meeting ended on a slightly upbeat note, however, when Epp suggested that it might be in
AECL's interest to consider pressing the Minister for public hearings. He even suggested that he had
friends in high places in the Corporation and would contact them on this point, and get back to us
within two weeks.
We never did hear from Epp on the hearings issue. He next surfaced on January 19, 1981, when he
wrote to the Lac du Bonnet Municipal Council thanking them for their continued support for the
AECL project. He promised his
" . . . continued support in this development and of any other ventures we can attract to
the Lac du Bonnet area."
Maybe he had another popular "venture" in mind for Lac du Bonnet such as testing the Cruise
missile. Who knows? Clearly, Epp was much relieved that the Lac du Bonnet Council continued to
stand fast behind AECL, despite George Ylonen's election.
The CCC did not approach Epp again until January, 1983, to get his reaction to an article in the
Steinbach Carillon. The January 12 article was under the unforgettable headline: "Lac du Bonnet:
garbage dump for the world?" Under the by-line of Klaus Neumann, Ottawa-based journalist for
German language and community newspapers, unnamed Ottawa officials were said to have stated
" . . . that Canada could make a 'pile of money' by becoming the world's first 'atomic
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funeral director.' "
Neumann's article analyzed events at Lac du Bonnet in the light of his European and Canadian sources
and finally concluded with
"And the chances are good that the Lac du Bonnet region will be chosen as the world's first
atomic cemetery."
Once again, Epp responded by seeking assurances. This time he wrote to the current Federal Energy
Minister, Jean Chrétien. What, if any, response he got, we do not know and it doesn't really much
matter. The best thing we got out of our lobbying efforts with Jake Epp was a very nice drive to a very
fine town, Steinbach, Manitoba.
After our meeting with Epp, we drove back to Winnipeg and, going north on Pembina Highway, we
found ourselves in the vicinity of Lloyd Axworthy's (MP Winnipeg - Fort Garry) constituency office. I
knew one of Axworthy's staff members, so we stopped, and he was able to arrange an appointment
with our delegation and the then Minister of Manpower and Immigration for the following Saturday.
Axworthy would have about an hour between two other appointments and agreed to meet with us at
that time.
This time there were twelve people in our delegation. Axworthy was running a little late so we all had
some coffee and seated ourselves around the long table in his makeshift conference room. About ten
minutes later, Axworthy dashed in, collar open, shirt-sleeves rolled up, and seated himself in a relaxed
position at the table.
He remembered having questions about the AECL project while serving as a member of the Manitoba
legislative assembly. He listened carefully as we each expressed our concerns once again. Then he spoke
firmly and rapidly. He surprised us with candid statements of his negative view of the nuclear
establishment.
But he also told us that he was in a minority in the Cabinet on the issue of nuclear energy and would
not likely have much influence on the Federal Liberal caucus. However, he promised to look into it and
get back to us as soon as he had some information.
We left the meeting with some hope, only to have it dashed again when Axworthy wrote to us on July
31, that
" . . . he could see no reason why public hearings should be held on 'the full range of
scientific, economic, social and ethical issues' that the Committee of Concerned Citizens
believe are associated with the test drilling."
He based his conclusion on information he had received from Marc Lalonde and Roy MacLaren about
the project. Axworthy's letter turned out to be the standard AECL public relations department tract
on AECL's plans and activities. Apparently reassured by his colleagues, Axworthy would be of no help
to us in our efforts to open up the issue of the underground radioactive waste research project.
The experiences with Epp and Axworthy were anything but cheering. Epp sided with AECL and
Axworthy simply played the party-line record. We were having no success in our lobbying efforts to get
public hearings.
The Manitoba Government, under the helm of Sterling Lyon, had already made its position clear. It
had approved the project in the absence of public consultation and it would not reopen the issue. In
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fact, Warner Jorgenson, Lyon's Environment Minister at the time, was quoted in the May 2, 1980,
Winnipeg Tribune, as saying,
"People develop hysteria about things and no amount of rational argument can change
their minds."
Although we did not think our requests for public hearings qualified as hysteria, it was likely that
efforts directed at the Manitoba Government of the day would be no more fruitful than those directed
at Jake Epp and Lloyd Axworthy.
But what of the opposition? At that time the New Democratic Party of Manitoba had several MLAs
who, Jorgenson no doubt, considered equally, if not more, hysterical than we were. On May 1, l980,
MLAs Harvey Bostrom and Ron McBryde raised the issue during the debates of the Manitoba
Legislative Assembly. Bostrom reflected on our concerns about the long-range possibilities of the
project becoming a full-scale radioactive waste repository and McBryde questioned AECL's
objectivity. For us, these were most welcome contributions. But perhaps the most important figure in
the opposition was that of Jay Cowan, then Environment Critic and later Environment Minister with
Howard Pawley's government.
On May 5, 1980, Cowan raised questions in the Legislative Assembly about the entire AECL operation
at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment at Pinawa, including
the health and safety of the workers,

the reporting system for radioactive spills,
contingency plans for severe accidents involving radiation, and
several incidents at the station dealing with radiation.
At the end of his questioning, Cowan turned to the subject of the underground research project. He
asked Jorgenson,
"Is the Minister's department involved in any way in the discussions and the meetings that
are going on in regard to the use of mine sites or the use of the Pinawa area for disposal of
radioactive wastes?"
Jorgenson replied,
"No, we are not involved in those discussions because we, as I said earlier, agreed to the
rental of the Crown land on the explicit condition that it be not used for storage of
radioactive waste material."
Cowan asked for clarification and Jorgenson responded:
"The area in question was leased by Crown Lands, and it was leased by Crown Lands on
the condition that it was going to be used for experimental purposes in determining rock
formations and underground water formations in that particular area. The condition that
was attached to the lease was that it was not to be used for storage of waste material."
That exchange confirmed several important opinions we held about the Provincial Government and
the AECL project. One was that the Province did not approve an "underground laboratory," per se,
when it signed the lease and two, that it was not really involved in serious discussions with AECL
before or after signing the lease.
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Further, it also had not explored, in depth, AECL's projected use of radioactive materials. In fact, all it
did was turn over some Crown land to AECL while servilely tugging at its forelock in the process.
As the Opposition critic, Cowan met with our delegation in his Party's caucus room in the Manitoba
Legislative Building late in June, 1980. He listened to the concerns and pointed out that he would do
what he could to help, but that the Committee would have to bring considerably more pressure to bear
before it could hope to achieve any of its objectives.
Cowan was very candid on this point and, I might say, consistent. When he became Environment
Minister in January, 1981, he made the same point on several occasions. The message I got was that if
you are confronting Goliath, you had better have a damn good slingshot. We didn't! Nor, for that
matter, did anybody else in Manitoba!
As opposition critic, Cowan provided us with a degree of moral support, but that was all.
Later, as Environment Minister, Cowan both pleased us and disappointed us. At the outset of his term
of office, he told us he needed to think about the public hearing idea. Perhaps he is still thinking about
it, but as a practical matter we must conclude that he has rejected the idea.
Our discovery that the State of Oregon had enacted legislation banning the permanent storage of all
but low-level, naturally-occurring radioactive wastes prompted us to make a similar proposal to Cowan
regarding Manitoba. On June 17, 1982, he acknowledged our request and said his department would
look into it. Presumably, over a year later, they were still looking, but as a practical matter, again we
assume that the idea has been rejected.
Many a politician should have the words "we will look into it" fashioned into a coat of arms!
Somehow, we had expected more from the Pawley government. Naively, we thought the humanistic
philosophy of the New Democratic Party would benefit us. And, to some extent, it did, insofar as the
attempts to monitor AECL activities was concerned. But when we talked with strong NDP supporters
in Winnipeg, it became clear that the Manitoba Party was split over the issue of nuclear energy in
general, and our concerns over nuclear waste research in particular.
We reasoned that the presence of two particular individuals in the Party had much to do with this.
Perhaps there were others, but the MLA for Lac du Bonnet, Sam Uskiw, along with Egon Frech, the
top public affairs officer for AECL's waste management program, were enough to create a division.
Uskiw was at least as solidly in the AECL camp as was Jake Epp. We understood that he received a
good deal of political support from the voters in the AECL company town of Pinawa.
And Frech had served as head of the local NDP Party in Pinawa and as a top level assistant to Edward
Schreyer, the NDP Premier of Manitoba during the 1970s. This was a formidable combination.
As our lobbying efforts wound down, we realized that the gains from it were marginal. AECL simply
had too much power, so that even those who might agree with us privately were unable to do anything
in the public arena.
But as we went along, we were capturing an increasing amount of public attention in the media, as well
as with other organizations and groups. The educational effort was paying off and would lead to some
interesting developments.
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THE LARGER FORUM
Paul Sullivan, Winnipeg journalist, wrote in one of his several Winnipeg Free Press columns on the
radioactive waste issue,
"I just wonder what the story would be if . . .(AECL's public relations staff and budget)
were lined up on the other side?"
The Committee of Concerned Citizens, with its $200 bank account and its "pass the hat" collections
really wasn't doing too badly. Certainly, a fraction of AECL's $500,000 annual public affairs budget
for its waste management program would have been welcomed by us. But our homemade signs,
pre-election newsletter, public meetings and news releases all had an impact on the public.
Initially, AECL had been successful in its effort to downplay the project, although, even without our
intervention, its "fame" would ultimately have spread. Winnipeg media representatives seemed to have
a difficult time finding out about the project and often expressed frustration over not getting current
information from AECL.
But as more articles and letters to the editor began to appear, the outside world began to peer in on the
events at Lac du Bonnet. On July 1, 1980, P.M. Boothroyd, Chairman of the Winnipeg group of the
Sierra Club of Western Canada, wrote to the Editor of the Lac du Bonnet Leader, asking,
"Does the lack of cooperation exhibited by AECL to date respecting inquiries from citizens
about their operations in the Lac du Bonnet area imply dissent by the Liberal government
to the principles of freedom of information? Clearly, to clear the air on this matter, there
needs to be a series of public hearings launched to establish public involvement and
education. The public has a right to know and to have some say in the matter."
Then, on November 14, 1980, a letter from Dennis Fast, President of the Manitoba Naturalists' Society,
appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press and later in the Lac du Bonnet Leader, in which he noted
". . . a concerned citizens' committee has been established to deal with these issues, and
they have requested that federal and provincial governments hold open public hearings in
which all sides of the nuclear waste research issue in the Lac du Bonnet area are
represented. Given all the uncertainties and questions surrounding the values and hazards
of nuclear development, we consider such hearings to be important and appropriate."
Fast went on to state, "The society supports the committee's position . . . "
The whole nuclear energy issue heated up in the Manitoba Naturalists' Society when a contingent of its
members from Pinawa took issue with Fast's letter. The controversy continued until March, 1981,
when the Society staged a debate in Winnipeg between Fred Blackstein of AECL's Chalk River,
Ontario facility, and Gordon Edwards, Chairman of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear
Responsibility.
The debate was very well attended, but did not settle the controversy within the Society. I attended the
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next annual meeting of the organization, only to witness a charade of parliamentary maneuverings over
the question of a resolution on nuclear energy. There was no discernible outcome. It was declared a
non-meeting, or some such ridiculous thing. But the debate did one very important thing for the
Committee. It put us in personal touch with Gordon Edwards.
The first time I had heard of Edwards' coalition was during our trip to Ottawa. During our May 1,
1980, public meeting, AECL supporters in the crowd repeatedly asked hostile, bristling questions on
any possible affiliation between the Committee of Concerned Citizens and anti-nuclear organizations
such as Edwards' group.
The question was usually raised in tones reminiscent of U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy's "Are you or have
you ever been . . .?" I don't think they believed us when we truthfully stated that we were affiliated
with no one. They really couldn't believe it was possible for people to independently become outraged
over AECL's behavior and activities without the help of "outside agitators."
The AECL paranoia on this membership question puzzled me until I met Gordon Edwards. Then I
understood the reason for the intensity of the hostility in the questions. Edwards could and did make
mincemeat out of them, while doing six other things at the same time! Edwards' debate with Blackstein
was a bit like pitting the New York Islanders against our local high school hockey team. He was
awesome in his debating skills and knowledge of things nuclear. As a professor of math and science at
Vanier College, holder of the gold medal in math from Queen's University, he had impeccable
credentials.
After the debate, Edwards spent some time with Phyl and me and we decided that we must have him
back for a special open meeting at Lac du Bonnet.
The idea was quickly endorsed by the Committee at one of its hastily-called meetings and thus we
staged our second open public forum on March 8, 1981, at the Secondary School in Lac du Bonnet,
with Edwards as the main attraction.
Paul Sullivan devoted a column to the radioactive waste issue and Edwards' visit, the day before the
public meeting. He declared that
"When Edwards speaks at the Lac du Bonnet High School it will be the first time the
townspeople and Manitobans in general will hear from a top-flight critic of AECL's
policies. So far, AECL has dismissed the critics of the underground testing lab as
malcontents and intellectual dilettantes - 'cottage owners.' "
Sullivan concluded, concerning AECL, that
"I hope it can back up colorful rhetoric with facts. If not, we should take the matches away
before we all get burned."
Edwards controlled the meeting at Lac du Bonnet and deftly handled the AECL technocrats who tried
to divert him into some detailed rock talk.
Even the Lac du Bonnet Leader editorial following the meeting conceded that Edwards
" . . . struck a blow in their (Concerned Citizens' Committee) favor."
The editorial agreed with Edwards when he poured cold water on political assurances about the future
of the site. But the paper dug in its heels when it announced that
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" . . . the people in Lac du Bonnet will not change! We do not want a nuclear garbage
dump here and as long as we feel that strongly about it, it will never happen."
The paper continued to endorse the AECL project.
Would the people of Lac du Bonnet change? I think they might, in time. The Fall, 1981 issue of the
Birch Bark Alliance quoted one of my public statements on this point, that AECL plans to work
" . . .one step at a time using community pacification programs until residents have been
softened up enough to accept the idea of a nuclear dump in their area."
After all, AECL has twenty years to achieve that objective and when you add enough megabucks to the
equation, it doesn't take too much imagination to foresee such a scenario.
One point Edwards made during his talk at Lac du Bonnet was that AECL was hoping for a
government decision which would sanction the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in Canada. And in his
opinion, such a facility would be located wherever the waste was stored. He wrote in the Spring, 1981
edition of his organization's newspaper, Transitions, that
"On March 8, Lac du Bonnet residents were surprised to learn of AECL's plans to separate
plutonium from the spent fuel before disposing of the other waste products in a geological
vault. Somehow this had never been mentioned before. Since the proposed plutonium
reprocessing plant would be located on the same site as the geological waste repository, it is
obviously a matter of some concern!"
The hope that AECL would get into the reprocessing business had been expressed by its officials from
time to time. For the present, however, Canada was shipping spent fuel to the American reprocessing
facility at Savannah River, South Carolina. The Union of Concerned Scientists told me that in 1976
almost seventy kilograms of radioactive wastes were sent there for reprocessing, I understand, for the
manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Edwards' comments got many of us wondering about the validity of the distinction AECL makes
between military and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. There is no question in my mind that there are
military implications to the AECL project at Lac du Bonnet.
On several occasions, Gordon Edwards stated that, in his opinion, "Lac du Bonnet was the best thing
AECL had going for it." Events have proved him right.
We saw Gordon again at the University of Manitoba's 12th Annual Festival of Life and Learning. As
energy was the theme of the three-day event, he was on a panel on "The Future of Nuclear
Development and the Economic Feasibility on a Provincial, National and International Level." He and
Ralph Torrie, of the Friends of the Earth, lined up against two members of the nuclear establishment.
I represented the Committee of Concerned Citizens on the "Waste Management and Environmental
Concerns - How Is It Being Handled in Canada?" panel. "Not very well," I said.
Unfortunately, the panel was not well attended and the students seemed uninterested in the nuclear
issue as they crowded their way into a nearby large hall where continuous rock and roll bands were
holding forth. Such are the priorities of youth!
To widen our forum even further, we arranged to have Edwards blitz the media the day before the
conference began. He appeared on Peter Warren's CJOB morning phone-in show, "Action Line". The
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callers were overwhelmingly in support of Edwards' position and that of the CCC. He made an
appearance on CBC radio and was taped for TV and held other interviews in the afternoon.
Edwards made many of the same points he had during his preceding visits. But this was one time when
frequent repetition was desirable. Manitobans were just waking up to the fact that their province was
rapidly becoming the Canadian focal point for radioactive waste management, and that they had had
no say in the decisions that led up to the present situation.
It was also becoming clear that people were beginning to understand that, no matter where they lived
in Manitoba, they had a right and an obligation to take an interest in the whole province. An
aluminum smelter, a hydro project in the far North, or an underground radioactive waste research
project in the East, no matter what, and no matter where in the province, these were everyone's
concerns. The insular view was passé.
Gordon Edwards had contributed greatly to our efforts to widen horizons and we continued to
maintain contact with him and his organization. People in the CCC often talked of him and will never
forget the contributions he made.
We had another break in our attempt to widen the public perspective when we were asked by CBC to
participate in its half-hour weekly TV documentary on happenings in Western Canada, Points West.
The program was scheduled for January 25, 1982, and Phyl and I agreed to be interviewed at our Lac
du Bonnet retreat.
It was on a Saturday morning in early December, 1981, that we watched as the CBC mobile TV van
bounced its way over the ruts in our dirt lane. I had mixed feelings as the truck came closer to the
house. Here was the opportunity we had wanted, a major TV exposure. A whole half hour would be
devoted to the issue which would be viewed by a large audience in the west. On the other hand, I felt as
if our place was somehow being violated. Some retreat!
Soon, the log cabin, the outbuildings, the woodpile and all the rest would be seen in who knows how
many living rooms. This is not exactly what we had in mind when we bought the place! But what the
hell! Hadn't we already started to compromise the sanctity of the place by holding some of the CCC
meetings there? It was getting to be pretty well known anyway.
In fact, we later learned that AECL had been out to the place to measure the exact distance from it to
the underground research laboratory site, so they could publicly state that we lived further away from
it than their own people did. I'm not sure what that proves. But Dr. F.P. Sargeant, Head of the
Geochemistry and Applied Science Branch in the AECL Waste Management Division at Pinawa,
quoted the exact figures to the audience at the University of Manitoba panel on waste management.
Somehow, the few kilometers difference was supposed to invalidate any claim I had to be concerned
over the AECL project! Who knows how they come up with these things?
Had we known in advance what was involved in the TV taping, we might have balked at the idea.
Somehow, we thought that the whole thing would be simple, painless and speedy: just a
straight-forward interview, perhaps in front of the house or near the well, and that would be that. We
had no idea that we were about to be cast among the lead actors in a complex, lengthy and completely
incredible full-blown production!
The first thing the TV crew did was to rearrange all our dining room furniture. One fellow was moving
the table and chairs around while another was putting up some translucent film material on the
windows to diffuse the sun's rays. Mind you, they were very nice about it all. While they were doing it,
they kept apologizing.
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Somehow, we finally got organized to the point where the interviewer started talking to us and we
started responding to his questions. The camera peered on as we talked about our concerns, our efforts
with the politicians, our involvement with the Committee of Concerned Citizens. The interview went
on and on. It was actually quite exhausting, both for us and, I would imagine, for the interviewer,
Brian Blom, and his crew as well.
As I responded to questions, some of my utterances sounded better to me than others. Going through
my head were thoughts such as: "I'm sure they will use that one." "Boy, I'm glad I said that!" "I sure
botched the answer to that one" Alas, none of my own "little gems" or (happily) my perceived goofs
were ever used in the final version of the program. We learned that one cannot second-guess a TV
producer.
When the interview was finished, several hours had elapsed for the sake of several minutes (or less) of
actual TV exposure. At least it was all over. So we thought! Actually, it had just begun.
"Well, let's go outside now and get some shots of you two doing things around the house. You can wait
in here until we are set up out there. We will let you know when we are ready for you."
Phyl and I looked at each other in amazement, shrugged and resigned ourselves to whatever might
come.
While we waited, we discussed the whole event. It was like a dream. The TV truck, the crew outside,
the interviewing, and it all was happening in this most improbable of all settings, our retreat in the
Manitoba bush.
There were no other sounds around. There hardly ever are, out here, with the exception of a distant
snowmobile or chain-saw engine. Usually there is silence, the kind of silence that is so still that the
buzzing of a fly disturbs the peace.
We talked about the crew. Phyl thought that one or possibly two of them were sympathetic to our side
of the controversy. She had been trying to read their reactions to what we were saying. So had I. But I
wasn't so sure. I said I thought they were very professional and polite and no doubt behaved exactly
the same way with AECL people as they did with us. They had to.
"O.K., we're ready for you now. You can come out." All the equipment was set up and the crew was
waiting. "By the way," said Blom, "you better not talk about us. This is a high-powered monitor and
can pick up sounds for miles around. We can hear everything you say."
"Yipe!" I silently uttered. My mind raced over all the things we had just said while waiting in the
cabin. Perhaps I was rationalizing, but I couldn't think of anything we said that would have given
offense. And anyway, it was too late now, even if it had!
For the next half hour or so it was difficult to keep a straight face. The TV crew was after the "down
home" atmosphere. They were going to get human interest no matter what it took to get it.
One whole sequence had us coming out of the cabin door, turning and walking slowly in the direction
of the bush to the north of the cabin. First we walked too fast. Retake! Next, there was some technical
problem with the equipment. Retake! Finally, I thought we had all succeeded when Blom said, "That
was fine, but we are going to have to do it all over again. Your dog did a number on the woodpile while
we were filming it."
Earlier, we had discussed the Siberian Husky and the crew definitely wanted him in the scene.
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However, I guess there are limits. You can't have a dog lifting a leg on TV screens all over western
Canada, now can you? Once more, the scene was completed, and the dog exhibited admirable
restraint.
"Now, Walt, can you split some firewood for us?"
"Oh, no! Must I?" I was getting a bit testy by this time. Furthermore, if truth be told, Phyllis is a lot
better wood-splitter than I am. However, in the good old male chauvinist tradition, they had me split
the wood as Phyllis handed the logs to me. Of course, I missed most of them. Not because I was
nervous, but because I usually miss most of them.
"Wait till the neighbors around here see this", I muttered to Phyl. "They will never let me forget it. If
I'm lucky, this scene will be edited out." Naturally, it was used and the neighbors still remind me of the
TV show where I was "trying to split the logs."
Finally, the crew started putting the equipment back into the truck. We urged Blom to talk to others in
the CCC movement. He said he would try but he had to consider time and budget restraints.
As the truck slowly drove away, we both collapsed, mentally exhausted. It took us hours to get our feet
back on the ground. What was left of the day was spent unwinding, with our favorite beverages.
The presence of the TV crew in the area, and particularly the village of Lac du Bonnet, evoked
considerable interest. It is not exactly every day that a CBC film crew stays overnight and interviews
people on the street about a nuclear waste research project.
On January 19, 1982, the Lac du Bonnet Leader ran a short article announcing the time and date of
the showing. I never fail to get a charge out of the Leader's reporting and editorializing on the AECL
project. It did not disappoint me this time.
"The filming was done in early December when personnel from the Whiteshell Nuclear
Research Establishment, a Lac du Bonnet District Chamber of Commerce representative,
and other individuals were interviewed on the somewhat controversial subject of research
in the safe disposal of nuclear waste."
I suppose if one of the CCC had written that article it probably would have read a bit differently,
maybe something like this:
"The filming was done in early December when persons in the community voicing concerns
over the underground research and other individuals were interviewed on the highly
controversial subject of a potential radioactive waste repository to be located here some time
over the next twenty years."
Feedback on the TV program was interesting. Some people thought the citizens got preferential
treatment and fared better than AECL and its supporters. Others took exactly the opposite view. It
was like judging who won a TV debate between politicians. You won! No, they won! Probably all this
suggests that the Points West people did an effective and objective job of covering the story.
But, if the medium is the message, in a way we did win. I draw that conclusion from the comments
coming from friends and acquaintances in Winnipeg, many of whom were initially skeptical of what we
are all about. There is no question that many people learned about the issue and the conflict for the
first time.
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The process of widening the arena took a very strange twist in September, 1982. As co-spokespersons,
Marguerite Larson and I made the most of every opportunity to get our message across to the public.
Whenever the Committee decided to go public on something, Marguerite and I would compare notes,
discuss our possible responses to various questions on the particular issue. We tried to monitor the
media coverage of our releases and interviews.
"I heard you on CJOB." she would say. "Oh really, well I heard you on CBC news at 6:00." I would
reply. "What did I say?" we would ask one another.
When a reporter wanted a "local" slant to the story, he or she would call on Marguerite in Lac du
Bonnet. Soon we would see a picture of her perched next to one of the big signs erected by the CCC, or
on one of her horses.
Although our coordination was not bad, there were times when we would respond independently to an
inquiry or an event. When the CBC news called me early on Monday, September 13, 1982, to get my
reaction to the proceedings of the international conference on the disposal of radioactive waste being
held in Winnipeg, I was caught flat-footed.
The Committee had received no word of the conference. The media, however, had been alerted to it
and the CBC news reporters were covering the sessions at the Winnipeg Convention Center.
I told the CBC reporter that we knew nothing about it. He seemed incredulous and explained that this
was the first international conference on radioactive waste and it was being held right here in
Winnipeg -- right now! I hesitated and responded with a "There's nothing I can do or say about that.
We have seen no agenda and we can't comment on something we know nothing about!"
The reporter persisted. The fact that we knew nothing of the conference apparently was news in itself.
"Would . . . (I) be able to come down to the Convention Center and look into it, and perhaps be
interviewed?"
Finally, I agreed. After all, an international conference on radioactive waste was about as wide a forum
as we could find. But how would we exploit the possibilities inherent in such an event?
The first thing I did at the Convention Center was to check out the agenda at the desk. It turned out to
be a double-barreled shotgun. Not only was it the first International Radioactive Waste Management
Conference put on by the Canadian Nuclear Society, it was also the "Annual Information Meeting of
the Canadian Fuel Waste Management Program" and the theme was "Progress in Radioactive Waste
Management -- Confidence for the Future." It should have read "overconfidence."
The agenda included speakers from the U.S., all over Europe, and Japan. The top Canadian
radioactive waste brass was, of course, well represented. This convention must have been in the works
for months. I was still kicking myself for not having any prior knowledge of this event when it dawned
on me that there were no other environmental people or groups visible or mentioned anywhere on the
agenda or in the conference literature.
In fact, where was the Manitoba Government? Or even the City of Winnipeg? You would have
thought that at the very least the Mayor would have been there to welcome these esteemed visitors
from all over the world to our fair city!
The absence of environmental groups as such was unusual, but not unbelievable. The absence of the
Manitoba Government, or the City of Winnipeg, was unbelievable. When the CBC reporter found me,
that was what I said. The smile on his face suggested that he had already arrived at the same
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conclusion. He asked me if I would go before the cameras and say that as soon as his crew was finished
with its interview of Mr. L.W. Shemilt, who headed up AECL's waste management Technical Advisory
Committee.
It was also obvious that the media thought there was something unusual about a nuclear waste
conference without any controversy. And, of course, they were right. It looked as if this conference had
been organized and orchestrated in such a way as to virtually preclude controversy. Although it was
basically a "technical" conference, it did include topics on "overall strategies" and "public attitudes."
In the light of the world-wide debate over the whole issue, one would have expected some minor
fireworks or some differences of opinion. Apparently, the media found little excitement in covering
what amounted to the converted indulging themselves in a love feast!
On the other hand, this was typical of the behavior of the nuclear establishment. It was another case of
"Let's keep it low key and quiet and at the same time get our message out, in our way." It was the same
approach that AECL had been using all along in its waste management program; a classical AECL
public relations exercise.
As I listened to Mr. Shemilt give his pronouncements on how safe and sound the AECL program was, I
realized that this conference would become a forum for AECL and the nuclear establishment to
brainwash the public.
Then I had my chance before the cameras in the hall of the Convention Center. I made it short. We
had not been informed or invited to the conference. There was a notable absence of environmental
groups or representatives of the various levels of government. As far as I could tell, there was no sign of
controversy or differing opinions on a subject well known to be controversial.
And the pronouncements of safety of deep rock storage of radioactive waste seemed premature and
contradicted statements of other scientific people we had heard.
While I was talking, the AECL public relations staff from Pinawa had all gathered in their typical
"cluster" mode to listen to my remarks. They looked amused. After my statement, they asked me to
join them in the hospitality room for a cup of coffee. Normally I indulged them in this degree of civility,
but at the moment I was angry, totally ungracious and abruptly rejected the offer and walked out of
the Convention Center.
As I suspected, that evening Winnipeggers started getting the AECL message. Conferees were all over
the airways. My patience really ran out as I listened to some fellow from the U.S. boasting about how
safe it was to put radioactive waste in the rocks because it simply takes on the characteristics of the
surrounding rock and indeed behaves just as if it was nothing but plain old rock!
Now, I have no scientific credentials, but a more unscientific statement I have never heard. We had to
do something to counter this "indoctrinate Manitoba" blitz.
After a few phone calls to Lac du Bonnet, we decided the best thing we could do was to try to arrange a
"spur of the moment" demonstration at the Convention Center. It was already Tuesday and the
conference would be over on Wednesday at noon. Since getting a delegation from Lac du Bonnet on
such short notice was unlikely, and since demonstrations were not an acceptable form of protest among
the CCC people there, we decided to call for some outside help.
The Winnipeg-based Crossroad Resources (Environmental) Group had been following events of AECL
Pinawa for many years and had periodically involved itself in the conflict over the underground
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research. Made up primarily of younger people, Crossroads had no problem with the idea of
demonstrations. Their response was very positive. They agreed to contact some of their own members
plus some like-minded individuals.
Since a demonstration of ten or more people required a permit, and there was no time to get one, we
decided to have nine people stand quietly in the foyer of the Winnipeg Convention Center, holding a
large banner which opposed AECL's activities in Lac du Bonnet.
The banner, which read No Nuclear Waste at Lac du Bonnet, was a masterpiece, considering that it was
literally created overnight by Crossroad's Tom Evans. The nine people assembled in the foyer of the
Convention Center and stood silently, holding the banner for all who passed to witness.
As the sessions ended on that Wednesday noon, I stood in the foyer and watched the conferees as they
walked out and past the small demonstration. Their reactions were priceless. Shock, surprise and
ridicule, all manner of facial expressions registered. The only conferees who showed any genuine
interest or curiosity about us were two Japanese delegates. They stood nearby for quite a while and
simply looked puzzled. We tried to explain our concerns to them as best we could, but neither spoke
English very well.
The media literally swarmed all over us. We had tipped them off earlier that there just might be a
small demonstration. And our timing was perfect. Just about every TV station, newspaper and radio
station in Winnipeg was there.
The event simply confirmed what I had been told by several top level media people:
If you are going to stage a 'spontaneous' demonstration, make sure your plans include
prior notification to the media.
During the demonstration, we had several visits from the Convention Center management. At first
they told us that they would not ask us to leave because the organizers of the Conference did not want
to create a scene. No doubt! Later, however, they sent two of Winnipeg's finest to ask us to leave the
premises.
Tom Evans patiently explained that we were in a public place, and in fact, aside from the roof over us,
the passageway was lined with shops and was a throughway for pedestrian traffic. However, we
decided not to press our luck further. We had made our point and had also received some of the best
media coverage we had ever got on the issue.
The AECL underground radioactive waste research project had gradually moved into a much broader
arena. It had become linked with the larger nuclear energy question and would no doubt continue to
be the center of much controversy and debate.
But the lobbying efforts coupled with the media exposure did not address the major objective of the
Committee of Concerned Citizens. The project continued to move ahead. AECL's vested interests
continued to grow, and still the public was not involved. The hearings we had so long sought were no
closer than they had been at the beginning. It was evident to us that we would have to change, or at
least, augment, our objectives. The underground research laboratory looked increasingly like a fact of
life.
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THE MONITORS
The idea was born out of desperation. If we couldn't stop AECL long enough to get public hearings,
the least we could do was to watch the underground project, to keep an eye on it and object
strenuously whenever something was awry.
Of immediate concern to people living right next to the site were the noise and dust from the ongoing
drilling. Later, there would be problems with the use of radioactive materials. And beyond that for
twenty years, what?
It was early Fall, 1981, about a year and a half after the Committee was formed, that the new strategy
emerged. The idea of monitoring AECL had been discussed from time to time but had never really
taken shape as efforts focused on politicians, media and public awareness.
Opinions about monitoring within the Committee were mixed, indeed. The "moderates" could see
some virtue in the idea of a monitoring plan. After all, the project seemed to be going ahead and it was
a reality. The "hawks" were not interested in strategies that implied recognition of the project. They
wanted to keep on a course that would either bring about public hearings, or terminate the project.
A few "superhawks" in our midst wanted the Committee to turn its attention to the entire Whiteshell
Nuclear Research Establishment at Pinawa with a view to eliminating all vestiges of AECL in eastern
Manitoba. A few of these local residents had reached the point where they had had enough of the
nuclear presence in their backyards. Some of these were old-timers who would frequently dredge up all
the old horror stories that had been circulating in the area for some time:
High cancer rates among certain families, the members of which worked close to radioactive
materials at the WNRE,
radioactive leaks and oil slicks in the river (from which many people obtain their drinking
water), and
mutated flora and fauna in the area surrounding the AECL plant, were among the many chilling
stories one would hear.
The anecdotes were unwittingly fueled by AECL itself. For example, a story in the Lac du Bonnet
Leader on November 17, 1981, entitled "Radiation harms trees, strawberries love it," described AECL's
Pinawa experiments radiating
". . . 700-odd species ". . .in an area of one kilometer in diameter for 19 hours a day to see
how much of the stuff could be tolerated without ". . . any harmful effects."
The word "odd" took on two meanings when applied to the trees and shrubs. According to the article,
"Trees and shrubs begin to grow better, while their leaves often turn red or purple and
they sometimes develop double tips. . . (at a dose of) . . . 140 times background (radiation),"
and beyond.
The story that really disturbed me was one which was told by too many people to be ignored. They
insisted that for a long time AECL had buried radioactive tools and equipment in a specific area on the
WNRE reservation, and although there were "Keep Out" signs, and the usual radioactive warning
signs, there was nothing to stop people from crossing into the area and picking up these items and
carrying them back to their homes and farms. I found this story particularly believable. Valuable tools
and equipment are not easily overlooked by the local residents, many of whom are anything but
affluent. And radioactivity, unfortunately, defies all the senses; no smell, no sound, no sight, no
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warning to the uninitiated.
This rumor could have been dismissed as ridiculous on the grounds that AECL would have long ago
instituted a foolproof system which would prevent any radioactive materials from leaving its custody.
But the fact that it was possible for radioactive tools and equipment to get off site undetected came to
light on April 8, 1983, when, according to the provincial government monitoring report, two ball valves
with low levels of radioactive contamination were
". . . inadvertently removed" from the active area to an inactive area at the WNRE.
The valves were subsequently built into a hydro geological research apparatus that was taken to the
underground research site, and used periodically to inject water into two boreholes for hydro
geological tests during the period 1982 July to November. After the valves were returned to the plant
on November 23, 1982, the contamination was detected on November 25 during a routine check.
And now, after twenty years of operation of the research establishment at Pinawa, a committee was
struck
"to make recommendations to prevent the recurrence of this, or similar incidents."(!)
After much discussion in the CCC meetings, the moderates won the day on the initiation of a
monitoring program, but it was the first time the Committee had not reached what I would consider to
be a true consensus. Whatever agreement was reached was based on the idea that the Committee and
the community as a whole would have a strong role to play in any monitoring system. As one elderly
gentleman put it to me,
"If we can't have our own man go in there and check out that outfit, then the monitoring
isn't worth a damn !"
Any plan that lacked an effective, independent citizens' review, that is, some scientific expertise from
non-government sources, would not have much credibility with the Committee. The distrust of all
levels of government had reached new heights.
There was, however, agreement that the idea for the monitoring plan should receive as much publicity
as possible. The public should be made aware that the Committee of Concerned Citizens was proposing
some-thing constructive, not just opposing with no alternative remedies.
The actual request for the plan would be placed before Federal Energy Minister, Marc Lalonde. This
time we would hold a news conference to explain the proposal and we would seek support from the
local and provincial governments.
The news conference was held in a small room at the Winnipeg downtown Holiday Inn on September
29, 1981. The media had been alerted through personal contact and follow-up notices. Marguerite
Larson and I represented the Committee of Concerned Citizens. George Ylonen attended as a citizen
and made it clear that he was not, as Reeve, speaking for the Municipal Council, but only for himself.
We also enlisted the support of two strong Winnipeg-based allies of the CCC, Carl Ridd and Ken
Emberley. Emberley was a champion of all sorts of environmental causes. As an environmental advisor
to the Manitoba Liberal Party, he had an extensive knowledge of the nuclear industry and was one of
its most outspoken critics.
Carl Ridd, a Professor of Theology at the University of Winnipeg, had also publicly criticized the
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nuclear establishment, primarily on moral and ethical grounds. He had become involved directly with
the nuclear waste controversy when he wrote a letter to the editor of the Winnipeg Free Press,
published on July 7, 1981. Ridd noted that on the one hand, the head of AECL's waste management
program (Stanley Hatcher) was
" . . . giving the public assurances based on preliminary calculations; and on the other the
independent committee of scientists (AECL's waste management Technical Advisory
Committee) was saying that there is not enough data yet for preliminary estimates to be
responsibly made."
Ridd went on to point out that AECL's behavior as "salespeople," and its concern for its "image"
explained why the public was
" . . . for good reason, growing more aware of the dangers and difficulties of their
industry."
On July 17, the Winnipeg Free Press published two separate letters in response, one from Hatcher and
one from Grant Sheng, Science Secretary for AECL's Technical Advisory Committee. They had closed
ranks. Both letters defended the appropriateness and objectivity of AECL's research but never really
addressed Ridd's main points. Ridd got the final word in his August 17, 1981, follow-up letter to the
Winnipeg Free Press in which he concluded,
"We find in this correspondence a pattern repeated far too frequently by the nuclear
industry; a failure to answer the objection raised - either because they do not listen to the
public to perceive what it is, or because they follow the classic method of, 'If you can't
answer the objection raised, answer a different one - and so appear to be answering.' As a
result, the credibility gap remains."
Much to our delight, the little room in the Holiday Inn was quickly jammed with reporters, lights,
radio and TV equipment. Each of us made a short statement and we fielded the questions. We
explained that we wanted a full scale monitoring and reporting system which included on-site
inspections twice a year during the twenty-one year life of the underground research project.
The purpose of the inspections would be to assure that no radioactive materials were used or stored at
the site. Our plan called for monitoring personnel who would include independent experts chosen by
citizens' and environmental groups in addition to government representatives.
The monitoring group would report to all interested parties and the public on the results of each
inspection. And most importantly, we wanted the Federal Government to pick up all costs of the
program. The proposal was being offered in good faith in an attempt to end the interminable
wrangling over the AECL underground radioactive waste research project in the Lac du Bonnet
region of Eastern Manitoba.
Our letter to Marc Lalonde emphasized our desire to sit down with him and/or his designees to discuss
the monitoring proposal. The news conference naturally branched out into other areas of our concern,
including AECL's intended use of radioactive materials in its research. This seemed to be of particular
interest to the media representatives, as it was to us.
The media made a pretty big splash over the monitoring plan and gave it excellent coverage. There was
no immediate reaction from AECL Pinawa, which was probably waiting for AECL Ottawa to tell it
how to react and, even more importantly. what to say when it drafted the response for Marc Lalonde's
signature.
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As we expected, George Ylonen's appearance at the news conference evoked some negative responses in
Lac du Bonnet. Local real estate dealer, Bob Lesko, attended the R.M. Council meeting on October 6.
1981, to
". . . express concern that the Reeve of the Municipality has appeared on television and has
been included in newspaper reports with the Concerned Citizens Committee regarding the
Committee's position on the underground research laboratory."
Ylonen simply brushed it off with "I participated as a citizen."
The small but vocal Lac du Bonnet Chamber of Commerce group never lost an opportunity to criticize
George for speaking out on the issue and the local newspaper made sure the criticisms were
prominently displayed.
Ylonen's role with the CCC came up many times, both in private conversations, and during Committee
meetings. Since he did not have the backing of a majority of the council, how far could he go? The
answer was clear. There was no question that he was elected to the position of Reeve on a number of
significant issues, not the least of which was his call for public hearings on the AECL underground
research project.
Not only did he have a right to speak out on the issue, he had a duty to do so! That he would be
subjected to some criticism for taking a stand was inevitable. He was more than willing and able to
handle it.
Early in 1983, the highly respected and well-known prairie journalist Fred McGuinness came to
Ylonen's defense when he wrote in his syndicated "Neighborly News" column:
"Can a council tell a reeve what to say? I don't think so, but there are councilors who feel
this way. You can read all about it in the Lac du Bonnet Leader. Over the reeve's
objections, council of the R.M. of Lac du Bonnet has voted approval of an underground
laboratory at a nearby atomic energy station. When the reeve went to a municipal
convention, he spoke his mind, for which he is now being challenged. The challenger says
when the reeve is on municipal business, he's to state only the views of the council. It strikes
me that's undemocratic."
It couldn't be summed up better!
No one can accuse George Ylonen of lacking the courage of his convictions.
Would the idea of a comprehensive monitoring program with citizens' involvement, outside experts
and government funding succeed? We could see no logical reason why it shouldn't. But in his
November 5, 1981, response to the CCC, Marc Lalonde wrote:
"I am satisfied that all necessary monitoring of the project will be carried out by the
Province of Manitoba and the Atomic Energy Control Board. I do not see any need for the
Federal Government to fund additional monitoring."
And just what monitoring was taking place? As far as we could see, none! Our study of the reports of
official government bodies, and particularly those of the AECL Technical Advisory Committee,
convinced us that the nuclear establishment was engaged in a back-scratching exercise while extolling
the glories of the underground project. For that matter, they had all prejudged the experiment as a
success. Once in a while, AECL's hand would be slapped on some insignificant point, and that was the
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extent of it.
"The Provincial Government," said Marc Lalonde in his letter to us, " . . . owns the land
on which the laboratory is to be constructed, has assumed responsibility for monitoring the
site to ensure that the provisions of its lease are respected. The monitoring process had
already begun."
By now we had gotten used to Ottawa's distortion of the facts about what was really going on in Lac
du Bonnet. Our discussions with the Manitoba Government had convinced us that no monitoring was
taking place. In fact, on several occasions, I was told, informally, that the Provincial Government really
did not have the resources to effectively monitor such sophisticated geological and geophysical projects.
The provincial Department of the Environment was woefully lacking in the necessary expertise. For
example, laboratory facilities for measuring radioactivity in water did not even exist in Manitoba,
outside of AECL.
"We must rely on what AECL tells us," was how one of the Environment Minister's executive assistants
under the Lyon government put it to me. Nevertheless, Manitoba cabinet ministers tried to reassure
the public that AECL would be monitored. Even back on May 1, 1980, in his exchange with NDP
opposition member, Harvey Bostrom, Environment Minister Jorgenson said,
"We will be monitoring it. We will be keeping an eye on it and we will be in constant touch
with Atomic Energy of Canada to ensure that the provisions of that lease are maintained."
As far as we could see, that was nothing but rhetoric. Our belief that AECL was not being monitored
on this project was later strengthened in a March 3, 1981, letter from Jorgenson's successor, Gary
Filmon, in which he stated in no uncertain terms that
"AECL has sole responsibility for this project; there is no Provincial participation in the
URL . . .(and) responsibility for monitoring AECL rests with the Atomic Energy Control
Board."
A more classic case of buck-passing while misleading the public would be difficult to find.
All this confusion over monitoring gave the CCC much motivation to press for an effective system. We
decided to pursue the idea with the new Manitoba NDP government when it came into power, late in
1981. In our December 3rd letter to the new Environment Minister, Jay Cowan, we posed the
jurisdictional question:
"Would Premier Pawley's government accept some tangible responsibility for monitoring
the AECL project, and most importantly, would the new government fund the independent
review we had been seeking?"
Cowan's response to our request for a meeting with him was very prompt and positive. The meeting
was held in the New Democratic Party Caucus room in the Manitoba Legislative Building on January
9, 1982. Our delegation was composed primarily of seasonal residents of Lac du Bonnet.
The blizzard conditions that day prevented most of our permanent resident representatives from Lac
du Bonnet from attending. Those who did make it reported that it was near zero visibility all the way.
But the meeting went well. Cowan started by setting up ground rules for a continuing open dialogue
based on mutual trust. No one could argue with that. He went on to forthrightly state that in his
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opinion ". . . our concerns were well founded." It was nice to hear that from a Manitoba Government
official after two years of having our concerns downgraded and even ridiculed by politicians in power.
During that meeting, Cowan agreed to look into the question of AECL's current and planned use of
radioactive materials in its underground research. He also agreed to give priority consideration to
other questions including the use of public hearings, and the possible need for legislation banning the
storage of high level radioactive waste in Manitoba. And, most importantly, he was enthusiastic about
the idea for setting up a long-term monitoring and reporting program.
Before that meeting ended, however, Cowan cautioned us not to expect miracles: that in his new role of
Environment Minister he would not take sides in the controversy and that there would undoubtedly be
disagreements between himself and the Committee on certain issues. As it turned out there was, and on
some crucial matters.
However, Cowan's approach, which was one of listening, and a show of concern, had a positive impact
on our group that bitter cold January day. It was not until the heat of the following summer that some
of the bloom fell off the rose.
Our optimism, however, was still high in the Spring of 1982. In our letter of May 28, 1982, to Premier
Pawley, we openly commended the Environment Minister for
". . . responding favorably to our request for development of a comprehensive monitoring

program of the AECL project."
By that time we had received a May 10th letter from Mr. C. B. Orcutt, Director of Cowan's
Environment Control Services, which included the "Proposed AECL Underground Research Laboratory
- Provincial Monitoring Responsibilities" document. Each phase of the project (i.e., site investigation,
construction and operation) was identified along with the department of government responsible for
specific monitoring responsibilities. This was a good start.
Part of our strategy for a monitoring plan involved the Council of the R.M. of Lac du Bonnet. Orcutt
had provided the Council with a copy of his May l0th communication and we did not want to see it
treated as just another information item. Although we had no success with the Council to date on
matters concerning the AECL project, we felt that the Council would be in a very tenuous position if it
was negative, or even neutral, toward the monitoring plan idea.
Past experience suggested that if we were to have any chance at all with the Council, we could not
telegraph our intentions in advance. Our plan, to take our delegation to a regular council meeting, had
to be carried out with an element of surprise. AECL and its supporters would surely destroy our efforts
to get a favorable reaction from the Council if they got wind of our plan.
Our delegation appeared unannounced at the Council's May 18, 1982 meeting. Part of our delegation
was composed of seasonal residents who drove up from Winnipeg, and the other part came from the
local community.
Those of us from Winnipeg arrived early. Our local resident contingent was not there when the
meeting time arrived. And for this sort of occasion, their presence was critical. As we waited for them,
our anxiety mounted. The councilors were obviously puzzled by our presence and our intentions.
Just as the meeting started, the local contingent arrived, en masse! I'll never forget the looks on the
faces of the councilors and the R.M. staff as the people filed into the room to join us. We had the
element of surprise all right! There was no time for the Council or its staff to alert our adversaries.
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The meeting began. Marguerite Larson and I took the lead and explained the importance of the
monitoring program. We asked the council to pass a resolution to endorse the Provincial Government's
plan as outlined in Orcutt's letter.
Embarrassed silence fell over the Council. What to do? The mere fact of a council chamber room
packed with a delegation of the Committee of Concerned Citizens, and no AECL staff or local
supporters around, must have been a very uncomfortable experience for those councilors who
supported AECL. It was certainly a turnabout from some previous Council meetings which were
dominated by AECL and its Chamber of Commerce supporters.
After we finished presenting our case and made our request, the embarrassed silence continued.
Councilors and staff gave one another nervous, sideways glances; that is, all except Reeve Ylonen who
was delighted with the whole scene.
Finally, one of the councilors spoke. "Well, I suppose if this is something that has the Provincial
Government's stamp on it, we should go along with the idea." "Who's going to pay for it?" asked
another councilor. "Don't worry, not the Municipality," we responded. Jay Cowan had told us
previously that the Provincial Government would absorb the costs of any monitoring work done by
government staff.
More questions - more discussion - and finally, Reeve Ylonen urged that a decision be made. "Suppose
we note for the record that we are not opposed?" asked one councilor. "Would that be good enough for
you?"
I decided to push my luck. "No, it would not! We want this Council to pass a formal resolution
supporting the monitoring program."
More embarrassed silence, more sideways glances, and finally, the resolution was made and passed.
Moved by Councilor W.R. Belluk, and seconded by Councilor Ed Sikora, it read,
"Be it resolved that Council support, in principle, the comprehensive provincial monitoring
program as presented by the Environmental Management Division, Department of
Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Environment." Carried.
AECL was, understandably, somewhat upset by what happened. It was caught off guard.
Momentarily, it had lost control of Lac du Bonnet. In his June 10, 1982 letter to Premier Pawley, R.E.
Green, General Manager of the Whiteshell Nuclear Establishment made a point of saying,
"I would note in passing that support for a monitoring program does not constitute
opposition to the project, and the municipal government's action in support of monitoring
should be interpreted in this light."
Now, after all, who should know better than AECL how to interpret political decisions made in its
"private fiefdom?" Certainly not the Premier of the Province!
The local newspaper's May 25th story under the headline "CCC heartened over monitoring program at
URL" noted that the Provincial Government had not yet dealt with any of the specifics of the plan. It
was those specifics that worried us. Informal discussion among our group after the Council meeting
centered on two issues: an independent expert of our own choosing, and unannounced and unlimited
access to the project by our expert.
A government-only monitoring program would not be acceptable to many people in the CCC. Just how
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far would the Manitoba Government go to accommodate us? I had serious doubts that we would get
what we wanted but the monitoring idea was the only positive thing we had going for us and we had to
give it every chance.
Our first major meeting with Cowan's monitors was held on June18, 1982, at a lodge in Lac du
Bonnet. It was a Friday evening, and I'm not too certain that Cowan's staff enjoyed the manner in
which their weekend started. The meeting provided us with an opportunity to "vent our spleens," and
the underlying anger, frustration, and hostility came pouring out. The civil servants handled it fairly
well. They listened and I believe for some of them it was the first time that they really understood the
intensity of our feelings on the issue.
The results of that meeting were encouraging. The Provincial Government agreed to provide a more
detailed description of the monitoring programs, with emphasis on water quality and radiation
protection. In addition, the Province could attempt to get written permission from AECL for full
provincial access to the project and to AECL data!
Although I was happy about this progress, I could not help but reflect back on the statements made by
high level Federal and Provincial politicians to the effect that the AECL project was being monitored.
Here we were, just getting the first wheels in motion.
The CCC was asked to provide the Province with its own ideas concerning public participation in the
monitoring including the key provision of an independent review. The province assigned Mr. Norm
Brandon, a staff member of the Environmental Control Services, as the main contact for us.
During the meeting, we pointed out how important the independent review provision was to us. Since
it was a political issue, the civil servants would not comment on the idea other than to suggest that it
might be considered as part of the "peer review" process that was becoming more prevalent in
environmental projects. However, "peers" were not normally selected by the citizens. It would be up to
the Minister of Environment and his colleagues to decide if we would get our version of the "peer
review."
The mood as we left the meeting was one of guarded optimism.
One thing was clear to us all. For the first time, the Provincial Government was attempting to set up
realistic mechanisms to check the AECL project at Lac du Bonnet. Our belief that there had been no
substance to the claims of politicians that monitoring was in place turned out to be well-founded. It is
one more example of how easily the public can be misled by convincing rhetoric and empty statements
of assurances.
During the meeting, several cottage owners, whose properties were within "spitting distance" of the
AECL underground research site, complained of noise and dust from the activities over the weekends
and well into the night. One woman told how, after hours of this disruption, she got so angry that she
finally got out of bed, got dressed, crossed the road, and went over to the drilling rig and proceeded to
let the operator know what she thought of the whole operation.
Cottagers along the river near the site complained of assaults to their weekend retreats from continual
truck traffic, road dust, noise, pot holes, littering, etc. What a way to enjoy a quiet weekend at the
lake!
Weekend and late night drilling made some of us wonder about AECL's public statements that it was
in no particular hurry to complete its research and develop a radioactive waste facility. Further, AECL
had been characterizing itself as a good corporate citizen while making the lives of these particular
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citizens more than a bit miserable.
The decisions reached at the June 18th meeting were summarized in C. B. Orcutt's July 13th follow-up
letter in which he promised additional information and another meeting with the Committee of
Concerned Citizens.
Now was the time to hammer home our key request. In our June 25th letter to Jay Cowan, we asked
him to give us his specific views on the independent (peer) review idea. He replied, on July 22, that he
agreed with the idea in principle, but that he
". . . could not comment on who might be involved in this review and who would finance it,
but it is something that we should certainly discuss as the development of a monitoring
program proceeds. Similarly regarding 'hands-on' participation of outside experts: I am
open to suggestions, however, I am concerned that we take care not to build into our
programs duplication of effort."
It seemed, at this point, that we were getting somewhere. Many of us would rest more comfortably if
we knew that there was a permanent monitoring process which included reports from our own experts.
There seemed to be every reason to pursue the monitoring program to the limit.
The "summit meeting" took place at the same lodge, in Lac du Bonnet, on August 30, 1982. For some
while, AECL had been urging Jay Cowan and other Provincial Government people to tour the WNRE
at Pinawa, as well as the underground research laboratory site. The Minister and his entourage spent
that morning getting the red carpet treatment from AECL. He was to meet with us at lunch.
Accompanying him were his Deputy, Ron McBryde, who had previously been an MLA in the
Manitoba Government, and an assorted group of New Democratic Party MLA back-benchers, as well
as some key civil servants in the Environment Department.
Rumor had it that the Minister of Highways and MLA from Lac du Bonnet, Sam Uskiw, was slated to
be at the meeting but, somehow, he found more important things to do. Reactions to that news,
however accurate, did not help Uskiw's political standing with those local residents among the
sixty-five concerned citizens attending the meeting. Nor was there any surprise over this because
everyone in the room was aware of Uskiw's pro-AECL stance.
Cowan and his group arrived about an hour late, obviously somewhat hungry from tramping around
in the bush. Everyone eagerly lit into the excellent food prepared by Ed and Lillian Taylor, proprietors
of the Cambrian Lodge.
When the meeting began, George Ylonen addressed the entire assembly in the packed main room of
the lodge with one of the most eloquent statements of our concerns and issues that I had ever heard. It
moved us to spontaneous applause. The expression on the faces of the Government delegation
suggested that they were impressed. I imagine it was quite a contrast to the full dose of AECL public
relations hype that they must have heard all morning.
Cowan made no promises and no commitments on our key monitoring points. He simply reiterated the
need to maintain the dialogue, and to work through the conflicts on a basis of mutual trust. But by now
his soothing words and sincere approach were beginning to wear thin. People wanted more than
words; they wanted action. As the meeting wore on, tempers wore thin. Sharp exchanges took place
between Cowan and several concerned citizens. Audible notes of disgruntlement could be heard. "It's
the same old crap," muttered the fellow sitting next to me.
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Most of the discontent came from Cowan's outright rejection of a referendum on the whole issue of the
radioactive waste research facility. In spite of the testy meeting, we proceeded to set up a subcommittee
to work on a proposal for citizens' participation in the monitoring program.
Cowan was keeping his channels of communication open, and in his October 13, 1982, letter to us, he
noted that
"My Department has taken initial steps to involve the Committee in the formulation of a
complete monitoring program for this facility and will continue with this effort as
promised. I look forward to a continuing dialogue with you and your group."
The strategy behind our citizens' involvement proposal was to outline the most ambitious system we
could, with the hope of getting the main provisions accepted. Forwarded to the Minister on November
22, 1982, it spelled out key points under the headings of
"Scientific and Technical," and

"Social and Economic."
In addition, we suggested the creation of a Citizens' Advisory Committee which would meet every six
months with Provincial Government officials, and AECL, to review project status and to assure that
the public would be properly informed.
Under the "Scientific and Technical" heading we asked for on-site inspections by concerned citizens
and scientific personnel designated by the CCC. Inspections could be made without prior notices to
AECL. Since AECL was viewing its project as a sort of a "mine shaft," unannounced inspections
would be very appropriate, as they are in general practice by government inspectors in the mining
industry.
Our key provision was inserted again: at least one scientist designated by the Committee be funded by
the Government, including reasonable travel expenses and honorarium.
Although we had not approached any scientists about fulfilling this role, we had discovered enough of
them who were independent and generally critical of AECL, so that we did not think we would have
too much trouble getting someone. Whoever we got must have excellent credentials and be critical, in a
responsible way, of the nuclear establishment.
We even asked for a full-time person, with some scientific credentials, to maintain an inspection office
at or near the site, with full access to the site. And last, but by no means least, we wanted all
monitoring reports to be widely distributed to the public through the media.
Our plan also called for monitoring the social and economic impact of the AECL project. These days,
anything related to the nuclear establishment, and radioactive waste in particular, is intrinsically
controversial.
The project was sitting right in the middle of a major Canadian recreation and tourism area. Rivers,
lakes, provincial parks, cottage areas, an enormous capital investment in facilities, equipment and
property were involved. Enlightened self-interest dictated that the monitoring process take into
account the value of this investment, and that changes be carefully assessed.
What of AECL's suggestions of economic benefits to the permanent residents of the area? Would these
benefits actually accrue to these people, or would they go elsewhere? There was some concern already
that AECL contractors were bringing in workers from outside the area, and that local people were not
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getting a fair share of the benefits. Would the many unemployed miners in the area become the
beneficiaries of AECL's "good corporate citizenship"?
While we were drafting our citizens' involvement proposal, we received the first Provincial Monitoring
Status report from Mr. Orcutt. It was mainly an elaboration of his first communication outlining roles
and responsibilities. The report covered the gamut of concerns, including the monitoring of water,
radiation, noise, wildlife and forest protection. It did not cover the social and economic aspects since
that kind of input would come from other Provincial Government departments.
Orcutt's report indicated that some initial monitoring work had been done over the preceding several
months; water samples had been collected and noise levels checked. The data, and therefore the
analysis and conclusions, were not yet available in most areas of the monitoring program. This was
inevitable as the monitoring process was in its formative stages, as was construction of the
underground radioactive test facility.
However, we still had no definitive word on our outside review request. We decided to accept Orcutt's
report without comment until we got some additional response from Jay Cowan to our citizens'
involvement proposal.
The word finally came in a letter from Cowan on January 12, 1983. It should have been framed in a
black border.
Back in November, 1981, Marc Lalonde had concluded,
"I do not see any need for the Federal Government to fund additional monitoring" in
response to our outside review request.
Now, Cowan wrote,
"If funds are required to retain a scientist outside of government, I believe that (the
Government of) Canada should be the source of funding."
The one "non-negotiable" item in our entire monitoring program had been rejected. There was a bit of
understatement in Cowan's concluding paragraph:
"As you can see from the above, we agree on some things and disagree on others."
It was a bleak February day in 1983 when we assembled at Marguerite Larson's place to discuss this
latest setback. Word had already spread about the rejection of the outside review. There would be no
funds for an independent scientist of our own choosing. Nor did we have the financial resources to do it
ourselves, at least not on a continuing basis.
Cowan had said he wanted to continue meeting with us, but somehow the rejection of this key
provision took the spirit out of the citizens' movement at least for the time being.
Some very angry words were spoken at the meeting. Several people among the super-hawk element
were candid in their views about what should be done about the AECL project at this point, the most
charitable comment coming from a concerned citizen who dubbed the Underground Research Lab
(URL) with a new acronym, "URNL," which strongly suggested how he thought the hole in the rock
could be most effectively utilized!
We wondered if the Provincial Government would continue its monitoring program over the long haul
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without pressure from citizens. And would the people trust a monitoring program which lacked the
independent review? Only time would tell on both counts.
In his letter, Cowan had said to us that
"We have made commitments to certain monitoring activities and will certainly fulfill these
commitments . . . we are also committed to the principle of unannounced site inspections
which are not limited in time or access." The CCC could arrange to come along on these
inspections if we so desired.
Cowan noted that AECL was giving the Province full access to all the data concerning the
underground research project. Additionally, "Provincial monitoring reports will be public
information." But he turned us down on our request for an on-site inspection office. He considered this
"duplication of effort" just as he considered funding our own independent outside review, duplication.
Once again he rejected the idea of a referendum, but pledged his commitment
". . . to involve the affected public in a meaningful way in our efforts related to this
project."
He liked our idea for a Citizens' Advisory Committee, and he opened the door for further meetings
with himself and his staff.
What of Cowan's concern over duplication? To some extent he was right. Our outside reviewer would
be looking at the same data as the government monitors. But he or she might, or might not, draw the
same conclusions from the data.
I believe a good case can be made for such "duplication." The key issue is one of credibility. Actions
and words of the Federal and Provincial Governments had completely destroyed their credibility with
the CCC. In such a case, an outside review should be undertaken, at government expense, if for no
other reason than to try to rebuild the confidence of the people in the government.
The funding of citizens' groups for such purposes is rare, although not unknown. There certainly
should be more of it. It is totally unreasonable to expect groups such as the Committee of Concerned
Citizens to assume an important community watchdog role without some financial support from
government.
Something like this was done in the case of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident in the U.S.
The Department of Energy (DOE) wanted to rebuild public confidence in normal government
information sources and methods, so it trained fifty-one ordinary citizens of the area to independently
monitor and report on radiation levels during the release of krypton gas, one year after the accident.
But this was Manitoba, not Three Mile Island. And this was a less clear-cut issue. We were trying to
prevent something from happening rather than monitor it after it happened!
By early 1983, the CCC had reached a crossroads in its three-year-long existence. After a marathon of
meetings, strategies, confrontations, media events coupled with continuous frustration and
disappointment, it now was entering a new phase of "watch and wait."
What would the future hold? Would the government's monitoring continue under Jay Cowan? What
would happen when he left the post of Environment Minister, or when the government changed?
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And what of the underlying issue that emerged over the years of the conflict? Just what did we learn
from all of this?
Speaking for myself - in one of the most compressed education experiences of my life I learned much
about many issues. But the chief issues were those underlying our inability to meet our primary
objective: open public hearings.
AECL had achieved such a powerful position in the region that it completely dominated all other
institutions, including the Government of Manitoba. In the process AECL had created a climate of
such fear and intimidation that any kind of open inquiry had become impossible.
COLONIZATION
The woman contacted us shortly after our first information flyers and petition had circulated in the
Lac du Bonnet -- Pinawa area. She and her husband had a cottage on the Winnipeg River north of Lac
du Bonnet.
She said that she wanted to help us stop the underground radioactive waste research project because
she knew for certain that AECL's long range objective was to develop a full-scale commercial
repository somewhere in the area. We had come to that conclusion ourselves, based on our reading of
the Acres Consulting report. But this woman was positive beyond any doubt about the long range plan.
We soon learned why.
She held a very responsible job with the Federal Government as a public relations officer. When AECL
was seeking people to staff its public relations department at Pinawa, she applied. During the selection
process she had the opportunity to review the files on the proposed underground radioactive test
facility. Those files spelled out, in detail, AECL's plans for the Lac du Bonnet batholith; and those
plans were decidedly for the eventual construction of a full-scale repository.
One internal memorandum in particular upset her. That was a description of the eastern region of
Manitoba, spelling out all the positive features for an underground radioactive waste repository. The
people of the area were described as ". . . generally apathetic, with a high population of Native people."
Unfortunately, our new-found friend could not produce the AECL files for us. Nor would we expect
AECL ever to confirm the existence of that memo. But I have no doubt that her account of what she
heard and saw was accurate. She was an impeccable source. Her reaction to the whole affair was one of
disgust, and even horror! She would have no part of AECL's plan and she became an active
participant in the work of the CCC.
She and her husband offered to help us in any way they could. I once visited their cottage which was
situated on a beautiful wooded site with direct access to, and a grand view of, the Winnipeg River.
That beautiful place may have had something to do with her reaction to the AECL plans for the area.
Her skills in public relations were a godsend to the CCC. The only problem was, we could not use her
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name in public. She wanted her identity protected and her role with the CCC downplayed. She asked
us to use her married, rather than her professional, name. The whole time she worked with us she was
quite jumpy about any possible adverse impact on her employment with the Federal Government.
Just about the point where she was really getting into the swing of things with us, our relationship with
her came to an abrupt conclusion. She had just returned from a trip to Ottawa and was visibly shaken.
One of her colleagues in Ottawa observed that AECL corporate headquarters was making inquiries
about her. That was all it took. Distraught and apologetic, she said she could no longer work with us.
We saw little of her after that.
The incident was disquieting. It was one of our finest insights into how AECL's power can affect people
in their perception of possible impact on their security and livelihood.
We had lost the services of this talented person whose help would have been invaluable to us. It was the
kind of help we could ill afford to lose, but it was only the beginning.
The young lawyer sounded very nervous on the phone. He had been involved with the CCC from its
inception. His environmental interests were strong, and we often called upon him for advice on various
kinds of legal matters such as interpreting the Crown land lease. He wanted me to meet him at his
office.
It was pretty much the same story. His law firm had a contract with AECL Pinawa. Although he did
not work directly on that contract, he had received strong signals from his firm that his association
with us would not exactly work to his benefit. So this time, we lost our volunteer lawyer.
Also, in our midst was a very capable local Lac du Bonnet woman who had become self-educated on
the subject of nuclear energy and radioactive waste. She was always coming up with valuable
information and good ideas on strategies. Unfortunately, the only work she could get was with a local
merchant who was in that AECL web of influence. His words to our friend could not have been more
explicit. They went something like this.
If I ever catch you doing or saying anything in support of that Committee of Concerned
Citizens, you will no longer have a job here.
For a while she continued to come to meetings anyway, but eventually dropped out. Again, it was the
kind of help we could ill afford to lose.
AECL's power expressed itself in other ways. When we tried to locate some sympathetic scientific
expertise at the universities in Winnipeg, we struck out completely. Nearly everyone who had the kind
of expertise we needed either had some financial arrangement with AECL, or hoped to get one.
The atmosphere of fear and feelings of intimidation were pervasive. One day Phyl and I stopped to
chat with an acquaintance in front of the grocery store in the Village of Lac du Bonnet. This woman
clearly understood the issue, was convinced that AECL would eventually locate the repository in the
area, but she would not join forces with the CCC. It turned out that her husband had just been hired
as an apprentice at the WNRE. Like many Lac du Bonnet residents, he was out of work, and the
AECL job was the only thing available to him. She was not about to jeopardize his employment.
This became a common refrain. Actually, it was surprising that as many people as did associated
themselves with the CCC. Perhaps that is why so many of them were of retirement age or were
independent entrepreneurs.
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AECL's grip on the area made people think twice about giving out their names or signing anything at
all. And this is understandable when viewed against the fact that we were dealing with an organization
that would think nothing of analyzing the names on petitions.
Indeed, AECL had a fetish about collecting people's names. When its general manager, Dr. Green,
wrote to Premier Pawley and told him that the people in the area were not particularly concerned
about the project because very few of them picked up copies of the AECL environmental impact
report, what he did not tell the Premier was that if you wanted one of those reports, you had to sign(!)
for them at the Municipal Office.
When I asked AECL for some copies of that report, they sent them to me in Winnipeg with a covering
letter requesting the names and organizations of anyone to whom I gave a copy. Of course I ignored
the request. I was not going to add to AECL's list of names. There is something Orwellian about
having to sign for the receipt of public documents produced at public expense.
These sorts of tactics must have had a profound impact on a population that was already pretty much
cowed by authority figures. No, the population was not apathetic at all. It was simply scared out of its
wits by AECL's power and the whole issue of radioactive waste.
Once I described this situation to a friend of mine who worked for the Secretary of State. As I talked
on, he smiled. As it turned out, he had been doing a study on the characteristics of the colonization
process. He asked me to read through it in the light of what I had been telling him. Sure enough, for all
practical purposes, AECL had, by one means or another, turned the area into a colony in the sense
that the people had become subjects to a ruling power.
During CCC meetings, the subject of AECL's hold on the area was often a lively topic of discussion. As
the mines closed down and the recession took hold, AECL, by default, became the only major employer
in the area. Not that the whole local population was working for AECL by any means, but enough
people were to produce a profound effect on the general psychology of the region.
Indeed, economics played the largest role in the colonization process: both fear of economic reprisal
and hopes for economic gain. AECL used its considerable economic leverage to its advantage, although
no one was ever really certain what the sum total of the gains would be and just who would benefit. For
instance, it was assumed that certain local construction contractors would be recipients of AECL
largesse, and there were always hints of goodies to come.
AECL went so far as to openly invite the community to step forward and request a larger piece of the
waste management pie, even while denying the possibility that the area would ever be used for more
than the underground research! A clear-cut example of this spider/fly approach was evident in a letter
of May 16, 1980, from WNRE's general manager, Stan Hatcher, to the pro-AECL Reeve of the day.
After dangling the prospect of approximately fifty temporary construction jobs and ten permanent
jobs, plus other unspecified economic benefits to Eastern Manitoba, Hatcher went on to cite an
agreement with Ontario that the next stage of the radioactive waste management program would be
carried out in Ontario. He gave the usual assurances that no nuclear waste would be used in the
underground laboratory, but added the provocative statement
". . .unless specifically requested to do so by your Council." (Italics added.)
The letter concluded with a not too-subtle reminder that AECL had already brought economic benefits
to the area over the preceding years.
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This mammoth Crown Corporation never lost a chance to use this kind of manipulative approach to
the question of economics. However, it affected different communities and individuals in different
ways.
Residents of Massey, Ontario, confronted with the prospect of AECL drilling activities, said "no
thanks" to AECL's "goodies." Massey nurse Leona Rivers was quoted in the Globe and Mail, October
1, 1981, as saying
" . . . we don't want to die of economic health. How can we support Terry Fox's fight
against cancer, and say go ahead with the nuclear industry which, with its nuclear wastes,
can produce epidemics of cancer?"
On the other side of the coin, and in another Globe and Mail article dated January 21, 1982, the Mayor
of Uranium City, Saskatchewan, was reported as offering her economically-depressed town to AECL
as a storage place for nuclear waste. Eldorado Nuclear's uranium mine had just shut down. The
Mayor, Mrs. Rose Wasylenka, was quoted as saying,
"It would provide a lot of jobs. There'd be construction jobs, lots of jobs handling the stuff
and monitoring the stuff too."
AECL did not entertain the offer.
Fear of economic reprisal - just how real was it? For example, would AECL take measures against any
of its own employees who might criticize its policies or programs? More than likely. Once, AECL's
Pinawa personnel manager lectured me on the virtues of the Canadian Government's confidentiality
oath which, presumably, would prohibit employees from talking negatively about AECL in public.
Knowing some of the history of the nuclear establishment's penchant for secrecy, I can believe that
AECL employees would not be openly critical of their employer. Knowing a little bit about the area
around Lac du Bonnet, I can understand why family members and relatives of AECL employees would
hesitate to openly criticize or express their concerns about AECL activities. Economic survival is a
powerful silencer.
That is not to say that we did not have a pipeline into the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment.
Radioactive coolant was not the only kind of leak that periodically ushered forth from the reactor
building! Our group often received information about problems at the installation. Some of it dealt
with the underground research, some with the reactor itself. One message that often came through the
"pipeline" was,
Why is your group so concerned with the underground research? The real problems are at
the WNRE plant!
The most frequent allegation was that AECL was doing a poor job of handling its existing waste
storage facility and that the stuff was continuously leaking into the environment.
I did not find this information surprising as I recalled the horror stories from Hanford, Washington
where liquid radioactive waste had been leaking and getting into the groundwater for years. There
seemed to be little to stop it. I've often thought that the nuclear establishment was more than a little
presumptuous in its claims that it could safely store waste underground when it had not yet learned
how to store it above ground.
The notion of addressing some of the questions surrounding the Whiteshell plant itself was frequently
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discussed at CCC meetings. But the Committee did not want to take on the whole research
establishment. Many people in the Committee felt strongly that we should not do anything to
jeopardize the jobs of the local people working there. Also, the underground research project was a big
enough issue as it was.
One of our hopes was that the monitoring program would eventually develop to the point where it
would include the entire AECL operation in Manitoba. Although it certainly should, I doubt that the
Manitoba Government will ever gain that much power over what is basically a matter of Federal
jurisdiction.
For a time it appeared that AECL would share its colonial rule with Manitoba Hydro. The provincial
Crown Corporation has a nuclear energy group which, during the 1970s, had drawn up proposals for
future reactor sites and heavy water plants in various parts of Manitoba.
My sources within the Manitoba Government told me, off the record, that the Lac du Bonnet area was
the prime site for such installations. The map accompanying the Hydro report spotted a possible heavy
water plant in what appeared to be our vegetable garden(!)
Certainly, from Hydro's standpoint, the Lac du Bonnet site for nuclear development would be very
attractive, considering the nearby Pinawa installation, along with the nice supply of water from the
Winnipeg River. Hydro dropped (or shelved) its plans for the foreseeable future in view of its rather
large surplus of hydroelectric power in Manitoba.
But, if Manitoba ever succeeds in making its large deals with neighboring western provinces and the
states to the south, Hydro's nuclear wing would be ready to swing into action once again. There must
be some reason why Hydro continues to employ a group of nuclear experts, even though Manitoba has
no nuclear capability.
It really doesn't take much imagination to envision an ultimate scenario for the region. Add to the
existing Whiteshell Research Establishment an underground radioactive waste test facility, then a
full-scale radioactive garbage dump, a spent fuel reprocessing plant, a nuclear power reactor and a
heavy water plant, and you would have something which, in scale, would put Disneyland to shame! It
definitely would be a non-nuclear free zone. Why, AECL could employ the whole population of Lac du
Bonnet as tour guides!
When Jake Epp (MP - Provencher) talked to us in vague but glowing terms about the long-range
economic benefits to the area, perhaps he was picturing something similar. I am not certain because he
wouldn't elaborate. I suspect the economic benefits from such a nuclear waste venture would not
enhance other considerable economic benefits the area gains from recreation and tourism.
Who wants to boat or fish in the middle of a nuclear empire? Just how much would the recreation
properties in the area be worth?
Economics provided AECL with a powerful lever in its efforts to control the area around Pinawa and
Lac du Bonnet. And so did its manipulation of information. This took many forms. By its own
calculation, AECL held dozens of small group informational meetings which several people in our
group characterized as completely one-sided propaganda. The meetings gave the impression that
AECL could do no wrong, had solved all the problems, and that a glorious future was in store for
everyone.
This one-way information system extended to a wide range of the public. That the nuclear
establishment had been generally flooding school systems with its literature was well known. The
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secretary of the elementary school in Winnipeg where Phyl was teaching, regularly received pamphlets
and annual reports from AECL, and amusedly handed them over to Phyl rather than toss them in the
wastebasket.
AECL was doing an especially thorough job at the Lac du Bonnet Secondary School. Several of our
group reported that their kids were getting a real nuclear brainwashing. Everything was pro-nuclear.
Their own teenagers were put in their places when they brought in articles or took a position critical of
AECL or the nuclear industry. The parents were reluctant to confront the educational authorities for
fear of causing more problems for their children.
AECL also used the secondary school, periodically, to hold evening "informational" sessions. For
example, The Society of AECL Professional Employees sponsored a November 10, 1980, lecture by Dr.
Stuart L. Iverson on Nuclear Energy, Man and the Environment. The announcement read, "Admission
and refreshments will be free."
Somehow, I doubted that AECL would ever sponsor a debate with Gordon Edwards or John Gofman
or any other critic of the nuclear establishment. It would be up to the Committee of Concerned
Citizens to try to introduce the other side of the issue into the community.
AECL's public relations budget permitted it to flood the region with newsletters and pamphlets, all
highly favorable to nuclear energy and the underground research project. As if that were not enough,
it kept the pro-AECL community newspaper well supplied with articles and feature stories on nuclear
energy and nuclear waste management, all favorable to AECL and with prominent coverage.
In fairness to the newspaper it did provide the only continuing forum of dissent. Its policy was to print
all letters to the editor. At times, the letters section became a battleground for a running debate
between the pro and con forces. One of the best examples of this was the "fallout" from Gordon
Edwards' visit on March 8, 1981. One concerned citizen's letter, on March 24th , warned of the
escalation of the AECL project and eloquently stated that
"We, or future generations, cannot submit to another eastern legacy that in effect says
Manitoba isn't much so let them at least contribute to science, they are excellent guinea
pigs."
That remark was too much for AECL. Its top public relations officer defended the "good corporate
citizenship" exhibited by AECL in the area. His letter evoked a response from another concerned
citizen in the April 7th edition which pointed to AECL's record of providing countries such as India
with the nuclear technology needed for the manufacture of nuclear weapons, as an example of its good
corporate citizenship. Both of these concerned citizens pointed to AECL's grip on the region and
suggested that the corporation take its project elsewhere.
A subtle and clever effort to help the colonization process was the publication of the "Energy Column"
in the local paper. I understand this column has also appeared in several other community newspapers
in Ontario in areas where AECL was active. The first issue appeared in the Lac du Bonnet Leader on
September 8, 1981. It was accompanied by a large advertisement headed "Look for the Energy
Column." The ad was placed by AECL, WNRE, and read as follows:
"Atomic Energy of Canada believes that you deserve straightforward, unbiased and factual
information about Canada's complex energy situation."
AECL's ad stressed the need for an independent point of view so it asked a private research group
concerned with energy conservation and environmental issues to prepare a weekly energy column. All
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aspects of energy production and use, including nuclear power and nuclear waste management, would
be discussed. We were assured that the editorial views expressed were the Energy Column's and not
AECL's.
The first issue of the "Energy Column" declared: "We agree with AECL that you deserve
straightforward, unbiased information on our complex situation." The column reinforced its
objectivity stance in the September 22, 1981, issue in "An Observer's Guide to the Nuclear Debate,"
with the comment that
"It seems unlikely that people with entrenched pro- or anti-nuclear views will ever resolve
their differences. In the meantime the rest of us will have to figure things out for
ourselves."
Having established its unquestionable neutrality, for the next several years the column did an excellent
job explaining and promoting AECL's position on nuclear energy and nuclear waste management.
Actually, I thought it did a much better job of advocating AECL's policies, programs and practices
than did AECL itself.
While the "Energy Column" defended AECL's radioactive waste management program, AECL itself
was churning out reams of literature for public consumption including multicolored brochures with
titles such as "Will Disposal be Safe?" That pamphlet had a drawing of a future radioactive waste vault
which was surrounded by pastoral scenes of trees, grazing cows and ducks peacefully swimming on a
lake.
Meanwhile, the local newspaper was kept well supplied with articles having titles such as "Pluton
Prospecting," explaining how nice the local rock was for underground research and assuring everyone
that the underground facility would not be used for actual waste disposal. One issue included a front
page story, complete with picture, of the local Girl Guides blazing a hiking trail on the site, under the
supervision of the AECL site manager, of course.
AECL used its technology to its advantage. The Crown Corporation took every opportunity it could to
display its flashy gimmickry. The Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment held annual "open
houses" for the public to tour the reactor, the laboratories, the machine shops, etc. There were even
special tours for women (although, for some reason, pregnant ones and young children were always
excluded from the privilege of experiencing this super-safe technology!).
One open house was described in the September 22, 1981 edition of the local newspaper which
proclaimed that
"The highlight of the tour was a chance to stand right on top of the reactor while guides
explained its operation."
We all know that a little radiation is good for what ails you! Once or twice a year, all the area local
government politicians were invited to visit this nuclear mecca to pay homage to the great god, Atom,
(and to dine with its local priests).
In addition to control of information, AECL manipulated the entire political climate of the region to its
own ends. For example, it established the local Chamber of Commerce as its main screening agency for
the bidding process on construction and general contracting work. The Chamber in turn attempted to
harass and silence AECL's critics. It expressed concern
" . . . about possible negative effect to the Lac du Bonnet area of the anti-nuclear waste
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management campaign mounted by Reeve George Ylonen," as reported in the local

newspaper on March 29, 1983.
Thus, the same small group of people who had helped AECL get a foothold in the area, with its highly
controversial radioactive waste management program, now tried to blame any possible negative
consequences on the victims who raised their voices of concern and cried out for a public inquiry. A
new chapter of Alice in Wonderland had been written!
AECL's public relations department played a large role in the colonization process. It had already
demonstrated its ability to manipulate information when it moved into Atikokan, Ontario, to try to
pave the way for some test drilling. In its January 15, 1980, Brief to the Select Committee on Ontario
Hydro Affairs, the Atikokan Citizens for Nuclear Responsibility presented a long list of examples of
AECL's approach. The brief points out that there was a pattern in these examples:
"Almost every event seemed designed, in one way or another, to discourage active
participation by the general public. In every case, only AECL's views were presented.
Where were the experts from outside the nuclear industry who might have given us another
viewpoint on what all admit to be a very controversial issue? Are not citizens of a small
rural community helpless to properly question AECL when they have no expertise in the
scientific and technical matters involved? Do they not require expert 'counsel', as one
might call it, to do this for them? Where is the government funding for this? AECL, after
all, runs its huge public relations program with government-supplied funds."
Bill Blaikie, MP (Winnipeg-Birds Hill), summed up the AECL approach on December 15, 1980, in the
House of Commons when he said,
"If Lac du Bonnet is suitable for such simulative research, tell us about it, but do not sign
hard-to-see contracts with provincial governments, do not only vaguely hint at more
projects down the line for the same community and a demonstration vault which would
actually contain nuclear waste. Do not just consult the public only as a last resort and do
not patronize your opponents with the increasingly embarrassing, empty vanity of
technocrats who operate under such a veil of secrecy, that it is no wonder people are
suspicious."
In his response, Parliamentary Secretary to the Energy Minister, Roy MacLaren, said,
"The plans to proceed with that (the underground research laboratory) research work
which is being developed in consultation with the Manitoba Government have been
extensively described to the local community, and there has been a series of consultative
procedures to ensure full public knowledge and the opportunity to participate in the detail
of those plans."
MacLaren and his cronies in the Government and the nuclear establishment either did not understand
the meaning of words such as "consultation" and "participation" (which I doubt), or they chose to use
them as a cover for their public indoctrination and community colonization strategies.
By no stretch of the imagination did any level of government ever "consult" with the people affected by
AECL's activities in Lac du Bonnet, and to say that the people had ". . . the opportunity to participate in
the detail of those plans," could not be further from the truth.
In early 1980, the Committee of Concerned Citizens adopted the idea of calling for public hearings
because it assumed that it was a reasonable and attainable objective in a free society. Public hearings
81 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
have many shortcomings and can be manipulated and distorted by those in power. But, if carried out
properly, they can be of great value in furthering the democratic process.
No doubt, political scientists, sociologists and economists will someday come up with cogent and
learned explanations for the Government's reluctance to bend to its critics and hold public hearings on
its radioactive waste research at Lac du Bonnet.
But for us, the victims of AECL's colonization efforts, the answer was stunningly summed up right
after our June 2, 1980 public meeting. As the meeting was breaking up, an AECL scientist, nearly
speechless and livid with rage, clutching one of our petitions in his outstretched hand, shouted at us,
"I know why you people want public hearings! It's because you know we will lose!"
WASTE NOT --- WANT NOT
During the June 2, 1980, meeting, someone asked me if I were "against scientific research." That same
question has been raised on a number of occasions and it is usually accompanied by companion
questions such as, "Are you opposed to nuclear energy?" or "Are you, or have you ever been, a
member of an anti-nuclear group? "
My response, that I was once a card-carrying member in good standing of the nuclear establishment,
usually produced a shocked look on the face of my interrogator. But I was quick to add that I had
indeed changed my mind about nuclear energy and was completely opposed to the AECL project at
Lac du Bonnet.
Implicit in these questions is a belief that all "scientific research" is intrinsically good.
One of our concerned citizens often spoke of his fears that our society has developed a "new
priesthood" in its reverence for science and technology. Somehow, it was blasphemous to challenge or
criticize anyone or anything associated with the scientific community.
One can point to many examples of reprehensible scientific research, such as the use of soldiers as
guinea pigs during the Nevada A-bomb tests. Additionally, many people are now waking up to the fact
that nearly all scientific and technological advances produce some undesirable side effects.
We are not dealing with goods or bads, or blacks or whites, when we talk about science and technology.
Rather, we are talking about risks, benefits, alternatives and consequences.
As for "pure" science, no one should, or could, stop the human thought processes that resulted in "e =
mc2." But everyone should have a stake in how that theory is applied in the real world. The dialogue
on the impact of applied science and technology is much too important to leave to the exclusive domain
of the scientific community.
No, the CCC was not advocating stake burning of the geoscientists at Pinawa. No, we did not wish to
"freeze in the dark" as the AECL public relations department kept insisting. We simply had some deep
concerns about the AECL radioactive waste research program, and we considered that we had as
much right as anyone to voice these concerns.
82 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
As a former member of the nuclear establishment, I reserve the right to say that I think we all made a
mistake in those early years. We were wrong. We should not have proceeded with the development of
nuclear energy without having addressed and solved the problem of nuclear waste. What the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission did in that regard was totally unforgivable. And, even in my minor role at
the time, I consider that I shared in that folly.
Unfortunately, the folly of that day has led to a new folly of the 1980's. That is, to thrust the radioactive
waste program down the throats of the public -- in the name of progress and of scientific research. The
same "we know it all" attitude that was exhibited in the 1950's has been carried into the present. But
things are different now, and the public is not buying. Thus, the conflict between the concerned
citizens' groups and the scientific community has grown and taken on new meaning.
When one's own backyard is affected, one naturally gets concerned. My first reaction to the news of a
radioactive waste test facility near our place was natural, normal and appropriately emotional: not in
my back-yard! But as the issue developed, my own motives, while not excluding self-interest, began to
change.
Questions about the lack of participatory democracy, as well as the very nature of the research itself,
became paramount. As the conflict grew, my conviction that AECL was pursuing the wrong path also
grew.
AECL's standard response to critics of its "concept" was that there is a consensus of scientists that
deep geological disposal is the best possible solution to the thorny problem of radioactive waste. [There
was also once a "scientific consensus" that the earth was flat, and those who took issue with that school
of thought were not treated kindly!] The Atikokan, Ontario, citizens' group had some interesting things
to say about geological disposal in its brief to the Select Committee.
"The reading we have done tells us that this is not the case. Many scientists believe that the
problems with this method have definitely not yet been solved and it is quite possible that
they never can be. If this is how AECL assesses current scientific opinion on the subject,
how can we trust them to respond to scientific criticism of their research program?"
Indeed, how can we?
In my view, there probably is somewhat of a consensus on the deep geological disposal approach. But it
is not so much among scientists as it is among politicians. Just as there is a "not in my backyard"
syndrome among the population, so is there an "out of sight - out of mind" consensus among those
politicians who are anxious to get on with the nuclear energy program but know they cannot until the
waste problem is "solved."
The enormous vested interests that have been accumulating over the years in the nuclear industry
cannot be discounted in the political decision-making process. Nor can the potential riches from
owning the first commercial nuclear waste repository be ignored.
Add to this humankind's penchant for putting its garbage in the ground, and you have a powerful set
of forces exerting pressure for the underground disposal option. At this point, I don't believe
governments will be easily persuaded to wait for a more appropriate solution to emerge.
Certainly, some consensus exists among some scientists, particularly the establishment scientists, which
is most, but not all, of them. How much that consensus is based on conviction, and how much on one's
income and professional career development, is an interesting point to contemplate.
83 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
They do seem convinced. We saw them during that first international conference in Winnipeg, and
they sounded very much like one of the religious cult groups reaffirming its faith in its own belief
system.
Often citizens' groups are advised not to argue scientific questions with scientists because the citizens
are at a distinct disadvantage. Sure. But it doesn't hurt to point to the fact that there are some
scientists who disagree with AECL's approach to this issue. Most of the aspects of the waste issue are
not even scientific. They are political, social and economic. And some are even ethical and theological.
We critics of AECL like to quote our favorite scientists. During the House of Commons debate on
October 20, 1980, Jim Fulton, MP (Skeena - BC), quoted a statement of George Wall, the 1968 Nobel
Prize winner, that
" . . . no one knows how to store the waste products, which will remain dangerous for half a
million years. The whole of human civilization is perhaps 10,000 years old, and we are
producing material that will represent a lethal liability for man and for life on Earth for
hundreds of thousands of years to come. At present this stuff is being stockpiled just about
where it is produced, while we try to figure out what to do with it."
My own favorite quote is from Dr. Helen Caldicott's book, Nuclear Madness:
". . . Nor can technology alone ever provide the answers we seek. For even if unbreakable,
corrosion-resistant containers could be designed, any storage site on earth would have to be
kept under constant surveillance by incorruptible guards, administered by moral
politicians living in a stable, warless society, and left undisturbed by earthquakes, natural
disasters, or other acts of God for no less than half a million years -- a tall order which
science cannot fill."
Just how tall an order was best summed up in the Union of Concerned Scientists' report on radioactive
waste prepared by Ronnie D. Lipschutz. He quoted from a policy paper prepared in 1978 by the U.S.
Office of Science and Technology, which was designed to put the whole waste question into some
overall perspective. The paper pointed out that
" . . . the task of accurately predicting the fate of radionuclides emplaced in a repository
over time frames of even several hundred to many thousands of years is unprecedented.
The principal earth science disciplines involved in such a task -- namely hydro geology,
geochemistry, and rock mechanics -- are relatively young sciences with little experience in
making or evaluating predictions that cover time frames even as short as a few decades."
Lipschutz cites other U.S. Government reports which suggest that changes in geological conditions are
certain to occur during the required isolation period, plus the fact that no human-made container or
barrier can be expected to contain radioactive wastes for more than a fraction of the time required.
Yet the geoscientists in the nuclear establishment brush aside their profession's poor track record of
predictions and evaluations, and boldly state that they have solved the problem. All that needs to be
done is to "verify" or "assess" it. Unable to predict the earthquakes and volcanoes that annually take
the lives of countless thousands of people, the "radioactive" establishment confidently boasts of its
ability to safely store high-level radioactive wastes for thousands of years.
During the September, 1982, International Conference on Radioactive Waste Management, sponsored
by the Canadian Nuclear Society, while the delegates were engaged in their learned deliberations, the
conferees were bombarding the Winnipeg media with statements about the safety of the geologic
84 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
isolation alternative. Even earlier, on June 16, 1981, the Globe and Mail quoted Stanley Hatcher,
director of Canada's nuclear fuel waste management program, as saying,
"We think we've covered the whole range of variables. It's very encouraging."
Hatcher was reported as pronouncing that the proposed Canadian method of burying high-level
nuclear wastes underground poses no threat to human health. He stated that he based his conclusions
on computer analysis of experiments to date.
No pun intended, but computers do suffer from the "GI - GO" (Garbage in - Garbage out) syndrome.
And Mr. Hatcher suffers from the "A - N" (All-ness) syndrome, which says that we have covered off on
all the considerations. Are you sure you have not left something out of the equation, Mr. Hatcher?
I 've actually had AECL people ask me why I should worry, because if there are any problems with the
concept, they won't crop up until long after I'm gone. That comment always leaves me speechless with
rage. Perhaps the motto of the Ecology Party in Britain sums up my feelings about the issue.
" . . . we do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children."
The fact is, there are at least two schools of thought on the propriety of the geological isolation option.
That being the case, it seems to me that it would be better to be safe than almost eternally sorry. But
the way things are going now, it appears we are literally hell-bent for geologic storage.
Just how will we notify future generations that a radioactive waste dump lies beneath their feet? Not to
worry. University of Washington anthropologist David Givens was reported in the November 12, 1981
edition of the Winnipeg Sun as
. . . working for more than a year on a (U.S.) government funded study to develop some
way of marking a burial site for nuclear waste so it will never be disturbed.
Givens was quoted as saying,
"It really boggled my mind when I started working on this thing. We're talking to people
10,000 years in the future. You can't expect that people 10,000 years from now will speak
English, German, Russian, or whatever."
His plan was to build a round stone monolith in the center of a repository along with surrounding
wedge-shaped stone markers pointing to the central monolith. (Oh, Arthur C. Clarke, where are you
when we need you?)
What of the stated nature and purpose of the research at Lac du Bonnet? The underground
radioactive waste test facility (or whatever name it currently goes under) is presumably a type of
generic research as opposed to "site specific" research. AECL is testing different kinds of granite rock
formations.
The AECL position on this was aptly described by John Wright, of the AECL Pinawa public relations
department, in an interview with the Globe and Mail. In the September 28, 1981 story, Wright
described the plutonic rock formation in what may be prophetic terms!
"It's like a giant tombstone sticking out of the Canadian Shield."
The article reported Wright as saying,
85 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
"(The) Lac du Bonnet site is convenient because AECL scientists will have to travel only a
few miles from Pinawa to conduct their tests."
And Wright went on to proclaim how ideal the Lac du Bonnet pluton rock formation was for such
research. But Wright's most amazing statement, as reported in the Globe and Mail was
" . . . Scientists are only using the underground lab for rock testing because it is similar to
rock in Ontario where AECL is planning to bury nuclear fuel wastes. However, there is too
much opposition to the underground laboratory in Ontario." (Italics added)
An additional chapter of Alice in Wonderland had been written! Somehow, by a wave of a magic
wand, Ontarians, who have blocked the underground lab in their province, are going to embrace the
ultimate repository when AECL finishes its "research" at Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba!
Actually, the "generic research" concept had raised the suspicions of concerned citizens from the start.
Some of the farmers were saying that what AECL is doing is akin to
". . . plowing the soil in one field, and planting the crops in another."
On the face of it, it made no sense and seemed like an incredible waste of public funds.
But we were not the only ones to cast doubt on the validity of the generic research. So have some of the
experts. In his radioactive waste report for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ronnie Lipschutz
recommended that the technical requirements of a geologic isolation program be met through a site
specific approach. As he put it,
"A program based upon extensive in situ research should be implemented as soon as
possible. The program would be focused on disposal of wastes in several geologic media and
performed only at sites deemed potentially usable for full-scale, high level waste
repositories. Because the suitability of a given site is so highly dependent upon the
particular characteristics of the site, decisions to develop a site should be willingly
abandoned if serious defects become apparent at any stage of repository development."
The Union of Concerned Scientists seemed to me to be in agreement on this point with U.S.
Government policy. Dr. John M. Deutch, representing the U.S. Interagency Review Group on Nuclear
Waste Management testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Energy and
Environment on January 25 and 26, 1979, and strongly advocated "site specific" research. When asked
by the subcommittee chairman for his views as a scientist on the "optimum medium for geological
disposal of nuclear waste," Deutch responded,
"I would like to make an important remark with regard to salt, and other media as well.
One of the major technical findings of our efforts is (that) the character of the specific site
is more important than the nature of the medium; so it may not be possible to say that salt
will always be better than basalt or granite. You must look at the specific site, and do very
careful geological, hydrological and seismic investigations, before you can weigh that site
relative to another one.
In my own view, I am not a person who says salt is better or worse. One has to compare and
characterize the sites within their entire environmental and geological setting. I do not believe that
it is sustainable, nor should one think in terms of there being a medium which will be perfect. It
depends upon evaluation of the candidate sites in their specific geological setting."
86 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
Officially, the Underground Research Laboratory is generic, not site specific, research. All AECL
reports say so. They never fail to say "no nuclear waste will be used or stored at the URL." Yet it is the
"off the cuff" remarks of AECL officials that tell the real story, that reveal the ultimate truth about the
ultimate fate of the Lac du Bonnet area; that it could very well be site specific research.
For example, there is Mr. Hatcher's statement that the demonstration vault could be built anywhere in
the Canadian Shield, and if Lac du Bonnet wanted to be counted in the bidding, he would do what he
could to help; or Dr. Robert Hart's comment to the Winnipeg Free Press that AECL could not promise
that a national nuclear waste fuel dump will not be located someday in the Lac du Bonnet area, and it
will be up to the Federal Government to decide where in Canada nuclear waste will be stored.
Is AECL doing generic or site specific research in Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba? We have twenty years
left in which to find out!
Of course, it would be presumptuous to suggest that AECL will learn nothing from its "generic"
experiments at Lac du Bonnet. And other countries, such as the U.S., would welcome a chance to
participate in such a research effort. The U.S. Government has had a very difficult time persuading the
public to accept deep geological research. So it is natural that U.S. scientists would want to be involved
in the Lac du Bonnet venture.
In fact, representatives of two U.S. Government agencies (the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the
Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation) sit on the management committee of the Underground Research
Laboratory. They can do here what they may not be able to do in their own country.
It is understandable why Ottawa would want to stonewall any efforts to block the AECL experiment,
because so much is at stake here. As Ottawa journalist Klaus Neumann astutely recorded from his
conversations with Ottawa and European officials, Canada could made a "pile of money" by becoming
the world's first "atomic funeral director."
If the site specific advocates are correct, the Canadian public has a right to question AECL's motives
and the amounts of money that are going into the Lac du Bonnet project. On the one hand, the entire
thing is a subterfuge; on the other hand, a colossal waste of taxpayers' money. Once again, only time
will tell.
The whole debate raises such serious questions about the geologic isolation option and site specific vs.
generic research that it would be outrageous folly to permit AECL to proceed any further with its
radioactive waste management program in the absence of major public inquiries.
The fact is we are gambling with the future to an extent heretofore unknown in the affairs of
humankind. Winnipeg journalist Paul Sullivan reported a statement of Chris Barnes, Head of the
University of Waterloo's Earth Science Department, and a former President of the Canadian
Geoscience Council. According to Sullivan, in his Winnipeg Free Press, August 26, 1980 column,
Barnes
" . . . told an Ontario government select committee that AECL's program aimed at proving
nuclear waste can be buried underground in granite cannot be checked and places the
scientific community in an impossible situation."
Sullivan quipped,
"I mean, if Chris Barnes doesn't know his rocks, who does? Let's have that federal
inquiry."
87 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
The seriousness of the waste problem was put into its most basic terms by Gordon Edwards, of the
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, in his testimony before the Ontario Legislature's Select
Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs, on October 12, 1978. Edwards told the Committee of the
potential health effects of the high level wastes. He pointed out that
"The toxicity of the waste from a nuclear power plant is really incomparable with the waste
from any other process . . .If even a fraction of a percentage of these wastes escapes into the
environment, we are in big trouble."
And that is an understatement. The ultimate hazard, of course, is radioactive plutonium. Some
scientists say that a mere ounce of that deadly substance can form trillions of air-borne particles, and
only a few particles inhaled, or ingested, are required to cause lung cancer.
There is simply too much controversy over geologic isolation to take this kind of risk.
What is done ultimately with radioactive waste is of vital importance to everyone, and all of society
must get involved in these life and death decisions. On this issue, all of us must become the "Committee
of Concerned Citizens." Under no circumstances should this problem be left in the hands of a group of
technocrats and politicians with their enormous vested interests.
And yet, that is exactly what is happening. On May 16, 1984, the Chairman of the Board of AECL
pushed the plunger setting off the ceremonial blast for the sinking of the URL shaft.
THE PEACEFUL PLACE --- II
Phyl peered at me over the day's copy of the Winnipeg Free Press. I had been dozing off in the rocking
chair but was still partially awake. "Have you read the story about Irene Romanow's dill pickles?" she
asked. "No!" I replied. "I've quit reading about that whole mess. It's too much. It gives me a
headache!"
"You should read it," she exclaimed. "She's quoted as saying that she put up her pickles last summer,
before the radioactive sealed source fell into the borehole at the URL site. She thinks the pickle juice
should be analyzed in a laboratory to see if it is free from radiation."
I chuckled at the thought of a jar of dill pickles under scrutiny of laboratory scientists. "Wouldn't it be
something if AECL's project was brought to an end as a result of those pickles!" I remarked.
The brief flash of a fantasy headline: Mrs. Romanow's Pickles Terminate AECL's Underground
Radioactive Waste Project at Lac du Bonnet, brought me completely awake, and laughing.
Phyl allowed as how it wasn't really very funny because the Romanows, like many other well owners in
the Lac du Bonnet area, had been warned by the provincial government not to drink their well water
because the radiation exceeded the Canadian Government guidelines for safe drinking water. [Later
on, the Romanows were told that their water was safe to drink.]
"Do you suppose we'll really ever know if the radiation comes from natural sources, as the provincial
88 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
government says, or from AECL?" asked Phyl.
"Perhaps," I replied, "Perhaps not. But one thing is for sure. It would be wrong for AECL to go ahead
with its ideas for using radioactive material to trace the groundwater now that all these wells are
contaminated with radiation, regardless of the source."
"Bets they do," said Phyl.
"Yeah, I bet they will too. So far, they've done what they please, and, no doubt, the public will be
damned again!"
I felt myself getting angry. My thoughts went back over the bizarre events of the past few weeks. On
June 2, 1983, the Provincial Health Minister made the announcement in the Manitoba Legislature that
the monitoring program had turned up unacceptable radiation in samples of drinking water.
AECL immediately denied having any responsibility for the situation, and the Provincial
Government's environmental people were operating under the assumption that the radiation came
from natural sources.
The whole thing started when the monitoring team took samples of water during the fall of 1982, and
sent them to a government laboratory in Ottawa for analysis to determine a "base line" for the long
range monitoring program.
At first, every official acted surprised. No one expected such a reading on the wells. In fact, the
government initially was concerned that it could even get a detection on radioactivity in the wells.
Gradually, however, the "surprise" disappeared. The headline in the Lac du Bonnet Leader on August
16,1983, read: Radioactivity in wells "not surprising." The article stated that
"There is a wealth of data showing the presence of radioactive minerals in the rocks and
overburden in this area."
I thought about that. "Why, in God's name, didn't we know about the natural radiation around here.
We've all spent fortunes to get our water, and now this!"
Phyl had a thoughtful look on her face. She said, "I can see AECL using all of this as an argument to
use Lac du Bonnet as a nuclear waste dump. After all, the rocks around here are already radioactive!"
"Maybe so," I said, "but I don't think AECL needs any help from the rocks. All they need is a Reeve
and a Council that will take up Hatcher's offer to put the dump here, and a Provincial Government
that likes a lot of money. And that, my dear, could be any of the three major political parties."
***
As we both sat silently contemplating the situation, I thought back over our discussions during the last
twelve months. We had already concluded that it was becoming more difficult and expensive to
maintain a residence in Winnipeg and in Lac du Bonnet; and we had proved to ourselves that we were
city, not country, folk. On the other hand, the place still was beautiful in its isolation and made for a
wonderful retreat.
But, in fact, we seemed to spend most of our time in Lac du Bonnet at meetings concerning the AECL
project; and now, the radioactive water issue. We were developing a love-hate relationship with the
place that had meant so much to us just a few years ago.
89 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM
Actually, the place itself had not changed. Oh, it needed some maintenance, but the log and cedar
house snuggled into its setting with the same charm it always had. The one hundred sixty acres of
wilderness sat quietly with its treasure of nature, as it always had. No, it had not changed. But we had.
Our dream was now over. Three and a half years of conflict had taken its toll on both of us. The truth
was that the joy and the childlike delight that we had found in our peaceful place in Lac du Bonnet
was gone -- forever.
It could never be the same again.
Back Home
90 of 90 2/15/2007 1:24 PM

The Great Canadian Nuclear Waste Saga-Volume One

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The year: 2101.

The place: southeastern Manitoba, Canada.

There is fear and loathing in the land . . .

THE PEACEFUL PLACE

"How about a radioactive garbage dump? Does that grab you?"

read this letter and see what you think."

"Ylonen must be talking about Pinawa," said Phyl.

I felt as if I were aging ten years.

central to the general discontent.

As I reflected on the Committee itself, it occurred to me that, as an organization, it was completely

So much for the "solid rock" theory.

systematically in the short time available.

Sheppard expressed this philosophy to me once in a letter. He said,

He was optimistic that

THE PEOPLE -- NO!

"M.A.D.R.Y.N. MUDIAN AMDDIFFYN DYNOLIAETH SHAG YSBWRIEL NIWCLIAR,"

with the English translation,

"MOVEMENT TO PROTECT HUMANITY FROM NUCLEAR WASTE."

doing might just serve as a model for a sane future.

His account was startling in its similarity to our experiences in Canada:

He further "assured" us that

In his conversations with Winstone, Smith indicated

approximately ten miles northeast of WNRE."

Hatcher's letter contained the formal AECL request that

A special condition was attached which stated that

Now, in December, 1979, said Ylonen, the AECL is planning an

"industrial-scale repository thirty-two kilometers in size (twenty square miles)"

" . . . all nuclear wastes, whether it be spent fuel or reprocessing wastes."

And, of course, there was the usual disclaimer:

The well-guarded building at Germantown, Maryland, north of Washington, D.C., became my

"Some alternative approaches are needed for approving research activities."

Hay, noting public resistance to AECL research, said that

"WARNING: UNDERGROUND RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS TEST SITE: ONE MILE

signed: Committee of Concerned Citizens."

"Let's not stand in the way of progress."

But he went overboard when he said,

funeral director.' "

the health and safety of the workers,

Cowan asked for clarification and Jorgenson responded:

THE LARGER FORUM

Sullivan concluded, concerning AECL, that

" . . . struck a blow in their (Concerned Citizens' Committee) favor."

The paper continued to endorse the AECL project.

"Now, Walt, can you split some firewood for us?"

warning to the uninitiated.

"to make recommendations to prevent the recurrence of this, or similar incidents."(!)

Ylonen simply brushed it off with "I participated as a citizen."

It couldn't be summed up better!

". . . responding favorably to our request for development of a comprehensive monitoring

The mood as we left the meeting was one of guarded optimism.

citizens more than a bit miserable.

"Scientific and Technical," and

Back in November, 1981, Marc Lalonde had concluded,

Now, Cowan wrote,

In his letter, Cowan had said to us that

". . .unless specifically requested to do so by your Council." (Italics added.)

AECL did not entertain the offer.

management campaign mounted by Reeve George Ylonen," as reported in the local

WASTE NOT --- WANT NOT

Indeed, how can we?

Givens was quoted as saying,

"It's like a giant tombstone sticking out of the Canadian Shield."

The article reported Wright as saying,