license renewal refused to nuclear waste polluter in pembroke

written by stephen salaff

sunday, 25 february 2007

http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=671&item
id=56
the recent pembroke, ontario success of canada�s nuclear concern and environmental
protection movement owes much to the active collaboration of aboriginal
communities in struggle for dignity, autonomy, environmental protection and social
justice. never before in regulatory history has the canadian nuclear safety
commission, canada�s chief nuclear regulator, denied a license application by a
major nuclear industry firm.
muscling this backdown were pembroke-based people of the great river kichesipirini
algonquin first nation activists.
chronic polluter srb technologies (canada) inc. sought relicensing for 18 months
to process radioactive tritium, a hazardous nuclear material, into glow-in-the-
dark illuminating devices.
cnsc hearings revealed that srb long operated in a failed, unfenced pembroke
industrial park with no plant confinement, no containment and no physical
security. srb�s plant lacked a buffer zone, but adjoined a busy pembroke artery
near a heavily used hockey arena, a well-fished river and a residential
subdivision.
cnsc�s 31 january 2007 �reasons for decision� explained: �the licensee has not
taken all reasonable precautions to control the release of a radioactive substance
within the site of the licensed activity and into the environment.� (paragraph
138)
within cnsc�s much safer and more democratic new pembroke model of arms-length,
citizen-oriented regulation:
cnsc encouraged knowledgeable intervenors like radiation protection professional
rosalie bertell, phd in biometrics, representing international institute of
concern for public health and concerned citizens of renfrew county, and alfred
villeneuve, algonquin guardian of the ottawa river to help separate fact from
fiction, through personal and dvd presentations;
cnsc at last began to reject routines of cozy, partisan collaboration on radiation
and fire issues between commission ceo, staff and consultants and their licensee
counterparts. independent-minded commissioners, freed from government of canada
thought control, authored the pembroke decision against a pro-industry, safety-
second recommendation from cnsc�s professional staff. these diverse commissioners
brought to bear upon the decision their professional expertise and judgment in the
respective fields of geology and oceanography, medicine and agricultural
economics, business and government administration, and aeronautical engineering.

identifying himself as an algonkin artist living since birth in renfrew county,

currently residing in pembroke, ontario for the past twenty three years villeneuve
argued: �we have been here since time out of mind. as our ancestors did, we
continue to follow �algonkin law� as it pertains to the outright protection of
this earth our mother, and all that exists on it.�
the painter grieved the dominion�s genocide.
�through history from first contact in 1603, the kichesipirini/algonkin people
have suffered greatly at the hands of non-natives and government(s)."
�we suffered as a nation, perhaps the greatest attempted genocide in canada when
europeans set out to kill every last kichesipirini/algonkin in order to take their
land and the resources of which it held.�
�less than two dozen people escaped and survived, out of an entire nation� first
the old men, boys, girls and women at their encampment on what is now known as the
ottawa river, and then the wholesale slaughter of the men that were hunting
elsewhere in their territory.�
�even through this horrific act of genocide, our ancestors survived.�
�being labeled �stragglers,� when the government attempted but failed to move all
kichesipirini/algonkins to a government created �landbase� in golden lake in 1837,
they were discounted for the most part, into the lower socioeconomic rung in the
non-native communities.�
villeneuve condemned: �srb technologies, in order to reduce their toxic, nuclear
waste contaminating their site, believes it is better to use our river for a
�nuclear dump.��
he cried out: �you have no right to pollute the waters of our spiritual and
historic heartland� you have no right to dump any garbage� into our waters.�
villeneuve cautioned self-conscious civil servants in ottawa:
�while this land and this river is still under dispute with our nation and the
governments of canada and ontario, we as members of the kichesipirini/algonkin
nation will do all that is in our power as a nation of people to alert others of
any destruction of our homelands including the united nations.�
stephen salaff is a toronto-based freelance energy and environment writer. salaff
has contributed to seven oaks analysis on "native communities reject nuclear
waste," and to dominion an interview on �land claims and the people of the great
river.� salaff�s first report on the pembroke crisis appeared in ottawa xpress as
�pembroke�s nuclear debacle: nuclear waste and regulatory inertia,� 9 march 2006.