The growing movement of #Indigenous leaders across #NorthernOntario opposing #NuclearWaste dump

'We live off the land every day. It’s the most precious food market we have in the world'

October 3, 2024
Jon Thompson

"#FirstNations opposing nuclear waste burial in northwestern Ontario are growing in number and are now mobilizing across the region.

"A fledgling movement of Indigenous leaders hosted a small rally with non-Indigenous allies in #ThunderBay on Wednesday, with a refrain of 'Gaa-Wiin,' the #Anishinaabemowin word meaning 'no' to nuclear waste burial.

"The demonstration followed a letter signed by nine chiefs last week, asking the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to respect their will not to bury Canada’s most #radioactive nuclear waste in a #DeepRepository site between the town of #Ignace and #WabigoonLake #Ojibway First Nation.

"The #NWMO is expected to issue a final decision by year’s end as to whether it will transport used #NuclearFuel, produced since the 1960s, by either train or highway over 1,600 kilometres to a deep geological repository. If the Ignace is chosen over Bruce County, where nuclear energy and its waste is produced, transportation would begin in the 2040s and will take 40 years to complete.

"Although the site selection process has been underway for 20 years, the looming final decision has prompted political actions, including a larger #ThunderBay demonstration in April and a march last month along the highway near the proposed site.

"'I don’t know why some people just don’t understand,' Asubpeeschoseewagong #Anishinabek (#GrassyNarrows First Nation) #ChiefRudyTurtle told the crowd of around 300 people. 'It’s so simple: no means no. That’s all it is. Why can’t you understand that? We are saying no, we don’t want nuclear waste.'"

"Thirteen First Nations have now signed on to last week’s statement opposing the repository, including #NorthwestAngle #33, whose leadership committed to the cause on Wednesday. Signatories include #FortWilliamFirstNation, #Gakijiwanong #Anishinaabe (#LacLaCroix First Nation), #GullBayFirstNation, #Kitchenuhmaykoosib #Inninuwug (#BigTroutLake First Nation), #MuskratDam First Nation, #Neskantaga First Nation, #NetmizaaggamigNishnaabeg (Pic Mobert First Nation), #Ojibways of #Onigaming, #ShoalLake #40 First Nation, #Wapekeka First Nation, #WauzhushkOnigum Nation."

Read more:
https://ricochet.media/indigenous/the-growing-movement-of-indigenous-leaders-across-northern-ontario-opposing-nuclear-waste-dump/

#NoNukes #NoWar #NuclearWasteDump #InformedConsent #CanadaFirstNations #NuclearTransport #NativeAmericanNews

Which rural area will take the UK’s nuclear waste?

"One [#Sellafield's] oldest waste storage silos is currently leaking radioactive liquid into the ground. That is a 'recurrence of a historic leak' that Sellafield Ltd, the company that operates the site, says first started in the 1970s."

Victoria Gill and Kate Stephens
September 8, 2024

"A repeating tone - blip, blip, blip - is the audible reminder that we are in one of the most hazardous nuclear sites in the world: Sellafield.

"That sound - pulsing from speakers inside the cavernous fuel-handling plant - is a signal that everything is functioning as it should.

"That is comforting because Sellafield, in Cumbria, is the temporary home to the vast majority of the UK’s radioactive #NuclearWaste, as well as the world’s largest stockpile of #plutonium.

"That waste is the product of reactions that drive the UK’s nuclear power stations and it is highly #radioactive.

"It releases energy that can penetrate and damage the cells in our bodies, and 'it remains hazardous for 100,000 years', explains Claire Corkhill, professor of radioactive waste management at University of Bristol.

"Sellafield is filling up - and experts say we have no choice but to find somewhere new to keep this material safe.

"Nuclear power is also part of the government’s stated mission for 'clean [sic] power by 2030'. More nuclear power means more nuclear waste."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx6e2x0kdyo

#NoNukes #NoWar #RenewablesNow #RethinkNotRestart #Uranium #NuclearWasteDump

Moving nuclear waste through traditional territories could face opposition, #Ontario First Nation says

'Think about how many treaty territories that waste would have to go through,' chief says

Colin Butler · CBC News · Posted: May 27, 2024

"A First Nation in southwestern Ontario says even if the community votes yes on a proposed $26 billion dump for #NuclearWaste within their traditional territory, it would likely be opposed by other #FirstNations, through whose territories the more than 5.5 million spent fuel rods would have to pass.

"#Canada's nuclear industry has been on a decades-long quest to find a permanent home for tens of thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste. The search has narrowed to two Ontario communities — #Ignace, northwest of #ThunderBay, and the Municipality of #SouthBruce, north of London.

"Both will vote later this year on whether to build a deep geologic repository, a kind of nuclear crypt, where more than 50,000 tonnes of waste in copper casks will be lowered more than 500 metres underground to be kept for all time, behind layers of clay, concrete and the ancient bedrock itself.

"But so will their Indigenous neighbours, whose traditional territories the towns are within, which gives each respective First Nation a veto.

"In the case of Saugeen Ojibway Nation in particular, it means the community again finds itself as the future arbiter of a potential nuclear waste site on their traditional lands for the second time in a few years."

[...]

"'We won't feel those effects, it will be our grandchildren and our great-, great-, great-grandchildren that will inherit whether we're selfish or not selfish in how we live today." -- #ChiefConradRitchie, #Chippewas of the #SaugeenFirstNation.

Read more:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/nuclear-waste-ontario-south-bruce-saugeen-nation-1.7213878

#LakeHuron #OdauwahGummauh #GeorgianBay #WaussauGummauh #Chippewas #Nawash #Saugeen #FirstNations #OjibwayNation #NuclearWasteDump #GreatLakes #InformedConsent