Grassroots opposition continues against nuclear waste storage

Dene, Cree and Métis Elders gathered in South Bay Aug. 3-6 with grassroots activists who are worried that their communities may become home of a potential nuclear waste site in northern Saskatchewan. The federal Nuclear Waste Management Organization is planning a deep geological repository to place all of Canada’s nuclear waste underground in the rock. In the latest stage of the decades-long search for a long-term nuclear waste disposal site, NWMO has received expressions of interest to host the site from the Saskatchewan communities of Pinehouse, the English River First Nation and Creighton. Interest from several places in Ontario has also been expressed. Sixty per cent of eligible voters in Pinehouse signed a petition against nuclear waste disposal in northern Saskatchewan. The Committee for Future Generations, a grassroots organization in the region, presented the petition with more than 12,000 signatures to the provincial legislature last year. Opposition continues to grow in Pinehouse and around the province.