Inuit across Canada's Arctic are worried about global warming
Friday, September 28, 2007 07:17AM
CBC Labrador
CINDY WALL: Inuit across Canada's Arctic are worried about global warming but the effort to help solve the problem is giving them something else to worry about. Efforts to find alternative cleaner energy sources have driven up the price of uranium, the fuel used in nuclear reactors. Developers want to build new uranium mines on Inuit land in Labrador. As Reporter Paul Pigott reports, some people in Labrador wonder if they won't be trading off one problem for another.
PAUL PIGOTT: A helicopter takes off from Postville. Aurora Energy is burning greenhouse gasses to find and develop a uranium mine in Labrador but the company says it's the right choice for the environment. Even with carbon emissions from uranium exploration and mining, electricity from a nuclear plant is still up to 60 percent cleaner than power from a gas fired plant. That's important to Inuit like Mary Simon. As President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Simon sees the impact of dramatic temperature increases in the Arctic is changing the way of life for Inuit. So Simon says ITK is researching nuclear energy.
MARY SIMON: It's a good alternative energy option because it doesn't have the same emissions as oil but it has this other product, the waste, that has to be stored somewhere. And the Inuit have stated that they're opposed to any storage of nuclear fuel waste in the Arctic. You know it requires a lot of detailed discussions.
PAUL PIGOTT: Simon says ITK now has three people studying the issue.
MARY SIMON: We are being told by many people that nuclear energy represents the cleanest option available in terms of emissions produced. So you know you have this coming at you from the one side and then the other side, some of your people and for good reason are saying uranium mining is in the long term bad for us.
PAUL PIGOTT: The proposed uranium mine near Postville could become a major supplier to nuclear plants around the world. But the uranium here is low grade, that means it's less dangerous to handle in terms of radiation but more material needs to be dug up to get the same amount of uranium. Opponents of the mine proposal say that Labrador will be left with radioactive tailing ponds for thousands of years. Todd Broomfield represents Makkovik in the Nunatsiavut Assembly. He says that until Aurora submits a plan to mine uranium and contain the waste, it's too soon to pass judgment on the project. But Broomfield already has an opinion on the nuclear option.
TODD BROOMFIELD: You're just providing another source of energy that's non renewable and you're trading a carbon footprint for a radioactive footprint that's much more dangerous to the earth. You know and you're not even promoting energy conservation so it doesn't even address the issue of global warming, it's. . . there any way I can say that they're not putting the whole facts out there.
PAUL PIGOTT: Instead of digging up more uranium, Broomfield says the world needs to look at renewable options like wind, thermal, solar or tidal sources of power.
TODD BROOMFIELD: Uranium mining uses fossil fuels and you know building nuclear power plants uses fossil fuel and everything uranium uses fossil fuels. So you know this kind of. . . these types of issues aren't even being addressed you know and certainly the real issue of conserving energy if you concerned about this matter, this doesn't even address that. So nuclear power is certainly not the answer.
PAUL PIGOTT: But compared to oil and coal burning plants, companies like Aurora say that nuclear is an improvement. Wayne Broomfield speaks for the company, he says it's the return to nuclear energy that's driving much of the exploration boom in Labrador.
WAYNE BROOMFIELD: The world market is with the Kyoto Accord and cleaner environment and cleaner energy is all part of it.
PAUL PIGOTT: The Inuit of course across Canada are really concerned about the global warming issue.
WAYNE BROOMFIELD: Biggest thing is the ice. Growing up in Makkovik, May, June you'd be able to go out on the ice. Now you're lucky to get around the harbour in January, February. So it's a big difference and I'm still a young fellow so it's a big difference in my life time.
PAUL PIGOTT: Broomfield says the environment around the mine will be protected so he says that the development should be seen as part of the solution to slowing down the rate of climate change. He hopes that most Inuit will agree if the mine proposal is ever put to a vote in the Inuit communities here. Gym class for grade three's at the school in Makkovik. It's these young people who will have to live with the choices that parents and grandparents make today. Rick Ploughman is the Principal, he's also on a citizen's committee formed in Makkovik to get more information about uranium. Ploughman believes uranium development is the wrong choice for Labrador.
RICK PLOUGHMAN: I'm hoping and praying that most Canadians realize that replacing CO2 emissions with radioactive radon gas from huge tailing pits that may surround our community is not the answer that aboriginal people in Canada are left with. I'm really concerned that our youth may perhaps enjoy a very short prosperous future but after all that's done, what's going to be left of the land and the environment for then after?
PAUL PIGOTT: The debate over Labrador's uranium is set to resume in the Nunatsiavut Assembly next month when Inuit politicians will discuss Aurora's mine proposal. ITK meanwhile expects to give some direction to Inuit across Canada on the nuclear option during board meetings in November. In Makkovik I'm Paul Pigott.
CINDY WALL: Thank you Paul. Well John Roberts is the Vice President of Environment for Aurora Energy, one of the many companies exploring for uranium in Labrador. But it's the only company that has said it wants to build a mine. He's heard the worries about the effect the mine will have on the land. Don reached John Roberts in Makkovik.
DON LOCKHART: Good morning Mr. Roberts.
JOHN ROBERTS: Good morning.
DON LOCKHART: And thanks for joining us today.
JOHN ROBERTS: Well thank you for having me.
DON LOCKHART: Now what kind of things do you have to do to sort of handle what is left over after the uranium oxide is shipped away, what kind of things would you be doing in your mine that Aurora is talking about?
JOHN ROBERTS: Well I guess the first thing I'd like to say is that what we plan to do is to propose a mine and do it absolutely right. And doing it right for us means that we'll use absolutely the best environmental practices and incorporating all the environmental protections that we can from the 20 or 30 years of experience in sort of leading companies practice in Canada. And that means we'll have water control, air emissions control and tailings control systems that will be sure to protect the environment. I guess another thing I'd like to say about doing it right is that we're going to work closely with the local communities here, we really think that it's very important to get the acceptance of an approval of local communities and the Nunatsiavut Government. The project won't proceed without it.
DON LOCKHART: Now one of the things that happens in a uranium mine is you end up taking the uranium oxide away to be processed but it does leave a lot of other stuff in the mine site. And so these tailings, what kind of things do people do with these tailings these days?
JOHN ROBERTS: Well the uranium product is produced onsite, uranium oxide as you say and the tailings that are left over is a fine grain sandy material and there are basically four options that we're currently considering to do with that. You can put it on the land, on the surface, you can put it in. . . between containment. You can put it under water or in the pit or in the underground and we're looking at all of those options and we're going to be bringing forward a coherent couple of alternatives using a selection of those options in the relatively near future.
DON LOCKHART: Because the uranium radioactivity does stay around for a long while.
JOHN ROBERTS: Well the uranium radioactivity leaves because it goes out with the uranium but there are other radioactive products in the tailings and using well known and manageable environment management techniques and designs we can manage those radioactive levels and the other concerns of the tailings, including the dust, quite well with various covers and the likes. And that's well practiced and well understood technologies.
DON LOCKHART: So it's not necessarily a tailings pond though, there are other alternatives?
JOHN ROBERTS: There are other alternatives and I wish I could tell you all of them. . . all of them in some detail right now but we're still working through with some of the best engineering companies in the country, worked on these sorts of things before to come up with the best selection of solutions.
DON LOCKHART: When you say that people will be consulted along the coast does that include the type of measures that they'll be using to handle the long term radioactivity from the tailings?
JOHN ROBERTS: Absolutely, in fact we've just had public meetings in Postville and here in Makkovik last night and we will continue to have public meetings and other sorts of engagement with the community both informally as we did recently and also on an ongoing basis with the. . . through the environmental assessment process. So good news about the ore that we have here in the Michelin, Jacque Lake area, it's relatively low concentration compared to the ore in Saskatchewan for example where they've been mining safely for a lot of years. There will be covers on the tailings area as it. . . when it's closed out and probably it will be wet most of the time while it's being operated. And in terms of the material that leaches out of it, there are treatment systems that very readily take out the concerning materials and then you can store those things deeply in the mine. And with the very stringent regulations that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would put on an operation like this, we can certainly design to a very safe level.
DON LOCKHART: Now the yellow cake they call it, this uranium oxide which leaves the mine in a concentrated form I guess you could say, how is that. . . would that come out by ship or would it be over land?
JOHN ROBERTS: We anticipate bringing that out over land so we would propose to. . . one of our proposals would be to construct a road from Northwest River to the mine site. So it would come out over land and year round.
DON LOCKHART: Do you have to take special measures there to make sure it doesn't spill?
JOHN ROBERTS: Well it's transported in specially designed 45 gallon drums, it's actually quite. . . the radioactivity is actually quite low. So it's transported in 45 gallon drums about, specially designed in containers over trucks and while it's . . . you certainly have to take precautions with it, it's regularly transported quite readily to many places.
DON LOCKHART: Is there any kind of a sort of schedule here because you know the price of uranium does fluctuate a little bit?
JOHN ROBERTS: The price of uranium fluctuates, while the spot price is important long term contracts are more important and they don't fluctuate quite as much. So our schedule is roughly that we will intend to register the project to start the environmental assessment process and all the concentrations that that entails. We intend to register this fall and we anticipate that that would be about a three year process of consultation and environmental assessment and permitting and licensing before we are able to start construction. And then we would anticipate being in operation by about 2013.
DON LOCKHART: Well it's certainly going to be an interesting proposal and I'm sure that there will be lots of times to consult with people and to talk about this again.
JOHN ROBERTS: We will be on the coast for a long time talking with people and take every opportunity to do so and we look forward to it.
DON LOCKHART: Mr. Roberts thank you very much for chatting about this today.
JOHN ROBERTS: Thank you.
CINDY WALL: And that's John Roberts, he's Vice President of Environment for Aurora Energy.
