{"id":74920,"date":"2021-12-21T15:56:06","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T20:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=74920"},"modified":"2021-12-21T16:14:14","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T21:14:14","slug":"mrc-pontiac-council-hears-presentation-on-near-surface-disposal-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/mrc-pontiac-council-hears-presentation-on-near-surface-disposal-facility\/","title":{"rendered":"MRC Pontiac council hears presentation on near surface disposal facility"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the final MRC Pontiac council of mayors meeting for 2021 on Dec. 15, a presentation was given on the near surface disposal facility<\/a>\u00a0which has been proposed at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River.<\/p>\n

Joann McCann, representing the Old Fort William Cottagers\u2019 Association, a community organization that has opposed the NSDF since its announcement several years ago, spoke at length on the project, which would result in 1 million cubic metres of low level nuclear waste buried in a mound roughly a kilometre from the Ottawa River. The mound would contain demolition debris from buildings currently at Chalk River, as well as waste from Whiteshell Laboratories in Manitoba and other federal nuclear liabilities.<\/p>\n

McCann said that next year is a critical one in the approval process for the site.<\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Clip-Joann-McCann-2022-importance.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

She pointed out that the site is operated by a consortium of two American companies and Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin. She asserted that there is little oversight in how these companies spend the public funds that they receive and that they have \u201cno incentive to develop safer and more cost-effective approaches.\u201d<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Clip-Joann-McCann-companies.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

McCann added that the organization tasked with government oversight of the facility, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, hasn\u2019t ruled against a single industry proposal.<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Clip-Joann-McCann-government-oversight.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Last minute resolution passes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following McCann\u2019s presentation, Pontiac Warden Jane Toller brought forward a resolution that echoed a resolution passed by the Municipality of Sheenboro, which sits directly across the Ottawa River from the Chalk River site. It asks that the federal government move the site away from the Ottawa River and that Director General Bernard Roy write to the Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson to ask for a summery of the federal government\u2019s rationale for this action.<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s Bay Mayor Maurice Beauregard pointed out that while he was in favour of the content of the resolution, he wasn\u2019t in favour of the fact that it hadn\u2019t been presented at the council\u2019s plenary meeting before being placed on the agenda. He added that he didn\u2019t want a precedent being set of resolutions being added to the public meeting without being discussed in plenary.<\/p>\n

Toller said that she had originally planned to just support the Sheenboro resolution, but thought that it would be better if the statement came directly from the MRC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s something that needs a lot of discussion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mansfield Mayor and Pro-Warden Sandra Armstrong moved that the resolution be added to the agenda and the motion was approved by a majority of mayors. The resolution itself was passed unanimously. Following the passage, Toller addressed Beauregard\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an excellent point that you bring up and I for one, have made it very clear in the last term that we wouldn\u2019t do this,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we made an exception tonight, from now on ... if there\u2019s something to be added to the agenda, we will make it a practice of sending it to the plenary first.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full video of the meeting is available on the\u00a0MRC\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The full audio of McCann\u2019s presentation is available below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the final MRC Pontiac council of mayors meeting for 2021 on Dec. 15, a presentation was given on the near surface disposal facility\u00a0which has been proposed at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River. Joann McCann, representing the Old Fort William Cottagers\u2019 Association, a community organization that has opposed the NSDF since its announcement several…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":74922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[222,225],"tags":[11581,3778,11580,1507],"radio":[239],"origine":[274,258,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74920"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=74920"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=74920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}