Citizens rally to Keep Alberta Nuclear Free

Protesters rally at Legislature

Concerned residents present petition with 1,300 signatures

By JEREMY LOOME, Sun Media

Just 10 kilometres from Trudi Keillor’s house in the Peace Country is an unassuming spit of land, vacant save for wildlife, water and weeds. The fact that its status might someday change scares the hell out of her.

It also demonstrates that fear is another harmful byproduct of nuclear energy.

“We do not want this. We don’t want it for the rest of Alberta or for Canada,” Keillor said, as she joined about 100 other Peace Country residents outside the legislature today, protesting a company’s plan to build a nuclear power plant. “I live six miles west of the proposed site. And this is all happening behind the scenes. Nothing is being done to keep residents informed.”

Energy Alberta Corporation, which is owned by Calgary liquor magnate Wayne Henuset, has the only license from the Atomic Energy Company of Canada to built a reactor in Alberta. It sees 10 to 15 years of hearings, license applications and approvals before that can happen. It did not return a call for comment today.

But the process is already moving too quickly for residents to keep up, said Keillor, and given that the company has met numerous times with government to push the deal already, they’re not taking EAC’s word on the issue.

“It was all done hush-hush, and people were very upset when they found out. And a lot of the municipal councillors did not get voted back in that were involved in that. The people have not been consulted.”

Keillor doesn’t doubt the company can produce reams of stats showing nuclear power accidents are incredibly rare. She also thinks that assurance is meaningless, given the magnitude of the damage when something does go wrong. “They talk about it being so safe and having all of these redundancy features, but accidents do happen. And if a nuclear accident happens, it is very big.”

The province has repeatedly noted that ultimately most of the approvals related to nuclear plant construction are under federal jurisdiction. “With respect to the development of nuclear energy in Alberta most certainly there is an application in front of the Canadian Nuclear Security Commission.

That’s the proper place for it to be. Under the constitution, the federal government reserves a right to deal with these issues and we respect that,” said Energy Minister Mel Knight. “We are at this point neither an opponent of nor a detractor from any nuclear energy in this province.”

Brenda Brochu helped organized today's rally and said the province can play a role in keeping the public informed. She noted numerous rural politcians who rushed to get Energy Alberta onside and their town as a potential location subsequently got voted out during Alberta’s October municipal elections.”

“I have a petition here with me with 1,407 signatures on it from our area objecting to the construction of a nuclear plant, and that’s a lot of people” she said. “We’re calling on government to consult with Albertans.

“My understanding is that officials with Energy Alberta Corporation have met with the whole Conservative caucus and that there have also been further discussions with the energy minister and with other officials in the energy department. So we want to know how many of those meetings have taken place, when they took palce and what was the nature of the discussions.”

Dr. David Swann, the Alberta Liberals environment critic, said the process is moving ahead without enough public involvement.

“This is illustrative of a government that has its own agenda and isn’t particularly concerned with what the average citizen thinks. A government that is interested in the people would go to the people first,” said Swann. “They’re more interested in business opportunities and short-term profit. We as citizens of this province demand a broad and full public consultation, and that’s still not happening. Whereas the business connections with government are preceding apace.

The public has a right to be “very suspicious,” said David Eggen with the NDP. “The Alberta New Democrats oppose these nuclear developments categorically. They’re not safe and it’s immoral to produce waste that will last hundreds of thousands of years. It’s not an economical way to produce energy and the whole thing smells to high heaven.”