Speaking up about Nuclear in Alberta

Nuking it in the bud

Bob Covey, editor

Art Jackson isn’t afraid to speak up. At town hall-style meetings, public hearings and more recently, 

information sessions hosted by barbecue-tong-wielding politicians in Whitecourt, Jackson has demonstrated 

that either he doesn’t feel the anxiety so many of us have in speaking off the cuff and from the heart in front of 

people, or he’s been around long enough to know that without people speaking up, costly political decisions 

can be made with only one side being represented.

As Alberta is eyed as the next nexus of nuclear energy mongers, it’s the non-debate that’s again troubling 

Jackson. This time around, however, Jackson believes the consequences of uninformed, apathetic citizens 

could be more dire than ever before. Looking to nuclear to solve Alberta’s impending energy demands is 

shortsighted, expensive and being falsely advertised as green, Jackson believes. With the risk — albeit 

slight, but there all the same — of something going terribly wrong, building a nuclear power plant in 

Whitecourt would be, as he puts it, quite insane.

“No matter how good they are at what they do, all it takes is one accident,” Jackson said. “It’s mind boggling 

why they would even consider this.”

‘They’ are Woodland County — the district around Whitecourt — council, the government of Alberta, Federal 

Energy Minister Gary Lunn and Lunn’s host during last week’s BBQ, Yellowhead MP Rob Merrifield. 

Woodland County has already sent a letter to nuclear power plant proponents Energy Alberta saying they 

are willing to make Crown lands available once the necessary rezoning steps have taken place; a 

spokesperson for Alberta’s Ministry of Energy said that the provincial government is open to all options as 

related to energy development, including the possibility of nuclear; Lunn recently delivered a speech in 

Washington wherein he said he has no doubt nuclear will expand its role in Canada’s energy mix; and 

Merrifield, reached in Ottawa on Monday, said his personal research (asking his fellow MPs) about the 

health risks associated with nuclear power plants have only led him to believe that they’re over-hyped.

“I talked to some of my fellow MPs who have CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactors in their 

backyards … and now people say ‘what was all the hoopla about?’” Merrifield said.

Jackson knows at least part of the “hoopla” comes from nuclear’s most infamous accidents: Three Mile 

Island in the U.S. in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine in 1986. The latter accident has tangible

repercussions for Jackson who, as a Jasper tour guide, has introduced young participants of Hinton’s 

Children of Chernobyl program to highlights around the park. Meeting unwitting victims of the disaster has 

only strengthened Jackson’s resolve to get the message out that the only acceptable risk is no risk at all.

“Anybody who cares about their country, let alone their kids and their grandkids, should be getting informed,” 

Jackson said.

Merrifield, the former health critic, the current chair of the standing committee on health and a man who 

spends his time off haying on his farm in Whitecourt, said that he’s confident the application process 

(Energy Alberta has put in a preliminary application; a formal one is expected in two weeks) will suss 

out any health concerns; moreover, he said the Conservative government will be introducing a required 

$650 million in liability insurance for nuclear energy purveyors.

Jackson said he’d be shocked if any private company could wrangle enough money from investors to get 

a multi-billion dollar plant off the ground without being “propped up” by the government (Alberta’s Energy 

Ministry rebuts that all risks would be borne by the private company), but he’s more concerned about the

toxic legacy that nuclear energy inevitably leaves.

“My biggest thing is there is no treatment for any of the radioactive waste,” he said.

Merrifield, as he indicated in a recent column that ran in some Bowes-owned newspapers, believes that 

the amount of waste is small — only enough to fill five hockey rinks from Canada’s 45-year-old program — 

and because it’s buried in titanium storage facilities, it will essentially be out of sight, out of mind.

“The overall approach will ensure that used fuel is monitored and retrievable to take advantage of new 

energy technologies, such as fuel recycling, which will reduce the need for long-term storage in the future,” 

Merrifield’s column said.

It doesn’t get much more long term than radioactive liquid waste, which needs to be secured for hundreds 

of thousands of years. Jackson shakes his head at the astronomical costs of building and maintaining a 

plant; the questions surrounding the low-level emissions, including tritium, that threaten water tables and 

soils; the fact that such a project’s highly-touted job creation won’t be benefiting Joe-Whitecourt but 

highly-skilled technicians; and the toxic by-products. But he’s most concerned about people not getting involved.

Merrifield’s explaining why Whitecourt selected as a potential spot for nuclear power won’t raise his spirts, 

either. The thrice-elected MP said the main reason Woodland County was chosen because of its place on 

the electrical grid (pulp mills need power), but the other reason is because it’s isolated.

“[In Whitecourt] there’s not a huge population of people to convince that it’s safe,” Merrifield said.

 © 2007 The Fitzhugh, Jasper National Park, Alberta