NUCLEAR GENOCIDE IN CANADA Part 8 Radioactive Waste  "In 1978, the Saskatchewan government's Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry concluded, in regard to reactor wastes: There seems to be general agreement that to store these wastes in such a manner that future generations would be required to exercise continued surveillance and maintenance of the storage facilities would be completely unacceptable. It thus becomes necessary to seek disposal techniques that will ensure that the wastes are safely isolated for several hundred thousand years. It then proceeded to approve a 'disposal' program, to contain wastes at the Cluff Lake Mine, for less than one hundred years!" (Dr. Jim Harding) They know the waste is dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years yet they approved a 100-year disposal program. They just shifted the responsibility on to future generations. This practice is endemic throughout the nuclear industry in Canada and around the globe.  There is no prudent method yet developed to dispose of the ever-growing volume of radioactive waste. No country on Earth has been able to do it. Logic would suggest that if you can't get rid of the waste you're making, that you should quit making it. Unfortunately, logic is not a word normally applied to the nuclear regulators and the Canadian government. The radioactive waste piles continue to grow. The public in Canada knew nothing about radioactive waste nor the dangers associated with it as late as 1975. It was never spoken of, nor was it ever brought up by the Canadian government until a school in Port Hope was found with elevated radon levels in late 1975. The miners at Elliot Lake started finding out the dangers about the same time. Deline/Port Radium The First Nations people of Deline were the first to realize something was wrong when they started dying of cancer in 1960. It was easy for the Canadian government to keep this problem quiet as Deline was a very isolated community. No one would hear of their problems for many years.  The people of Deline were exposed to radiation when they carried ore, when they fished in water contaminated with radioactive tailings from the mine and when they were inside their own homes. Their homes were contaminated because they would use the discarded burlap sacks the uranium was carried in for clothing and household goods. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) was still cleaning up waste in Deline in 2008, 46 years after the first complaints from that community.  Port Hope Eldorado (Government of Canada) continued to give away radioactive waste material from uranium processing and used building products in Port Hope until 1966 to anyone who wanted it. Sadly, this 20-year period coincided with the post war building boom in Canada. The radioactive waste was placed under homes, businesses, schools, roads and public buildings in Port Hope and surrounding communities. The local school board was one of the main beneficiaries of this free building material. About a dozen schools were built and expanded in Port Hope, Cobourg and the surrounding towns during this period. Many of them are built on radioactive waste. In 1966, the RCMP asked Dr. D.G. Andrews, Professor Emeritus, Nuclear Engineering, at the University of Toronto to "undertake investigative measurements in order to answer the question of potential illegal weapons production in Canada." After conducting his investigation of the waste sites in Port Hope, Dr. Andrews advised the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) that it should begin cleanup of the radioactive waste as soon as possible. His warnings were not heeded. In a subsequent paper on Port Hope in 1996, Dr. Andrews wrote: "The AECB and the town (Port Hope) had been interviewed in 1966-67 by myself as to the real radiation levels and their potentially damaging effects. However, urged on by potential developers and others, the town had gone ahead and permitted building right on top of the radioactivity. If the public caught on, then someone would have to pay." (Dr. Andrews, 1996) The AECB and the Town of Port Hope officials hid the dangers of radioactive waste in the community for ten years before they informed the public. In addition to the warnings from Dr. Andrews in 1966, the Canadian Government had initiated its own testing the same year. In section 2.1 of his 1996 paper, Dr Andrews states: "Detailed data were also taken in the period 1966-76 by Dr. Geoffrey Knight of the Atomic Energy Control Board. Unfortunately, his data (Dr. Knight's) was kept out of sight."  Thanks to Dr. Andrews, we know that the nuclear regulator (AECB), the Canadian Government, the Town of Port Hope and the RCMP knew in 1966 that the health of the residents of Port Hope was at risk because of the presence of so much radioactive waste. Yet not one of them did a thing about it for ten years.  Elliot Lake Miners The general working conditions in the Elliot Lake mines were terrible. In addition, no miner was ever told of the dangers they faced from exposure to radiation. The miners finally took matters into their own hands in 1973. Elliot Lake miner Henry Groulx recounts: "I was in a union for a little while. Denison had the Mine Mills Union and then they switched over to the United Steel workers. The men changed the (working) conditions themselves, but the union took the credit. When they had the protest in 1973, it was a wildcat strike but you couldn't call it a wildcat strike because you could be charged. So we called it a protest for safety conditions. The protest was in 1973 when I was working underground. We were protesting ventilation, restroom conditions, working conditions, the right to refuse unsafe work like rock hanging over us and not waiting to work until after a blast. Nobody was really aware what uranium could really cause. We were protesting working conditions. The Ham Commission ( mid-70s) was when we started to know about the diseases it causes and the radon gases. They knew but they weren't telling us." (pg. 84, This Is My Homeland, Lorraine Rekmans) In 1974 the Ontario Government appointed Dr. James Ham to study mine safety in Elliot Lake. Dr. Ham concluded that none of the miners were ever warned of the dangers they faced. Dr. Ham was also instrumental in reversing over 100 compensation claims with the Workers Compensation Board for radiation induced illness and death. This was the first time in the 42 years that uranium ore was mined in Canada that the workers were aware of the dangers. Sulphuric Acid The Canadian Government allowed a sulphuric acid plant to be built in the townsite of Serpent River First Nations. The sulphuric acid was used to leach the uranium out of the ore from 12 local mines. The plant ran from 1955 to 1962. Despite constant urgings from the community, the Canadian government waited 32 years to clean up the site.  There was never an attempt to quantify the impact the sulphuric acid plant had on Serpent River residents, despite being located in the middle of the community. Chief Earl Commanda stated: "The abandoned sulphuric acid plant left a bunch of concrete buildings and a whole bunch of pyrite piles and the remaining sulphuric acid piles. Our parents always knew when we were playing around those buildings because when we came home, the shoelaces on our running shoes would fall apart because of the acid and the pyrite. They would just literally rot off our running shoes." (This Is My Homeland, Lorraine Rekmans) Serpent River resident Terence Jacobs continues: "If you went to work with something that wasn't 'acid clothes', they be like someone shot you with buckshot. If the wind would blow from the southwest and you had clothes on the line, they'd come out rusty, because the calcine would blow in your direction and everything would just get rusty. It burnt all the vegetation, maybe about a mile up that way and about a half a mile wide. They had to reforest that hill because the trees were all dead." (This Is My Homeland, Lorraine Rekmans) The Public Finds Out In 1975, St. Mary's Elementary School in Port Hope was found to have radon levels 21 times higher than the allowable levels in effect in Ontario at the time. Panic hit Port Hope. Hundreds of homes and public buildings were tested including all the schools. The students from St. Mary's were moved to other schools for two years while the radioactive waste was removed and the school decontaminated.  Unfortunately, we didn't find out until 2004 that several other schools in Port Hope and Cobourg were built on radioactive waste. The testing conducted at Dr. Powers Elementary School in 1978 in Port Hope by the Canadian Government showed radon concentrations under the kindergarten and gymnasium 125 times higher than the allowable level. The Canadian Government wanted to avoid further negative publicity and legal action so they gave Dr. Powers School a clean bill of health and never spoke of it again until we saw the original test report and file in 2004. They allowed our children to be educated in the school for 28 years, knowing it was built on radioactive waste. In 1978, the federal government promised Port Hope they would initiate comprehensive health studies of the community and a cleanup of the waste. They cleaned some properties and then left town. The community is still waiting for the health studies and the complete cleanup 30 years later. The federal government refused to have anything more to do with Port Hope until 1990 when the municipality began a legal action against the federal government to clean up the town. What is Radioactive Waste? Radioactive waste is created at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle. It usually falls into one of three categories; low-level, medium-level and high-level waste. These 'levels' do not refer to the toxicity of the wastes, but rather where the waste originated from. High-level waste is usually comprised of fission products and spent fuel assemblies from reactors. Medium-level waste is material from decommissioning, reprocessing or fuel fabrication. Low level waste embraces everything else. Low-level wastes can be as toxic as high-level waste. One of the main problems with nuclear waste is that the composition of the waste is always changing because all the radioactive isotopes are constantly decaying. Each 'decay product' has its own level of radioactivity and penetrating qualities. If radium is taken into your body, it is considered a 'bone-seeker.' It will cause bone-related cancers as well as leukemia. When radium decays, it changes into radon gas. The radon gas mixes with the blood in the body. Radon gas has a half-life of 3.8 days and as such, starts to decay rapidly inside the body. The decay products of radon gas are radioactive bismuth, lead and polonium which are called the radon daughters or progeny. Radon and its daughters are the second leading cause of lung cancer. Though you started with only radium inside your body, the rapid decay of radioactive material has generated four more toxic substances, which in turn will decay themselves. Exploration Drilling test holes in the ground is the first step of the nuclear fuel cycle. Drilling near residential areas can impact the quality of people's drinking water in a couple of ways. If the drill holes aren't filled when they're completed, ground water and other contaminants can use the hole as a conduit to the water table affecting well water quality. Such was the case near Fredericton, New Brunswick in August 2008.  "Debbie Hudson has found herself hauling clothes to a laundromat and lugging bottled water back to her home several times a week. Hudson, who lives near the Gorge Road, says her well water is so filthy as a result of uranium drilling activity in the area that it can't be used for drinking or washing clothes. Since February my water had turned like a yellowish colour because it's dirt getting in there. It's surface water. Hudson, who says she tests her well each year, said the problems began in February, shortly after a uranium exploration company began drilling holes." (By Mary Moszynski, Times & Transcript, August 20th, 2008) This problem could have occurred drilling for any type of mineral. It was solved by plugging the holes. The other problem that can occur is when the drilling program intersects a zone of radioactive material as well as the ground water supply to homes. In this case, the groundwater will become contaminated with radioactive material. This problem cannot be fixed.  Uranium Mines The uranium mines have been responsible for massive damage to the environment and to the health of the miners who worked in them. Unfortunately, mines continue to cause damage long after they close. The tailings from the mines are left behind to spread radioactive, heavy metal and chemical contamination to the air, the water and the earth. There are almost 200 million tonnes of tailings at the Elliot Lake mines alone. Most of these tailings are covered with water held back by earth dams. "The mining companies and regulatory agencies recognised that there were problems associated with the closure of large uranium mining/milling facilities because the waste management areas were not originally designed with currently acceptable standards in mind. Although these concerns have been addressed, the communities in the Serpent River Watershed are faced with the reality that 170 million tonnes of tailings from the uranium mines 'present a perpetual environmental hazard.' The management of the tailings will always be a challenge. The half-life of the radioactive hazards in those tailings is hundreds of thousands of years." (Mining Watch Canada) Mine tailings are more dangerous than the ore they came out of. Tailings are ground up to a fine powder which allows all the radionuclides access to the environment. The tailings held in the ten dead lakes there constantly secrete their poisons into the groundwater. The Serpent River has become a river of poison from the dead lakes to Lake Huron. Abandoned Mines Many mining companies simply walked away from the mines they put into production. The cost of decommissioning these sites became the responsibility of Canadian taxpayers. The nuclear regulatory body, the CNSC, is to blame for much of this situation as they did not collect deposits from the mines before they allowed them to start producing. The development of these mines was encouraged by the Canadian governments of the day to supply uranium to the United States. Once the sites were mined out, the federal government bailed out leaving clean up costs to the provinces.  The Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy took the federal government to task on the dangers from the mines and their economic responsibilities. "While mining operations in northern Saskatchewan, that supplied the United States military with Uranium in the early days of the Cold War, ceased in the 1960s, people of this area continue to live to date with the environmental, human health and safety risks of the abandoned mines.  The Uranium industry of the Cold War era was not merely regulated, but was actively promoted by the Government of Canada to achieve its foreign and defense policy ends. The federal government's continued refusal to accept the financial responsibility for its forty-year old legacy of environmental, human health and safety risks is not only irresponsible but also out of step with Canada's international record on human and environmental health and safety issues. It is high time for the Government of Canada to take environmental risks in northern Saskatchewan as seriously as it does elsewhere in the world." (Righting Past Wrongs: The Case for a Federal Role in Decommissioning and Reclaiming Abandoned Uranium Mines in Northern Saskatchewan) In a 2000 survey of abandoned uranium mines, the nuclear regulator had to admit that most uranium mines with tailings were identified to have some form of stability and/or chemical problems.  Blind River Ontario Ministry of the Environment test records show that the emissions from Cameco's Blind River facility have caused the uranium in soil levels to increase since the facility opened in 1983. I am not aware of the quantities of radioactive waste Cameco stores on site at Blind River. Uranium Enrichment "It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very different. In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50 percent of global warming. Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, release from leaky pipes 93% of the chlorofluorocarbon gas emitted yearly in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is now banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the main culprit responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide." (Helen Caldicott, The Australian, April 15, 2005) The other negative aspect of the enrichment process is the massive volumes of 'depleted uranium' that is left over. The United States currently has about half a million tonnes of depleted uranium in storage. Depleted uranium is radioactive waste. Spent Fuel Bundles There are about 2 million spent fuel bundles in storage at the nuclear reactors in Canada. These spent bundles are so radioactive when they come out of a reactor that a person would die within a minute if he was within a metre of it. The spent bundles are placed in a giant swimming pool for eight to ten years to allow them to cool down and allow the radioactivity levels to be reduced. The spent bundles are then placed in concrete containers and placed on storage pads. To make matters worse, a study released last week by the National Academy of Sciences shows that the cooling pools at nuclear reactors, which store 10 to 30 times more radioactive material than that contained in the reactor core, are subject to catastrophic attacks by terrorists, which could unleash an inferno and release massive quantities of deadly radiation – "significantly worse than the radiation released by Chernobyl, according to some scientists." (Helen Caldicott, The Australian, April 15, 2005) Reprocessing Spent Reactor Fuel The Canadian government, AECL and Cameco want to reprocess spent reactor fuel in Canada. This involves building a very expensive reprocessing facility that will have to be decommissioned as high-level waste at the end of its life.  The process involves chopping up the highly radioactive spent fuel bundles and dissolving them in boiling nitric acid. The process causes the release of radioactive gases and the contamination of the nitric acid which has to be dealt with as high-level radioactive waste. The plutonium and uranium are separated from hundreds of other radioactive products to be used to manufacture Mox (Mixed Oxide) Fuel for reactors. Contrary to the industry's assertion, there is more waste at the end of reprocessing than what they started with. The separation of plutonium and uranium also cause security problems as this material can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Reprocessing spent reactor fuel into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel has been a failure in every country that has tried it. England – It appears as if Britain is going to close the Sellafield Mox Plant after ten years of troubled operation. The Mox production plant cost almost a billion dollars to build when it opened in 1999 and has never worked properly. Further, it was hit by scandal concerning quality control and falsification of documents from the start. They were never able to regain business from the Japanese they lost as a result. "It has suffered repeated breakdowns and, last spring, the then energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, admitted in response to a parliamentary question that SMP had managed to reprocess only 2.6 tonnes of fuel per year between 2002 and 2007. Between 1998 and 2002, the plant produced annual figures respectively of 2.3 tonnes, 0.3 tonnes, 0 tonnes and 0 tonnes following a string of technical difficulties. Wicks said it was using 'largely unproven technology' and admitted that even when it operated at top capacity it could produce only 72 tonnes a year by 2001." (The Guardian, February 17, 2009, Terry Macallister)  This is a major blow to the British nuclear industry and the country as they have a 100-tonne stockpile of plutonium on hand. The Mox facility was to have manufactured this stockpile into reactor fuel. In addition to the cost of storage, the presence of this much weapons grade plutonium causes huge safety and security concerns.  "These discharges go into the sea, the surrounding countryside, the air and into us. Sellafield's waste discharges have made the Irish Sea the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world and its waste has been washed up on shores as far away as Greenland. Sellafield's pollution is found in the sea spray, soil, vegetation and bodies of animals and in people's homes. There are areas around Sellafield that are as radioactive as the land in the 'exclusion' zone around the stricken Chernobyl nuclear reactor." (Greenpeace, UK)  United States – Nuclear Fuel Services built and operated a reprocessing facility in West Valley, New York from 1966-1972. The facility processed 640 metric tonnes of spent reactor fuel while in operation and generated the following waste: "During the operation of the plant 660,000 US gallons (2,500 mģ) of highly radioactive liquid waste were generated. The liquid waste was stored in an underground waste tank. Also stored on the site are 170 tons of used nuclear fuel assemblies, 140,000 cubic feet (4,000 m3) of solid waste, and 2.4 million cubic feet (68,000 m3) of buried low-level radioactively contaminated wastes. NFS also used a 15 acre (61,000 m2) area for the disposal of radioactive waste from commercial waste generators, and another seven acre (28,000 mē) landfill to dispose of radioactive waste generated from reprocessing." (Wikipedia) The 640 tonnes of spent fuel processed is a small fraction of the total waste that was generated from reprocessing. Proponents of reprocessing claim that it reduces the stockpile of radioactive waste while in reality, it increases the total volume several times over.  "In 1976 NFS decided the costs and regulatory requirements of reprocessing (originally estimated to be $15 million but later reported at a figure of $600 million) made the venture impractical. The probability of a major earthquake in the area was also considered to pose too great of a risk to continue operations. The waste must be stored in an underground carbon-steel tank for around 200,000 years before it loses its radioactive potency, or recovered for its content of useful uranium, plutonium and fission products." (Wikipedia) The State of New York commissioned a study on the West Valley site and found out it would cost between $9-$27 billion to clean it up. Japan – In March 2009, Japan Nuclear Fuels Limited (JNFL) announced the 16th delay in completing its Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant which was originally scheduled to open in 1997. The $20 billion price tag for the project is about three times what was estimated when the project started in 1993. Refer to an article by Eriko Arita (Nov. 27, 2008) titled: 'Rokkasho Plant too Dangerous, Costly' for more information on reprocessing and fast breeder reactors that burn MOX fuel. France – "A July 2000 report commissioned by the French government concluded that reprocessing was uneconomical - costing about $25 billion more than a 'once through' fuel cycle - and will do little to reduce the amount of long-lived radionuclides in the waste." (Public Citizen - Nuclear Waste Reprocessing)  Reprocessing spent rent reactor fuel is not economical and it's effects are detrimental to people and the environment. Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) The NWMO is comprised of people from the nuclear industry and was formed to deal with high-level nuclear waste in Canada. They have decided on the deep disposal option with the ability to retrieve the radioactive material in the future. However, no high-level radioactive material will be placed in storage for at least 60 years. This is not a method to deal with the mounting inventory of high-level waste; this is simply putting the problem and the costs on to future generations. The other reason they are avoiding burying the waste is that the Canadian government wants to reprocess the spent fuel bundles to recover plutonium. Waste From Decommissioned Reactors There are 27 reactors that have to be decommissioned at some point in the future which entails a huge volume of high-level radioactive waste. The work involved with decommissioning and the creation of a high-level waste storage facility will cost billions of dollars. It is interesting to note that the authorities tell us that the reactors cannot be decommissioned until 50-100 years after they've been shut down to allow the reactor cores to cool down. Yet during the refurbishment of the reactors, workers have to work throughout these highly contaminated areas. The truth of the matter is that they are simply passing the costs and problems of decommissioning on to future generations. Radioactive Waste Cleanup of Port Hope Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) In 2000, the Canadian Government signed an agreement with the Town of Port Hope and Hope Township called the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI). The Canadian Government committed $260,000,000 to clean up the estimated 1.5 million cubic metres of radioactive waste in Port Hope. This would be the size of 5 football fields 60 metres (195 feet) high.  No one believed they had allocated enough money to do the job as a similar size cleanup at Fernald in Ohio cost $4.4 billion. The cleanup in Ohio involved one large site whereas the contamination in Port Hope is spread through 4000 residential, commercial and industrial properties. In 2005, AECL officials informed the community at a public meeting that the updated volume of radioactive waste was 3.5 million cubic metres. This pile would cover 5 football fields to a height of 140 metres (460 feet). AECL admitted that their storage site could only handle 2 million cubic metres, yet they refused to say what would be done with the other 1.5 million cubic metres.  AECL solved the problem by changing the cleanup criteria for the waste they would exhume from the town. Instead of leaving the town in a 'pristine condition', AECL decided to leave 2 million cubic metres of contaminated material in place. This volume and level of radioactive toxicity will require the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to license the town as a nuclear waste site after the proposed cleanup is completed. This is not what the town was promised. How Much Radioactive waste is There? The reality is that they don't know how much radioactive waste there is. AECL has admitted they have not tested all the properties in Port Hope nor have they tested below the surface on most properties. They have never tested any of the 4000 properties for the full range of radioactive substances present in Port Hope. AECL always claimed that only low-level waste was present in Port Hope. We found out this claim was not true in November 2007 when Port Hope residents tested positive for U236 inside their bodies. U236 comes from spent reactor fuel which is 'high-level' radioactive waste. AECL has publicly admitted they have not tested for U236. There must be a comprehensive survey completed of all 4000 properties in Port Hope, including sub-surface testing for the full range of radioactive substances. After 75 years, Port Hope deserves no less. Dangers of Radioactive Waste Cleanup Warnings have been sounded by independent experts that AECL's proposed method of cleaning up the radioactive waste in Port Hope may be VERY DANGEROUS to Port Hope and surrounding communities. Their main concern is the re-suspension of contaminants into the air we breathe. Many of these substances can travel hundreds of kilometers on the wind. The 4,000,000 people living in the Greater Toronto Area are well within the sphere of influence of these carcinogenic contaminants. Dr. Chris Busby , PhD in chemistry from England has shown that the depleted uranium weapons deployed in the Gulf War caused a significant increase in Uranium in Air measurements in England. According to Dr. Busby: "The distance traveled from Baghdad to Reading (England) following the wind patterns implicit in the pressure systems at the time, is between 1700 and 2400 miles. Although this transport may be hard to believe at first, the regular desert sand events which occur in the UK should teach us that the planet is not such a large affair, and that with regard to certain long lived atmospheric pollutants, no man is an island." As can be seen from the data in the 'indicator' health studies on Port Hope conducted by Health Canada in 1998 and 2000, the concerns of the experts are valid. The highest incidence levels of cancers and other diseases occurred between 1986 and 1996 or 10 to 20 years after the first radioactive waste cleanup of Port Hope started in 1976. This is not a coincidence. The 10 to 20 year delay represents the latency period of cancers and other diseases after exposure to their environmental causes.  During the 1970's radioactive waste cleanup of Port Hope, radioactive, chemical and heavy metal contaminants were disturbed from the ground they were contained in and re-suspended in the air we breathe. The same situation will occur during the current cleanup but there will be 40-50 times more material disturbed than there was during the first cleanup. How many deaths and illnesses will the re-suspension of this volume of carcinogenic contaminants cause?  Port Granby Radioactive Waste Cleanup The Port Granby Radioactive Waste Storage facility sits directly on the shore of Lake Ontario just east of Port Hope. Port Granby was used to store a lot of the most radioactive and toxic waste from Cameco's facility. Spent reactor waste, depleted uranium and a full range of radioactive isotopes used in Port Hope are located there. The Canadian Government has decided that all the waste will be left where it is. This scenario is not prudent because of its proximity to Lake Ontario. There is the potential for massive contamination of Lake Ontario as a result of short and long-term erosion on the site. This was the main concern of a similar topographical site in the United States called West Valley in New York. The state-funded study stated that the cost of excavating the waste and moving it to another location would be about $9 billion. If the material was left in place, the subsequent costs of contamination and its cleanup could be as high as $27 billion dollars. The Port Granby site is located on the bluffs; a part of Lake Ontario subject to rapid erosion. This is an issue for the cleanup of Port Hope as the town is built on a series of ravines. This material should not be left where it is. The contamination will continue to migrate. Surrounding Communities There have been no discussions concerning the fate of radioactive waste placed in surrounding communities. The radioactive waste from Eldorado is not confined to the political boundaries of Port Hope. It was hauled to Hamilton Township, Cobourg and throughout Hope Township. The contaminated material under Burnham School in Cobourg is but one example. The Town of Cobourg doesn't want to speak out for fear of being stuck with the same nuclear stigma as Port Hope. But Cobourg should be careful because the contaminants do migrate. Radioactive contaminants from Burnham School could have reached Factory Creek in the 50 years since the school was built on radioactive waste.  Loss of Property Value One of AECL's consultants told a public meeting attended by 70-80 people in 2005 that property values in Port Hope are about 12% lower than they should be due to the presence of radioactive waste and the nuclear industry. This 12% loss of property value equates to about $120 million or $30,000 per house based on 4000 properties in Port Hope. This applies to every property. There is a large group of people who bought properties with a clean bill of health only to find out during later testing that the property and the house are contaminated with radioactive waste. If these people decided to resell their property, they would have to disclose the property is contaminated which would significantly reduce its value, if they could sell at all. There is no protection in place for them. Summary on Port Hope This is by far the largest cleanup of radioactive waste in Canadian history. The project is massive, very complicated and if not done correctly, very dangerous. It is outrageous that AECL is in charge of the project as they were the organization responsible for causing the problem for the past 50+ years.  There is no funding in place to allow independent experts to research and present on behalf of concerned citizens in the community. A short Internet search of the methodology used in the United States for radioactive waste cleanups and their cost will expose the cleanup of Port Hope for the imprudent and incomplete farce that it is. Two Sets of Rules  Why do individuals and small businesses have to clean up their waste while large corporations can create as much waste as they want and simply stockpile it for future generations to deal with? Why are there two sets of rules? As individuals, our conduct is governed by laws put in place by municipal, provincial and federal governments. If we do not obey the laws, there are repercussions. If you don't clean up after your dog, you get fined. If you have too many junk cars on your property, the city has laws to force you to haul them away. If you keep piling garbage up behind your restaurant, the Health Department will fine you and possibly shut you down. If you own a pig barn, the province will not let you dig endless holes in the ground to store the waste. You have to find a way to get rid of it or they will shut you down. These laws are in place to protect us and our environment. Most of us agree with them. There are no such laws in place for many large industries that create massive volumes of toxic waste. They are allowed to continue generating waste without having any type of plan or solution in place for cleaning them up. Nuclear reactors continue to generate high-level radioactive waste and currently store two million spent fuel rods near the reactors. Uranium mines have hundred of millions of tonnes of radioactive mine tailings stored on land and in water. The contaminated water from oilsands extraction is stored in toxic waste ponds covering 50 square kilometres. The Swan Hills incinerator contaminated a 30 km. radius with PCBs and other toxins that can't be cleaned up.  The Canadian Government is directly responsible for many of these abuses. For instance, there are bans on gas engines on some pristine lakes in Canada. Yet the Canadian Government can change the designation on these pristine lakes to a toxic waste dump to allow mining companies to dump untreated mine tailings into them. This has been going on since at least the 1950s when the Canadian Government allowed the uranium mines at Elliot Lake to dump mine tailings into ten lakes. All ten lakes are DEAD and the radioactive toxins continue to contaminate the downstream watershed all the way to Lake Huron. It has become a river of poison. The corporations are making huge sums of money off our resources, yet it is the taxpayer who has to pay the bills to clean up the mess they leave behind. I don't begrudge industry their profit but I am fed up that they are not held to the same standards as we are. There should be only one set of rules. As our parents told us; if you make a mess, you clean it up. End of Part 8