TL: 4 Good Reasons To Stop Uranium Mining SO: Greenpeace Canada (GP) DT: 1990 Keywords: nuclear power uranium mining canada problems safety risks greenpeace reports gp policy failures / A MASSIVE GAMBLE The Canadian government is engaged in a massive gamble which may lead to hundreds of deaths, fuel the arms race, contaminate the north, and leave an insoluble radioactive waste problem for our children. Did you know that Canada is the largest pusher of nuclear fuel in the world? Uranium, a white metal, is used to produce nuclear weapons, and to fuel nuclear reactors for electricity and naval propulsion. Did you also know that uranium mining produces up to 1000 times as much radioactive waste as it does radioactive product? Or that Canadian uranium is used to build weapons in France, the United Kingdom, the USA and even the Soviet Union? Canada is the largest producer and exporter of uranium in the world. The expansion of the industry now underway, backed by Federal and Provincial money, represents a 60% increase in uranium production in Canada. The Canadian govemment is at this moment promoting massive uranium expansion without a national policy debate: despite the unsolved radioactive waste crisis in this country (120 million tonnes of uranium waste alone, plus spent reactor fuel and a million tonnes of waste in other communities); even when the price of uranium is so low that virtually no economic benefits will flow to Canadians; AND the Environment Minister, M. Lucien Bouchard, has been put up to telling Canadians that nuclear power is clean and desirable, without mentioning the devastation of producing uranium. Only the public's voice, loud and clear, can stop the pro-nuclear Mulroney government from laying radioactive waste to Canada, through uranium mining and the construction of yet more nuclear reactors. As a First Step to a Nuclear Free Future, Greenpeace Demands: I An immediate halt to the development of all new uranium mines in Canada (Cigar Lake, Midwest Lake, Kiggavik, and the expansion at Rabbit Lake). 2 A ban on the signing of new uranium export contracts, and a planned phase-out of all uranium mining in Canada. There are four good reasons to stop uranium mining. 1- DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT The expansion of the uranium industry is a renewed assault on the fragile northem ecosystem. And it is paid for with your taxes. The people of the north - the fishermen, trappers, wild rice sowers and tourism operators - will share the northem boreal forest with the radioactive scars left by the mining operations for hundreds of generations. In fact, human culture itself will probably decay and disappear before the 80,000 year half-life of the uranium mines' radioactive waste is finished. The toxic industrial waste produced in the mining and milling of uranium ore is radioactive (and 'radiotoxic'). The radionuclides in the uranium decay chain have high biological mobility and emit types of radiation which are particularly effective in damaging biological systems. Canadians have already seen the severe environmental impacts of uranium mining in the Elliot Lake region of Ontario. Animals like beaver, otter and grouse have elevated levels of radioactive elements in their flesh, liver, kidney and bones. Some beaver caught near the town of Elliot Lake have up to 500 atomic disintegrations/kg of bone taking place in their bodies every second. The resultant radiation from atomic disintegration - whether alpha, beta, or gamma - is what damages biological systems and causes cancer and immunological disorders. The National Research Council (NRC) of Canada reported in 1983 that uranium wastes are considered to be the most ecologically- damaging wastes produced in the entire nuclear fuel cycle. (Other wastes include high-level spent reactor fuel and low- level operational waste.) There are 3 basic reasons for this: volume a) Volume: digging up rock, crushing it and mixing it with acid produces a truly astounding amount of waste. The radioactive waste rock, combined with the liquid acid and water, creates about 500-1000 times as much waste by weight as the product which is shipped to market. The wastes are called 'tailings', and today Canada's inventory of radioactive tailings is over 120 million tonnes - that's enough to cover the TransCanada Highway 2 metres deep all the way from Halifax to Vancouver! Because the waste from uranium mining is so vast, no serious attempt has ever been made to actually contain it from the surrounding environment, so it's normally just dumped into the nearest lake or bog. radioactivity b) Radioactivity: although most of the uranium in the host rock is removed before the tailings are dumped into a pond or 'dam', other radioactive elements remain. Radium is a particularly nasty leftover which is radioactive with a half-life of 1,600 years, accumulates in the food chain, and seeks bone in human beings. Radium also decays into radon, a radioactive noble gas which travels many hundreds of kilometres from the waste piles before decaying and 'falling out' as solid radioactive particles of polonium, bismuth and lead ('radon daughters'). The govemment has acknowledged that at Cigar Lake "radon concentrations will increase... [and] radon daughters will enter local aquatic and terrestrial food chains". About 85% of the radioactivity originally present in the ore remains in the waste, and is slowly dispersed into the ecosystem. longevity c) Longevity: The waste from uranium mining remains radioactive for 800,000 years, or ten half-lives of thorium 230. As thorium undergoes radioactive decay, it is transformed into other elements which are more dangerous than thorium itself (such as radium 226). Studies done for the Canadian government have shown that uranium wastes will result in radiation doses to humans which actually rise after about 100 years. In uranium mining regions, fish and small mammals, as well as vegetation, have elevated levels of radioactivity. People who depend on fish, small game, and the gathering of wild food (such as native northerners) may suffer ill effects from radioactive pollution: elevated cancer rates, genetic mutation, and immunodeficiency. Tailings dumped into the environment in the Elliot Lake region of Ontario resulted in the death of virtually the entire Serpent River system, a 55 mile stretch of freshwater lakes and streams. The point at which the Serpent River enters Lake Huron is still the single largest source of radium for the Great Lakes Basin. The new high-grade mines will produce wastes which are very high in deadly radium. One experiment has been carried out in containing radium-bearing wastes, at Cluff Lake. Having agreed that radium wastes would be contained in casks, the company simply dumped the waste into the environment when the casks began cracking open after only a few years. Our understanding of radiation in the environment (a study known as 'radioecology') is at present rudimentary; we do know however that no dose of radiation can be considered 'safe'. The industry and govemment have for years simply assumed that the ecosystem will be protected from the effects of radiation if people's exposure is below the 'acceptable' limit set by government. This assumption is currently under severe criticism from many scientists, but the Canadian government has recently cut funding for detailed ecological studies which were recommended by its own consultants. As you will learn below, Canadians don't need uranium, nor does the rest of the world. A precautionary approach to pollution demands that we stop uranium mining. 2- NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR POWER Nuclear energy, whether for weapons of mass destruction or for electricity generation, is a technology in search of a purpose. Originally harnessed in order to kill many thousands of people in a short space of time, nuclear energy was subsequently justified as a way of boiling water to produce electricity. 'Atoms for Peace', a programme touted by Eisenhower himself, brought hundreds of massive and dangerous nuclear reactors into existence before any public debate had sanctioned the build-up. In the 1970s, citizens around the world began questioning the value and safety of nuclear power, and the industry has been on the defensive ever since. The future will be nuclear-free. The powerful energy efficiency technologies available today have already eclipsed the old-fashioned power-supply technologies like oil, coal and nuclear power. Canada has fallen behind its industrial competitors in improving the efficiency with which we use energy to fuel our economy, using up to four times as much power for a dollar of output as other nations do. The nuclear industry survives by promoting the waste of electricity, promoting such unwise technologies as electrical- resistance heating (base-board heaters). The efficient use of existing energy supplies has been systematically sabotaged by electric utilities committed to nuclear power. But many leading industrial countries, such as the UK and Sweden, are looking to the future and are rapidly abandoning nuclear power because it is too costly, too dangerous, and just simply unnecessary. renewable energy forms will supply our needs Experts agree that the entire world's energy demand could drop in absolute terms over the next 50 years if we act now to use existing energy wisely and efficiently. Once we have achieved all the efficiency that is technically possible, renewable energy forms will supply our needs. Since Canada is one of the most energy-wasteful countries in the world, our prospects for energy efficiency are better than for most nations. Ontario, for example, could cut its electricity use by 25% without any negative impact on lifestyle or economic performance. The positive impacts would be substantial though, more jobs at a lower cost than nuclear power, increased economic competitiveness, less CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere, and a much lower risk of nuclear accidents. A very important question has not been answered: Does Canadian uranium feed the nuclear arms race? Does our nuclear fuel make someone else's cruise missile? The simple answer is yes, our uranium is in nuclear weapons all over the world. Probably even in the Soviet Union's arsenal. Our uranium industry was started with taxpayers' money precisely to build weapons for the US and the UK. But the nuclear industry and the Federal government have spent a long time and a lot of money making sure that this is not a simple question. When we sell our uranium overseas, we ask the customer to use it for 'peaceful' purposes. The customer says yes, it will not go into making bombs. But then, when Canada asks that the uranium be kept physically separate from weapons material, the answer is no. Most of our uranium is exported, and most of our exports go to nuclear weapons states. The nuclear-armed nations refuse to separate the production of fuel for reactors from the production of nuclear material for weapons. And furthermore, 5 of every 6 kilograms of uranium which we ship into nuclear weapons states end up in a military stockpile beyond our control. This uranium, called Depleted Uranium (DU) is no good for fuelling reactors but it is very good for doubling the blast of hydrogen bombs. Members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan have charged that Canadian uranium is used to construct the MX Missile, hydrogen bombs, and armour-piercing bullets. 3- UNSUSTAINABLE ECONOMICS Some people support the expansion of the uranium industry. They claim that the economic benefits of mining uranium outweigh the environmental and moral costs. This argument can be broken down further: taxes and royalties a) Taxes and Royalties: It is frequently claimed, especially by politicians, that allowing the mining of uranium will generate large amounts of money for the relevant govemment through taxes on profits and royalties on sales revenue. Actual experience over the last decade does not bear this out, and the situation is getting worse. The Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry was set up in the late '70s to examine the acceptability of opening a large new uranium mine in Saskatchewan. The Board's final report is embarrassing today, because the members swallowed the industry's promise of vast amounts of cash rolling into government coffers faster than it could be counted. The actual experience since then, however, has been disastrous. Expecting up to $1.4 billion over ten years with the opening of three huge mines, the Government of Saskatchewan has in fact garnered less than $200 million. Having put its money into developing the industry, the Saskatchewan govemment is now faced with the possibility of never recovering its investment, which was in any case a lot more than the projected return. The final insult is that it is the people of Canada and Saskatchewan who will pay, and pay, and pay, for the costs of taking care of the waste the industry leaves behind. But what about the future? So the experience was bad in the past, things will get better'. Between the time of the naive Cluff Inquiry predictions and today, the world price for uranium has slid downwards to levels never before seen. It is now below 12% of its price in the mid-70s (in 1989 dollars). And the price of uranium isn't rising, it's falling. And it will continue to fall, according to a study done for Greenpeace International, especially if the Federal and Saskatchewan governments continue to push for the opening of Cigar Lake, Midwest Lake and Kiggavik. The world market is glutted with uranium, and Canada's new mines will only make the situation worse. If the new mines open, the world price for uranium cannot be expected to rise for many years. jobs b) Jobs: It appears that the opening of new uranium mines will create new jobs. Of course, if you spend upwards of a billion dollars on anything you are bound to create some jobs. But how many jobs, at what cost, and for how long? If the justification for uranium mining on the basis of revenue isn't coherent, what about the jobs? Are they sustainable? Uranium mining does create jobs, but it creates very few for the money, for a very short time, and it doesn't create them for local residents. Creating jobs in the nuclear industry costs on average about eight times the cost of job-creation in manufacturing. In the uranium sector, the costs are even higher: At the Cluff Lake mine, each job cost almost half a million dollars to create. At the Key Lake mine, now the world's largest, each job cost $1 million to create. In addition to the small number of jobs, uranium mining creates jobs for skilled southern labour, not for local residents who have to bear the brunt of the environmental impact of the mining operations.To add insult to injury, these jobs will only last for 10-15 years. For the local resident, uranium mining disrupts traplines, pollutes lakes, streams, fish and animals, and leaves massive piles of radioactive waste which expose people to radiation for thousands of years. But just as importantly, uranium mining sucks up public money which could have been used to benefit northerners, many of whom are very poor. Neither the public revenues from uranium mining nor the political authority to allow it have ever been turned over to democratic local govemments in the uranium mining regions, despite promises to this effect. One final note on jobs: company executives of Cigar Lake Mining Corporation, the firm set up to exploit the Cigar Lake deposit, have said that radiation levels in the mine may be so high that it will have to be mined by robots. 4- OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH EFFECTS In the Elliot Lake region of Canada, recent evidence shows that uranium miners suffer lung cancer at a rate almost double the average for Canadians. Radon gas in the mines decays into solid particles which are deposited onto the linings of the lungs of miners. These particles are themselves radioactive, and they can cause cancer. But two important factors suggest that the new uranium mines may be even more deadly. new evidence a) New evidence of risks of radiation: Following new research on the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists have discovered that radiation is at least 3 times more deadly than had been thought. According to some leading experts, radiation may be 10 times as effective at inducing cancer as previously reported. high-grade ore bodies b) High-grade ore-bodies: Exposure to radiation in a uranium mine is closely related to the 'grade' of the ore, or how much radioactive mineral there is per tonne of rock. At the new Cigar Lake and Midwest Lake uranium mines being promoted by the govemment, the ore-grades are as much as 1000 times higher than in existing mines. Radiation doses will be extremely high, or else the workforce will be rotated quickly so that a larger population gets a smaller dose. Either way, the cancer incidence arising from these new mines will dwarf the disaster we have already seen at Elliot Lake in Ontario. The situation will be so bad at Cigar Lake that the union representing uranium miners in Canada (United Steelworkers of America) has joined Greenpeace in opposing its development. But there's more. In the United Kingdom and Sweden, the new evidence of radiation risks has already prompted health authorities to tighten the minimal restrictions on radiation doses to workers and the public to less than one-third of Canada's level. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is expected to follow suit in 1990. Who's leading the charge against better protection for workers and the public? Why, Canada of course, the world's largest uranium producer. So Canadian workers labour under archaic health and safety laws that are unacceptable in other countries, and you the public can be exposed to radiation at levels 10 times that allowed in other countries. Conclusion So it appears that the expansion of the uranium industry now being pushed by our government is unwise and uneconomic. Driven by inertia and the insatiable desire of the corporate sector to tum over its capital into profit no matter what the cost to human beings and the ecosystem, the uranium expansion must be stopped. And it must be stopped now, for a delay in mounting the arguments against uranium mining will lock us into 2 or 3 decades of hazardous waste production, cancer among miners, and waste of public funds. ACT NOW TO STOP URANIUM MINING WRITE to your Member of Parliament and the Energy Minister, Mr. Jake Epp. Tell them that you've had enough of unsustainable development, enough of watching the north raped for short-term private gain, enough of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. EDUCATE yourself and your friends about the hazards of the nuclear fuel cycle and especially uranium mining. Speak out whenever you get the chance, and learn to think for the future, not the past. Use energy wisely. JOIN Greenpeace or your local environmental organization so you can actively support the campaign for a nuclear-free future.