Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Lance Haymond and I represent the Algonquin community of Kebaowek. I'd like to talk to you today about nuclear waste poisoning the Ottawa River as a result of the near-surface disposal facility project that will be built at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario.
The Kichi Sibi, as we call it—or the Ottawa River—has been our home and highway since time immemorial. For thousands of years, the Algonquin nation respected this waterway. Today, the Kichi Sibi is a water source that provides drinking water for over 10 million people. For this reason, I will outline our concerns about the short- and long-lived radionuclides proposed for Chalk River, the above-ground nuclear disposal mound and the potential for radioactive leakage and nuclear waste poisoning the Ottawa River.
Chalk River continues to play an important role in international nuclear development. In 1944, it was part of the Manhattan project to produce the world's first heavy-water reactors and plutonium for bombs. Two hundred and fifty kilograms of plutonium was sold to the American military for use in nuclear weapons. Chalk River began as a very secretive establishment in 1944. Algonquin communities were never consulted.
You have to understand that, in 1944, my ancestors were struggling to survive because of the onslaught of colonization that was pushing them further north along the Ottawa River. The result is that the Chalk River side is very heavily contaminated with lots of radioactive waste materials: 21 tanks of liquid waste, and five or six different waste areas containing intermediate- to high-level waste. There's also waste from two reactor accidents that took place in 1952 and 1958. The world's first nuclear meltdown took place at Chalk River in 1952.
In 2006, the Government of Canada initiated the nuclear legacy liabilities program to clean up the waste. In 2015, it hired a consortium of multinational corporations to carry out this work. The consortium conveniently decided to build a waste dump seven storeys high one kilometre from the Ottawa River, which feeds down into the St. Lawrence. A hundred and forty municipalities along the watershed have expressed opposition to the permanent disposal site. Over 3,000 people recently signed a House of Commons petition requesting the Government of Canada stop the project.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved project construction in January 2024, despite 10 of the 11 Algonquin communities expressing strong opposition. The project is at a land height that drains into the wetlands, which drain into the Ottawa River. The waste is going to leak into the Ottawa River. That is our complaint. Why was this site selected? We believe it's simply a matter of convenience. In this view, it's easiest to push the waste to the perimeter of the property.
In our view, this has the potential to poison our water supply and immediately destroy an old-growth forest with active bear dens and other species at risk. The project is the wrong technology in the wrong location. It's not a temporary project. This dump would be a permanent facility—19 of the 29 radionuclides listed in the disposal inventory have half-lives of more than 1,000 years. This is long-lived radioactivity. On-site water treatment is only planned to be continued for 30 years. After that, it's up to whatever synthetic liner holds the waste-water material in place.
Kebaowek has been very clear to Canada: You should not dump garbage where you draw your water. Canada should not have approved a permanent nuclear waste dump on Algonquin sacred territory. According to article 29 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there should be “no storage or disposal of [toxic] materials” on indigenous lands without the “free, prior and informed consent” of indigenous people. I know this government takes pride in its adoption of UNDRIP. The problem is that its actions don't necessarily correlate with its words.
The Kichi Sibi is in the bloodline of the Algonquin people. It feeds all living things. If you poison the lifeblood, you poison everything. We are faced today with an intergenerational challenge at Chalk River. We have to think of it in those terms and consider whether the NSDF project is the best solution to keep nuclear waste out of our food chain and drinking water. Kebaowek has been clear that the NSDF is not the best solution, while Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility notes that a solution would mean we know how to neutralize it or render it harmless.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and the consortium do not know how to do that. That is why Kebaowek and others are seeking and have filed a judicial review with the Federal Court to annul the licensing decision—