My name is Louis Brown, I am a resident of North Bay and I am very pleased to have this opportunity to be involved in these Public hearings. I would like to explain my back ground before I begin my statement.
I am the owner and operator of Nor Environmental which I started after retiring from the Canadian military. I have been involved with the Environmental and Industrial Radiation field as a business since 1993. We have just expanded into the relatively new field of Special International Hazards consultation. My initiation into Nuclear field goes back to 1978 when with the military I became involved in the Nuclear Chemical and Biological Defence trade. I qualified as a Radiation Safety Specialist/ Officer (RADSO) in 1982. Part of my training as a RADSO involved working with AECL specialists at Chalk River during our graduation exercise (cleaning up a "staged and controlled" radiation accident).
The reason that I am, and have been so involved in following these proceedings is really a fluke of nature. I attended an Open House in Sudbury back in February 1995 at the Science North Centre hosted by the CEAA during the Phase I portion of this board. I was impressed with the competence of the presenters and the information they had for the public. I was very disturbed at the approach the environmentalists groups took. I saw "out and out" intimidation of the participants and of the public. I was embarrassed to think that these people were getting government funding to be involved in coming up with solutions, yet it seemed they were so afraid of the public obtaining information for themselves or that, the public might be able to make their own decisions from the material presented.
It worries me that if not directly involved in this process and one doesn't seek out the information, one only hears what is in the media, and that is primarily opposition to this project. I am very uneasy as to the balance or "reality" of information coming to this board about what public opinion actually is concerning this project and what that opinion if any is based upon.
So part of what I am here to say is; there are many people who really haven't heard both side of this issue, they in reality are the silent majority.
This was why I made the decision to take a hard look at all the information I could get hold of related to this whole question. It seemed to me at that Open House and ever since, that the proponents of this concept have had their hands tied. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't, when they try to educate the public or counter comments made by opponents to this project.
As an independent party I have tried to balance this perception, I have dedicated part of my company home page on the internet to ensuring easy access and links to the AECB, AECL, and CEAA home pages. This is to help the public in understanding what is happening with this whole process. I held an information evening on the 4th of Feb. It was not designed to promote my personal views, but to give out information about these hearings, the concepts proposed, and the important part that the public plays in them. It also explained the efforts this board has been making to fulfill its mandate. Many of the people that came out didn't even know that the hearings were coming to town.
My understanding and training in the nuclear field is at the "hands on" or operations level. I do understand the concepts that are being proposed and the problems that are yet to be solved. I, unlike some others have had an opportunity to see personnel at both AECL and Ontario Hydro at work, and have I think, a good understanding of the work ethic and short and long term safety efforts being made for protecting themselves and the public at large.
I personally feel that we must accept the responsibility that we as a nation, wittingly or unwittingly inherited when we started down this road to having nuclear technology. We have been world leaders in this technology, for peaceful purposes and medical research. As world leaders we must look at our role and the example that we set, showing not only ability to develop the technology, but to be responsible for the waste that is created and the protection of our citizens and environment now and in the future.
From all of the information I have seen and my personal experience, I feel that we have the understanding scientifically within the nuclear industry, and the industrial ability to move forward with this concept of permanent storage. We can set a positive example for the rest of the world by developing and carrying through with this project. I feel that the safe and permanent disposal of this material in the Canadian Shield is not only practical but necessary.
A second reason that I feel that this project must go ahead is the increasing vulnerability of our temporary storage sites and even our nuclear reactors. Today's domestic and international terrorist is not afraid of holding cities, complete nations for ransom or worse willing to destroy them to promote their own end. We have seen this come true in Tokyo and other parts of Japan with home made chemical weapons, and in Russia with the use of stolen or illicitly bought radioactive sources in Moscow. There are many experts who feel that we have entered an era when terrorists are willing to use any method to get on the news including mass destruction and regional or national scale blackmail. This by itself puts our temporary nuclear storage and our nuclear plants at risk. The longer we store this material where it is potentially accessible the more vulnerable it becomes. Many of us in the NBCD field working in Europe, back in the very early 80's felt that it was only a matter of time before this route was taken, unfortunately we seem to have been right. For many terrorist organizations it is not the holding of power but the perception of power and control that counts I have included a short piece about perception.
Recent article on perceived risk is in July. 96 issue of Reader's Digest...
"In 1980 psychologists asked three groups of ordinary citizens to rate 30 activities, substances and technologies by risk; then they compared the results with the ratings assigned by a panel of experts. In places, the citizens and experts agreed, such as on the risk of motor vehicles - No.1 by the experts and No.2 by one of the citizen groups. But on others there were large discrepancies: two groups rated nuclear power as their No.1 risk, whereas the experts rated it as No.20. Experts rated x-rays as No.7, while one group saw them as No.22. What, the scientists asked, was influencing the public's perception of risk? They found the public responds differently to voluntary and involuntary risks. We tolerate far greater risk when it is our own doing, such as smoking cigarettes or climbing mountains. But if the risk is something we can't control, such as pesticides on food or radiation from a nuclear-power plant, we protest even if the threat is minimal. Also, we tend to overestimate the probability of splashy and dreadful deaths and underestimate common but far more deadly risks. This results in a perception that the risk is higher than it actually is. For example people tend to overestimate the risk of death by flood (1 in 25,000) or tornado (1 in 56,000). On the other hand, strokes and heart attacks don't seem so dreadful, probably because they are so common: 1 in 1,757 and 1 in 2,865, respectively. The general public ranks accident and disease on an equal footing, although disease takes about 15 times more lives."
Like the majority of the Canadian public, I regularly hear most if not all of the arguments from those opposed to this project repeated again and again in the media, and I have also seen that some groups have arbitrarily made themselves spokesmen for the quote "silent majority". During the past two years I've talked to many people, not only in this region but other regions of the country about the subject of nuclear power and radioactive storage. Many freely admit they don't know enough about the subject to make any decisions one way or the other but add, that from what they have heard and read most want the nuclear industry stopped because it is so dangerous.
There is nothing in this world that is 100% guaranteed, that is something that we must accept as humans. We must not however, knowing the potential dangers of doing nothing, and feeling the agony of anticipating or projecting the unknown hazards of moving forward, allow the usual political reluctance and indifference to making the hard decisions stagnate or stifle efforts to deal with this serious long term problem now.
In Summary, Yes I believe this is concept is Viable, I am satisfied with what has been proposed, I think it MUST go forward, there is a realty in the concept of acceptable risk. I will continue as I have in the past promote discussion locally that this facility being proposed be situated in this region of the Canadian Shield.
Thank you for allowing me to express my opinion, and for your time here in North Bay.
Louis Brown
Nor Environmental