*This letter was written by Mr. John Mann and sent to the Minister, Premier as well as a number of other key stakeholders. Mr. Mann has given SOSGL permission to share his letter with the hopes that it will inspire similar actions by the members of our community.
January 10, 2018
Hi Minister McKenna, Prime Minister Trudeau, Jeff Lyash, Premier Wynne, Deep Geologic Repository Project, & Robyn-Lynne Virtue:
On Monday night, January 8, 2018, OPG presented an update to Saugeen Shores council regarding its doomed clothes and rags DGR. [The DGR for clothes and rags is barred by time and barred by common sense because spent fuel remains on the surface with no solution in site!]
At the council meeting, OPG did not address the Statute of Limitations that time-bars its DGR for clothes and rags. As you are aware, the clothes and rags DGR is time-barred by the 24 month Statute of Limitations of CEAA. As you are also aware, the 24 month time clock started on June 29, 2007, when OPG’s clothes and rags DGR was referred to the Joint Review Panel. More that 120 months [10 years or 1 decade] has now passed. In fact, the proposed OPG DGR for clothes and rags has been irresponsibly on Minister McKenna’s docket awaiting her decision for more than 24 months. Under any calculation, the 24 months expired years ago and time-bars the OPG DGR for clothes and rags.
In addition, after OPG made its presentation, Councilman Neil Manage, retired employee at the Bruce Power Nuclear site, stated that he was losing his “conviction” that there was a need for a clothes and rags DGR. However, he did say that he had a strong conviction for a DGR for irradiated fuel at the KIncardine nuclear facility. As a result, he asked OPG to conduct a Public Open House to answer why there is a necessity and urgency to build a clothes and rags DGR instead of a DGR for irradiated fuel at the Bruce Power Nuclear facility in Kincardine. OPG responded favourably to his request. Neil Manage confirmed his position to the media at the following link: http://www.98thebeach.ca/news_item.php?NewsID=98761
In the meantime, Minister McKenna, sua sponte and without any authority to do so, is waiting for SON to approve the clothes and rags DGR. After an unconscionable 18 years of trying to convince SON to approve a DGR for clothes and rags, OPG now tells us that it will take at least an additional year to accomplish that. It defies common sense, and it is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, to think that in the next year OPG will have some ground breaking new information that will convince SON to now approve the meaningless, useless, and unconscionably expensive clothes and rags DGR after being unable to do so for the past 18 years!
In any event, Minister McKenna, pursuant to the Statute of Limitations that time-bars the OPG DGR for clothes and rags, has no authority whatsoever to await SON’s approval and no authority whatsoever to issue a decision statement barred by law.
With all of the massive opposition to the clothes and rags DGR, and with 18 years of inept futility in this embarrassing 2-Track 2-DGR government boondoggle of all boondoggles, and with no clear pathway for spent fuel, there is only one decision that can be made and stops the continued obscene squandering of Taxpayer dollars – i.e., immediately terminate the proposed OPG DGR for clothes and rags and figure out what to do with spent fuel.
Most Respectfully,
John Mann,
Citizen and Registered Participant
Saugeen Shores