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Red Light for Uranium Mining in Quebec: Quebec meillure mine Coalition Welcomes the Independent Panel Conclusions

[ http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/red-ligh ... anel-concl ]

Friday, July 17, 2015

(Quebec) The Coalition pour que le Québec ait meilleure mine welcomes the conclusions [ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... um-enjeux/ ] of the Quebec Environmental & Public Hearings Panel (BAPE), which concluded that the risks and uncertainties of the mining of uranium relating to health and the environment are still too numerous to allow it to proceed. The BAPE concluded that in the current context, “it would be inappropriate to authorize uranium mining in Québec.” (Summary Report, p.2)
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... %A9ral.pdf ]

Quebec called to ban uranium mining

“We are very pleased with the findings of the report of the BAPE, which after more than a year of analysis and dozens of public consultations in the four corners of Quebec, confirms what we have been saying for years: the risks and uncertainties uranium mining on health and the environment are still too numerous to allow their operation,” says Dominique Bernier, coordinator of the Coalition Québec meillure mine.

“We now ask Quebec to implement the conclusions of the BAPE and follow the examples of British Columbia and Nova Scotia in legislating against the development of such mines in Quebec,” said Ugo Lapointe of MiningWatch Canada and co-spokesperson of the Coalition Québec meillure mine.

Radioactivity: at the heart of the issue

In the comprehensive 626-page report, the BAPE concluded that the radioactivity of the ore and mining waste that is left behind form the heart of the acceptability challenge faced by this industry. Each mine typically produces thousands of tons of mining waste containing a cocktail of toxic elements, including several that remain radioactive in the very long term (thousands of years). Despite improvements in recent years, the BAPE is not satisfied with the current methods and technologies to maintain the long-term safety of uranium sites. The BAPE also fears the high cost that these sites could leave for society over the long term, both environmentally and economically.

A socially unacceptable sector

Given the risks and uncertainties of uranium mining, the BAPE also notes that this industry enjoys no social acceptability in Quebec. During the hearings, a vast majority of intervenors were against the sector, in addition to many organizations that have taken formal positions, including hundreds of municipalities and all First Nations in Quebec.

The Coalition will respond in detail to the full report in a forthcoming communication.

For more information:
• Dominique Bernier, 418-570-3497, quebecmeilleuremine@gmail.com
• Ugo Lapointe, 514-708-0134, ugo@miningwatch.ca


All links to the BAPE documentation (in French, English, Cree, and Inuktitut) are here: http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... um-enjeux/

• Main summary:
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... %A9ral.pdf ]
• Health and Environment summary:
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... nement.pdf ]
• Lack of Social Licence Summary:
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... ociale.pdf ]
• Economy & Governance Issues Summary:
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/man ... rnance.pdf ]
• Cree-English Summary:
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/rap ... nglais.pdf ]
• Inuktitut-English Summary:
[ http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/rap ... nglais.pdf ]

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EDWARDS: BACKGROUND: Quebec’s "Plan Nord" project snubs uranium mining in the province

[ [ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/try-it-n ... d=25714987 ]

by Gordon Edwards July 28, 2015

Uranium Moratorium in Quebec --> Declaration of the World Uranium Symposium --> UBAN movement

There has never been a uranium mine in the province of Quebec. In the last decade, however, there has been a great deal of uranium exploration as a result of the foolish "uranium bubble" of 2006-2007, resulting in skyrocketing uranium prices, based on rumors that a massive nuclear renaissance was about to materialize. That nuclear power "boom" never occurred, and uranium prices quickly sank back down to unprofitable levels. It has since become clear that nuclear power has stagnated and is on the decline in North America and Western Europe. It is also evident that the role of nuclear will continue to decline world-wide for the next couple of decades at least, because new reactors could not be built fast enough in such localities as Eastern Europe and Asia to make up for all the old reactors that will be shutting down in the west over the next few years.

In 2013, the Quebec government declared a moratorium on uranium exploration and mining pending the outcome of a one-year generic environmental assessment of the long-term social, economic and environmental impacts of uranium mining in the Quebec context. That investigation involved public hearings and written interventions in 2014 followed by the writing of a report of more than 600 pages by a three-member panel. The final report was released on July 17, 2015. It recommends against uranium mining in Quebec in the present context and for many years to come. The Quebec government will now have to decide whether to make the uranium moratorium permanent, as British Columbia has done, or to legislate a ban on uranium mining as Nova Scotia has done, or to pursue some other course of action.

The uranium moratorium of 2013 was prompted by an extraordinary degree of mobilization against uranium mining in the Quebec population. For example, in 2010, 23 doctors at the Hospital in Sept-Iles wrote an open letter to the Minister of Natural Resources saying they would resign their positions at the hospital, leave the community, and possibly leave the province, unless the government bans uranium mining. Also in 2010, Cree communities in Eeyou-Istchee, covering vast portions of Northern Quebec, united in declaring their steadfast and non-negotiable opposition to uranium mining on their territory.

Over 400 Quebec municipalities passed resolutions against nuclear power and uranium mining in Quebec, and the issue was raised at the Association of Quebec Municipalities. Environmental groups in the regions most affected by uranium exploration -- the Hautes Laurentides, the North Shore, the Otish mountains in Cree territory, the Gatineau region, and Nunavik, the Inuit territory in the far northern reaches of Quebec -- helped to educate their local populations about the long term risks associated not only with the uranium mining operations but also with the huge volumes of radioactive wastes that are left behind, abandoned, containing some of the most deadly radioactive materials known to science (radium, radon, polonium, and radioactive species of bismuth and lead), having an effective radioactive half-life of 76,000 years.

Even after the uranium moratorium was declared and the environmental assessment was launched, opposition continued to mount. In 2014 the Makivik corporation and the Kativik Regional Government, representing the Inuit of Northern Quebec, as well as the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, representing all other pertinent First Nations communities, followed the Cree example by declaring their adamant opposition to uranium mining.

In April 2015, an ambitious three-day World Uranium Symposium was held in Quebec City, attended by representatives from North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, India, Australia and Greenland. This event proved to be very educational as well as motivational, culminating in the Declaration of the World Uranium Symposium, approved by the overwhelming majority of participants, calling for a global ban on uranium mining. The Declaration has led to the UBAN movement -- a global movement to ban the mining, processing and use of uranium everywhere. Organizations of all kinds are urged to join this movement. See for example the inspirational YouTube video on the UBAN movement in Africa: [ http://tinyurl.com/pmhnspl ]

The Uranium Declaration and the UBAN movement are both inspired by a similar declaration emanating from the Nobel-prize-winning organization, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), in Basel Switzerland in 2006.

Uranium mining has had devastating effects on aboriginal communities around the world; uranium is the key element indispensable in the production of nuclear weapons of all descriptions; the only other significant use for uranium is as fuel for nuclear reactors used for electricity and isotope production; there are cost-effective and safer alternative methods for producing both electricity and isotopes, and irradiated uranium fuel inevitably contains plutonium, a uranium derivative that can be used to make nuclear explosives for tens of thousands of years to come; hence it is considered necessary that uranium be left in the ground if a nuclear weapons-free and sustainable future, not subject to the risk of massive radioactive contamination, is to be achievable.

The Uranium Declaration can be found at
[ http://www.ccnr.org/Declaration_WUS_2015.pdf ].


Endorsements by individuals and by groups can be registered at [ http://uranium2015.com/en/news/quebecdeclarationuranium ].


Gordon Edwards, President
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
http://www.ccnr.org


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Quebec’s "Plan Nord" project snubs uranium mining in the province

[ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/try-it-n ... d=25714987 ]

Bertrand Marotte, Globe and Mail, July 27, 2015

[ http://tinyurl.com/orxyw67 ]

Quebec is moving steadfastly ahead on its Plan Nord project to open up the vast resource-rich northern reaches of the province. But there is one activity notably absent from the to-do list in the 20-year mining-forestry-energy action plan: uranium mining.

Despite progress made in recent years polishing Quebec’s image as an unwelcoming place for investment in mining ventures, uranium exploration and development continue to be blocked by the government over environmental, health and social concerns.

Quebec uranium mining company Strateco Resources Inc. – once promoted as a high-profile player in a previous, more ambitious incarnation of the Plan Nord – is caught in the middle of a seemingly endless conflict over the right to mine the yellow mineral.

The latest blow to Strateco’s nearly decade-long effort to launch the province’s first uranium mine – in Northern Quebec – is a recommendation from the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) agency that it would be premature at this time to authorize development of a uranium industry.

Allowing uranium mining operations would be “premature” in the current context because there are too many uncertainties and unanswered questions as to the risks involved, the BAPE said in its 626-page report recently made public. The report, based on one year of public consultations throughout the province, said Quebec should – however – carefully weigh the consequences of a temporary or permanent ban on uranium extraction, specifically the “legal and economic impacts.”

The Quebec government said it will establish an interdepartmental committee to assess the findings.

The province’s Cree Nation strongly opposes Strateco’s proposed mine. “The BAPE’s report confirms what the Cree Nation has long maintained: that uranium development poses unique and significant risks for our lands, our environment, our communities and our future generations,” Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees Matthew Coon Come said.

For Strateco president and chief executive officer Guy Hébert, the BAPE report amounts to a moratorium on mining the material used as fuel in nuclear reactors.

“This is a very bad message [the Quebec government] is sending to foreign investors,” he said.

Strateco is suing the provincial government for $190-million in investment losses as a result of Quebec’s blocking its underground Matoush uranium project in the Otish Mountains. Mr. Hébert said his company invested an average of $20-million a year on the project between 2006 and 2012 based on the existing legal and regulatory framework that never suggested uranium was problematic.

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The company is seeking interim financing to allow it continue its $190-million suit against the government.

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