When Prime Minister Tim Houston recently raised the idea If the prohibition of the province of uranium exploration, the suggestion may have left some people scratching their heads.
After all, it is a practically old story. New Scotland has had a moratorium on exploration for almost 45 years, and a direct prohibition for more than 15 years. It is possible that some younger residents do not know anything about the problem.
So what is the entire uproar? How do we get to this point and what could come later?
Which led to prohibition
Although uranium minerals identified in Nueva Scotia since the beginning of the 20th century, only sporadic exploration efforts were made before 1976.
But when the Geological Survey of Canada published a study that year that showed promise for exploration, companies rushed to bet their statements. The amount of lands covered by uranium exploration licenses doubled more from the following year to cover more than 800,000 hectares in Nueva Scotia.
The frenzy was exacerbated by Europe’s interest in new energy sources. Uranium is used in the nuclear energy industry, as well as in nuclear weapons and in medicine.
Marilyn Manzer lived on a farm in Lower Burlington, NS, when he heard that a French company wanted to extract uranium in the headwaters of the nearby Avon River in Hants County.
“We didn’t know anything about Uranium at that time. We decided to start investigating it.”
Local residents formed a group called Citizen Action to protect the environment. The members connected in a network with scientists, doctors and activists, with a few hours of spending hours in university libraries studying scientific newspapers to understand the latest developments.
Public concern led the province to initiate investigation into the industry.
Forty -four public meetings They were carried out throughout the province, and the vast majority of the speakers expressed opposition to the exploration and mining of Uranium.
Residents and organizations expressed concerns about the potential to damage the effects of health due to radioactivity, the impact on the health of miners, water and air pollution, the potential of a pond or tailings leak The effect on agriculture and wildlife, among other issues.
“It was quite intense,” says Manzer. “The people who arrived at the meetings were very concerned about the hazards of health and environmental to new scotland of this practice. And many people came because they wanted to learn about that. And then, when they learned about it, they obtained. Active, and began to Stir to try to stop it. “
In 1981, public pressure led the provincial government to declare a moratorium on the exploration and mining of Uranium, and in 2009 the NDP government legislated a complete prohibition.
Both were seen as victories for those who had pressed to stop the activities.
But another camp says it is time for the prohibition to end.
Industry support
He New Scotland Mining Association says many people have erroneous concepts about uranium.
“His understanding of uranium comes from action films where uranium is painted as a villain for the good of Hollywood stories,” says Sean Kirby, executive director. “The reality is that it is an essential material that we all benefit, and that extracting it and working with it is a perfectly safe and environmentally responsible activity.”
There have been “great jumps” in the science and technology of uranium mining in recent decades, says Kirby.
He says that most today’s uranians are extracted in such a way that there are no tailings ponds, areas where the waste material is stored, usually in wells on the ground. Some operations are now largely machinedand the machinery that extracts uranium is remotely operated by workers who are not directly exposed to the material.
Erin Adlakha, associated professor of Geology at the University of Saint Mary, says that uranium mining is the safest mining practice in Canada due to the strict environmental regulations imposed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. He CNSC publishes reports On the safety of Canadian uranium mines and mills.
“They ensure that all environmental risks are considered, monitor and regulate, and also guarantee the safety of workers and also the remediation of mines sites,” says Adlakha, who collaborates with federal governments and other provincial governments to investigate Uranium deposits.
Adlakha would also like to see the raised ban. She says that leaving uranium on the ground can cause the underground water to be leaked, including drinking water.
She said that the prohibition also suffocates the exploration of other critical minerals, since they are often found together with uranium deposits. According to the prohibition, if the uranium is in quantities greater than 100 parts per million, the exploration must stop, even if the company was not really looking for uranium.
“That 100 ppm cut is extremely low,” says Adlakha. “It is unreasonable, just above the background levels, and there is no science based on that number. It is just an arbitrary cut.”
How much uranium is in New Scotland?
The amount of uranium that the Histians of the rookies is unknown is unknown.
“We really had our efforts in the exploration of uranium nibbled at the outbreak in 1981,” says Kirby. “Therefore, we cannot definitely say if new Scotland really has an economically viable deposit.”
But according to Adlakha’s study on historical exploration and data, as well as the geology of Nueva Scotia, he believes that the perspectives are promising.
“Where we have this granite that is of the right type to produce uranium deposits covered by this sandstone that would have marine waters that are excellent for dissolving and reproving uranium, it is the perfect geological environment to form large uranium deposits.”
She compares the New Scotland geological scenario with that of the Athabasca basin in northern Saskatchewan and the deposit of the Olympic dam in Australia, which are two of the world’s leading uranium producers.
Some critical points known in Nueva Scotia include a strip that extends from the Annapolis Valley to the interior of the province to Halifax County, as well as the Pugwash area.
Saskatchewan’s experience
New Scotland is not the only province to prohibit exploration or uranium mining. British Columbia and Quebec also have prohibitions, as well as other international jurisdictions.
But another provincial government in Canada has adopted the industry. Saskatchewan has been the home of the Uranium mines since the 1950s, and the current mines operated by Camco and Orano produce on 20 percent of the world’s uranium supplyand includes the best degree uranium mines in the world.
The mines generated $ 1.6 billion in sales in 2023and contributed more than half a billion dollars to the provincial GDP in 2022.
However, the industry is not without its critics.
Ann Coxworth is a nuclear training by training and has been involved with energy and environmental organizations in Saskatchewan for decades.
She says that many years ago, dangers did not understand each other well, and “really bad mistakes were made,” such as throwing tailings directly into the lakes. These practices led to contamination in the basins that exists to this day.
Coxworth says that the newest mines are more careful, and technology has advanced over the years. Some mines proposed in Saskatchewan would see tailings mixed with cement and stored underground in the mine, while others would only see the uranium taken to the surface, leaving everything else under the ground.
But she and others still care about the long -term potential for contaminants to escape containment.
“We are still concerned about the situation of the situation within 500 years, and that is something that regulators simply cannot face, because there are too many unknowns.”
Coxworth offers this advice since New Scotland faces a potential future in uranium: “I would say that you are very careful. Do not allow things to hurry. Be prepared to take the time to make all the necessary consultation.”
What follows?
Manzer says that she feels betrayed by the possibility that uranium exploration returns to the province, and adds that Houston’s statement wants to “take out the ‘no’ of new Scotland” by pressing for a more natural resources development of resources than Choose your previous efforts with a negative light.
“We were working, really, to be positive and protect this province,” she says. “I am surprised to see that this grows again.”
Even if the government decides to open the province to Uranium Mining tomorrow, “there is no one hitting our door,” says Kirby of the Sean Kirby Minera Association of Nueva Scotia.
“What you have to do is lift the ban and expect to raise the prohibition help to attract interest in our uranium. Certainly, there is worldwide interest in finding more uranium deposits,” he says.
When asked recently if a change in the prohibition was coming, the Minister of Environment, Tim Halman, He told reporters to “be attentive.”
The spring session of the Legislature, and the first session of the progressive conservative supermayization of Tim Houston, began on Friday.
