Passionate presentations made at Uranium public consultation in Swift Current

One Hundred and twenty people showed up for the Uranium Public Consultation Process that was held in Swift Current last Wednesday. The mainly anti-uranium crowd in attendance left no doubt that they were opposed to the development of the Uranium in Saskatchewan.

Tom Shelstad was very pleased that everyone had a chance to say what they wanted and the way the meeting was ran impressed him.

"I am very pleased with the format they had here. Everybody had a chance to say what they wanted to say and we got a wide variety of opinions and ideas. I am really impressed. It was a lot better than I expected."

While Shelstad is opposed to the development of uranium, he did offer ideas on alternative options for energy in Saskatchewan.

"Energy conservation is an untapped area that we could really pursue. We have technologies now that we didn't have before so we can make our machines run better and more efficient than ever before.

"Solar power, we have enough sunshine and wide open spaces here we could easily have solar farms here. There are a lot of rooftop in Saskatchewan and you could add solar panels to all of them and that would make quite a difference."

"Nuclear power has been around since the second world war and we have had a lot of experience with it so now we know all the drawbacks and pitfalls with it. There are a lot of them. There are a lot of problems with nuclear power and not only that, economically it seems to be the most expensive form of power around so why would we pursue nuclear power if we have alternatives."

Derroll Castle expected that the consultation would be dominated by anti-uranium people because a lot of supporters of nuclear energy just don't care enough to show up.

"I was expecting a very anti nuclear crowd and that is exactly what we got," Castle noted. He was not surprised to see fewer pro-nuclear supporters. "Probably not, as most people don't care so then they don't show up."

Having worked in the field, Castle says a lot of the myths surrounding uranium are based on false information.

"I did a stint of work in Red Deer with atomic energy work. I understand what it is for, I understand where it came from, I understand the training we did for it and its fear," he said.

A lot of the information and conclusions that people have come up with comes from television shows and so on, which Castle feels adds to the fear of nuclear energy.

"There is a legitimate fear out there because people are watching television and people are remembering the 'Long Island' and the Second World War."

Castle feels that nuclear energy is safe and that there have been a lot of improvements to the regulation and safety procedures with nuclear energy.

"The Atomic Energy Board of Canada, they manage all the training. Every radioactive source in the country and all the people running it, whatever it is."

He added that the tracking of the nuclear products is very closely maintained and its whereabouts is monitored like other dangerous materials.

"In the oilfield, we were using it as a velocity force and a density source. Those things are tracked just like dynamite."

Castle also feels it is very important to hear from the people that are experienced working with nuclear energy and find out from people like this so that a person can make a judgement by gaining knowledge on both sides of the issue.

"You need those scientists that are working with the stuff everyday day, like in the Canadian Light Source like the Synchrotron Project in Saskatoon Those people need to be involved in this discussion because there is some research there. Saskatchewan has the chance to be a huge leader in this business and we are just going to let it slide if we just take the fear side."

gbowditch@swbooster.com