Dr. Jim Harding and then-Prairies organizer Sheila Muxlow point to the proposed site for the nuclear power plant at Lac Cardinal.
CBC reports, “Bruce Power announced Monday it will no longer go ahead with a controversial nuclear power plant proposed for Peace River, Alta. …The company wanted to build Alberta’s first nuclear power plant on a site outside Peace River, about 480 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. The first site, located on Lac Cardinal, 30 kilometres west of the town, alarmed some residents who worried about its proximity to a freshwater aquifer that provides drinking water for the area. …A second location, about 30 kilometres north of Peace River, was chosen two months later, but residents also worried about the site’s impact on water and wildlife in the area. The company will now focus its attention on its Ontario operations, Hawthorne said.”
The Summer 2009 issue of Canadian Perspectives features an article on the Council of Canadians Peace River chapter which was formed to fight against this proposed nuclear power plant near their community,
http://canadians.org/publications/CP/2009/summer/Peace_River_profile.pdf. In the article, chapter activist Mandy Melnyk states, “One day I woke up and heard that the government was seriously proposing to build a nuclear plant in our region with Bruce Power. A bunch of us from the community came together to educate ourselves and connect with other people who had the resources we needed to learn more. We formed as a chapter because of this in August 2008 and became active in the Keep Alberta Nuclear Free coalition.”
The Edmonton Journal notes, “Public consultation was done in 2009, with more than half of 3,600 respondents opposed to adding nuclear into the province’s energy mix. …The Bruce Power proposal didn’t sit well with some residents of the region, including Denis Sauvageau, spokesman for the Peace River Environmental Society. His group fought the plan for years because of the risk something could eventually go wrong at the plant. …’They’ve been pretty quiet for the last six months to a year here,’ he said. ‘I feel Alberta spoke up. We looked at this and said we really don’t want this going on in our backyard. There’s a lot of other options we need to exhaust before we consider nuclear.'”
The Council of Canadians rejects nuclear power because it poses an unacceptable risk to people and the environment. It is neither clean, safe, peaceful, nor economic. Staff and chapters are currently campaigning against the proposed shipments of nuclear waste from the Bruce Power nuclear plant on the Great Lakes, the disposal of nuclear waste in Saskatchewan, the building of two new nuclear reactors on the north shore of Lake Ontario east of Toronto, and has expressed opposition to the relicensing of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick.
Congratulations to everyone involved over the years to stop the nuclear power plant in Alberta.
