Peace and Environment News* November 1990
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Peace and Environment News * November 1990 |
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, directed by Magnus Isacsson.
Reviewed by Penny Sanger
 Stanrock tailings wall, Stanrock mine, Elliot Lake, Ontario |
Look carefully at the publicity photo for this new film. It was taken at Stanrock Mine, Elliot Lake, Ontario. Dead trees, lifeless soil and a twisting stream dominate the foreground. But look again at the faint grey mass stretching like a wall across the back of the frame. This is the waste from one mine—some of the 100 million tonnes of toxic waste already contaminating the Elliot Lake region. There will be twice this amount scattered throughout uranium mining sites in Canada by the end of this century, unless the mining is stopped.
Scientists dispute how dangerous to people these tailings are. But the moonscape in the picture shows their effect on the land and the life it used to support.
"...it's like peeing in your bedroom or shitting in a corner of the living room. It catches up with you sooner or later," says Gilbert Oskaboose, an Ojibway from the Serpent River band. His people were allowed to go on drinking from the river and eating its fish long after the whites in the area were given a clean water system.
Elliot Lake is west of Sudbury, frighteningly close to Georgian Bay, Manitoulin Island and the Great Lakes. This film opens with a powerful shot of the Serpent River, now heavily contaminated, which drains into Georgian Bay's picturesque North Channel, a popular haven for boaters and holidayers.
"The water doesn't stay around our village. It goes all over the place," Gilbert warns. It starts with the Great Lakes, where it takes years to flush out contaminants, which are then transported down the much-abused St. Lawrence River and into the world's oceans.
There are shots or low-level radiation expert Dr. Rosalie Bertell talking with the Serpent River people about their sickness. There is historic footage of happy miners setting off for another day's work digging out the substance that was to contribute to the Hiroshima disaster, the victory of the allied forces in World War II, the "explosive" growth of Elliot Lake—and their own high rates of lung cancer. They're wearing no protective equipment, certainly not, masks. Homer Seguin of the United Steel-workers' Union tells us that no other industry has for so long known about how it contaminates its workers and does so little about it.
Uranium is also being mined heavily in Northern Saskatchewan, where there have been serious spills into northern lakes and river systems. Joe Anderson, an amiable mine manager at Key Lake, explains how the latest technologies are being applied there, and how he believes that we must have uranium to meet our energy demands.
"It catches up with you sooner or later..." Gilbert Oskaboose's words exactly echo the words of a Port Hope, Ontario farmer who spent decades fighting the careless dumping practices of Eldorado Nuclear Ltd., who (under its new name Cameco) still processes Canada's uranium for sale to nuclear power generators here and in other countries.
It catches up with you because, as Gilbert knows, all life is connected. We're living better electrically as Ontario Hydro told us to—and we're beginning to recognize how much this has cost us in plundered resources and squandered heritage. Those scarecrow trees and dead river banks in the photo are intimately connected to sick children on the serpent River reserve.
Rosalie Bertell warns that we may be the last, best defenders of unsullied wilderness. Those who come after us may be too sick or mentally incapacitated to act effectively.
This excellent one-hour film has come about 20 years too late. The Serpent River people, miners and native people in Saskatchewan, and the land itself, have already been damaged. But the Darlington, Ontario nuclear energy expansion is again a question mark. And there is a wonderful real-life sequence in the film that should inspire us. The people of Clearwater, B.C. are sitting, looking skeptical, at a public information meeting on a proposed uranium mine near their town. Suddenly someone from the audience takes the mike in exasperation, talks about some of the double-talk and uncertainties that have come from proponents on the platform, and declares that the mine can't be built. The audience catches his fire, applauds wildly and starts chanting, "Out, out, out..." The upshot of that meeting is that the Government of British Columbia has never allowed uranium mining in that province.
Uranium is being premiered this month in Edmonton. It will be shown in the Northwest Territories, northern Saskatchewan, Serpent River and Elliot Lake before it comes here Wednesday, November 14 at 8 p.m. at the Museum of Nature (Metcalfe and McLeod Streets). A panel discussion featuring speakers from both sides of the nuclear debate will follow each presentation. In Ottawa, this will include Dr. Gordon Edwards, co-founder of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Chief Earl Commanda of Serpent River, and Tom Viglasky of the Atomic Energy Control Board.
Admission is free. Sign language interpretation will be provided. Interested groups are invited to use information tables in the auditorium. Contact Terry Richmond at 996-4863 for more information.
Converted November 17, 2001 - Lg
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