October 2, 2013 Public Hearing Transcript
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Canadian Nuclear Commission canadienne de Safety Commission sûreté nucléaire Public hearings Audiences publiques October 2nd, 2013 Le 2 octobre 2013 Kikinahk Friendship Centre, Kikinahk Friendship Centre 320 Boardman Street, 320, rue Boardman La Ronge, Saskatchewan La Ronge (Saskatchewan) Commission Members present Commissaires présents Dr. Michael Binder M. Michael Binder Dr. Moyra McDill Mme Moyra McDill Dr. Sandy McEwan M. Sandy McEwan Mr. Dan Tolgyesi M. Dan Tolgyesi Dr. Ronald Barriault M. Ronald Barriault Mr. André Harvey M. André Harvey Ms. Rumina Velshi Mme Rumina Velshi Secretary: Secrétaire: Mr. Marc Leblanc M. Marc Leblanc Senior General Counsel: Avocat général principal : Mr. Jacques Lavoie M. Jacques Lavoie (ii) TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Opening remarks 1 13-H13.2 / 13-H14.2 / 13-H15.2 28 Oral presentation by Kineepik Métis Local Inc. (#9) 13-H13.3 / 13-H14.3 / 13-H15.3 61 Oral presentation by Prince Albert Grand Council 13-H13.27 / 13-H14.25 / 13-H15.24 101 Oral presentation by the Lac La Ronge Indian Band 13-H13.18 / 13-H14.15 / 13-H15.15 122 Oral presentation by the English River First Nation 13-H13.12 / 13-H14.11 / 13-H15.10 159 Oral presentation by the Canadian Nuclear Association 13-H13.6 / 13-H13.6A / 13-H14.5 / 13-H14.5A 171 Oral presentation by the Canadian Nuclear Workers’ Council and the United Steelworkers Union (USW) Local 8914 13-H13.3 189 Oral presentation by Dwayne Buffin 13-H13.23 / 13-H14.21 / 13-H15.20 201 Oral presentation by the Saskatchewan Environmental Society 13-H13.7 / 13-H14.6 / 13-H15.5 295 Oral presentation by The Saskatchewan Mining Association (iii) TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 13-H13.5 / 13-H14.4 / 13-H15.4 314 Oral presentation by Candyce Paul 13-H13.22 / 13-H143.20 / 13-H15.19 330 Oral presentation by the Northern Saskatchewan Environmental Quality Committee 13-H13.17 / 13-H14.15 / 13-H15.14 373 Oral presentation by Rose Roberts 13-H13.10 / 13-H14.9 / 13-H15.8 405 Oral presentation by Steve Lawrence 1 La Ronge, Saskatchewan --- Upon commencing at 8:33 a.m./L’audience est débute à 8h33 Opening Remarks MR. LEBLANC: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the continuation of the hearings that are being held by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The Commission is about to resume the public hearings on the applications by Cameco for the renewal of the licences for the Key Lake, MacArthur River and Rabbit Lake operations. I’d like to note, as was the case yesterday, we have simultaneous translation in both Dene and Cree. We also have translation in English and French. Translation devices are available here at the reception area and the Dene is on Channel 7, Cree is on Channel 6. La version en français est au poste 5, and the English version is on Channel 4. I would ask you to please keep the pace of your speech relatively slow, so that the translators have a chance to keep up. This hearing is being registered as in the 2 language in which it is being used, obviously, and Dene and Cree will be translated for the transcripts. I would also like to note that this proceeding is being video webcast live and that the proceeding is also archived on our web site for a three month period after the closure of the hearing and those transcripts will be available in one to two weeks. To make the transcripts as meaningful as possible, we would ask everyone to identify themselves before speaking. And as a courtesy to others in the room, please silence your cell phones and other electronic devices. Monsieur Binder, Président et premier dirigeant de la CCSN va présider les audiences publiques aujourd'hui. Mister President. THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Marc, and good morning and welcome to the continuation of the public hearing of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Mon nom est Michael Binder. Je suis le Président de la Commission Canadienne de Sûreté Nucléaire, and I’d like to welcome everybody who is here today with us and all of you who are joining us through the webcast. I’d like to begin by introducing the Members of the Commission that are with us today. On my right is Dr. Moyra McDill, Mr. Dan 3 Tolgyesi. On my left is Dr. Sandy McEwan, Ms. Rumina Velshi, Dr. Ronald Barriault and Mr. André Harvey. We’ve heard from Marc Leblanc, the Commission Secretary and we also have with us here today on the podium, Mr. Jacques Lavoie, Senior General Counsel for the Commission. We heard the presentation from Cameco and CNSC staff yesterday and I’d like to move now to the intervenors. I’d like to remind everybody that we have allocated 10 minutes for each oral presentation because we all read every single document in detail, and we are very, very anxious to actually get into the dialogue and the discussion as a result of those interventions. The presentation obviously will deal with the three facilities and some intervenors received some financial support from the Commission and we will allow them a little bit more time, not much more, but a little bit more time to make their presentation so we can get into a little bit more in-depth discussion. So we had unfinished business from last night and I’d like to dispose of that before we get into today’s proceedings. So we had a written submission from a Dr. Dewar, Dale Dewar, so I would like to deal with that particular issue and I’d like a Commissioner, anybody who has any particular question on that particular written 4 intervention. MR. LEBLANC: Prior to having any question, I’d like to mention that this is in Document CMD-H13.13 and copies of this document are available at the reception desk. Thank you. THE CHAIRMAN: Question? Dr. McDill? MEMBER McDILL: There we go, good morning. Perhaps I could ask staff to comment on this submission, a little bit on the history of exposure to uranium and from the historical basis up to the present, if that’s possible, exposures to workers, exposure to community. MR. JAMMAL: Ramzi Jammal, for the record. We have the benefit of Dr. Irvine here who’s got the historical aspect. With your permission, I would like to pass the microphone to Dr. Irvine. THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Irvine? DR. IRVINE: Good morning. Yes, I’m James Irvine. I’m the Medical Health Officer for the three Northern health authorities, so roughly the Northern half of the province and a professor with the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. One of our roles over the years has been monitoring health of communities, and so we’ve been involved with a variety of different health studies as it 5 relates to health impacts from a variety of different situations, looking at changing health patterns, changing social determinants of health over the years. Some of the things we’ve looked at have been --- MEMBER McDILL: Can I interrupt? Just a second -- can the people at the back hear? Because -- no. Maybe we can help them out there, thanks. DR. IRVINE: So in terms of the types of things that we look at would be potential impacts from a variety of different changing social circumstances, environmental circumstances, changing patterns of health behaviours and living circumstances. And so the -- we would be looking more in terms of some of the downstream health effects from different environmental conditions as well as social circumstances. The types of things that we would be monitoring would be some of the things that Dr. Dewar had talked about, certainly for cancer, congenital anomalies. We look at a variety of other circumstances too that would not have anything to do with uranium mining particularly, but from a broad health effects -- I think everything from communicable diseases, infectious diseases, chronic diseases. We started in the 1990s looking at baseline 6 studies at that time. So from our cancer studies started in about 1967 and the work done in the 90s was shared with the Federal Provincial Panel on Uranium Development at the time. And we had a group of Northern leaders involved with a research and development committee that spearheaded a lot of those studies. So we had a cancer study. We had a mortality and morbidity study. We had hospitalization studies. We had a social health study in the 1990s. Since that time we’ve had three fairly comprehensive updatings of the baseline studies, which have been very comprehensive, looking at changing circumstances within communities, the changing populations. It looks at the things that determine health, whether it’s housing, crowding in homes, sewer and water availability, access to food, smoking rates, and then fairly significant studies and presentations on things like health effects, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, causes of death. Those studies have been shared very, very broadly across the North. Pretty well every school -- high school has a library shared with all the band councils, municipal offices. 7 We get very specific information for some communities, at their request, and so we do make specific community presentations or various organizations. A lot of communities find this information very valuable as it relates to community planning, looking at what some of the determinants of health are for their communities and what some of their issues are are presented. Now, a lot of those things are not directly related to uranium developments at all. We have –- if we look at something like systemic Lupus that Dr.