About the Author

 

 

 

Walter Robbins was born Sept. 18, 1926 in Washington, D.C.

He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army Air Force with the rank of Sergeant, in December, 1946, after two years of active service.

 

He is a graduate of George Washington University (industrial psychology major), and he completed two years of graduate studies in the GW School of Government.

 

From 1951-1970, his professional and management work with the U.S. federal government in Washington, D.C., included tours of duty with the Navy Department, Internal Revenue Service, Atomic Energy Commission, Bureau of the Budget and the Office of Economic Opportunity ("war on poverty").

 

In 1970, he was recruited by the Government of Manitoba, Canada, to serve as Senior Management Development Officer. His assignments included establishment of anti-poverty programs, reorganization of staff training and development programs, and Acting Executive Director of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

 

From 1976-1986, he was a private consultant in human resource management and training, and organization development for his own firm, WLR Management Services, Ltd.

 

As a property owner in the rural municipality of Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, he became a spokesperson for the Committee of Concerned Citizens in January, 1980, and has been involved with and writing on the nuclear waste issue ever since.

 

He and his wife, Phyllis, retired to the eastern townships of Québec, in 1988, where they continued their involvement with nuclear issues, including the controversy over a planned placement of a nuclear reactor at the major teaching hospital in Sherbrooke.

 

The Robbins' moved to Kingston Ontario in March, 1997. They have three children and two grandchildren.

 

 

 

 

A SPECIAL FORWARD TO BOOK ONE OF THE NUCLEAR WASTE SAGA

 

by Charles Herrick

 

Let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

Amos 5:24

 

 

The call to social action may indeed be part of our genetic inheritance. To live together, human beings work together. To survive and thrive, they must cooperate. Social problems are resolved, or they dissolve those immersed in them. Thus has it been; thus shall it always be.

 

In the closing hours of the 20th century, at the dawn of the new, humankind stands poised on the edge of an uncertain future, all to gain or all to lose. The question is not whether we should immerse ourselves in history, and begin mending the complex fabric of injustice and oppression, but how? How do we begin? How do we make a difference?

 

When racism is institutionalized; poverty endemic; homelessness seemingly a consequence of an economic system; hunger and malnutrition global; pollution a blight, where do we begin? When private and special interest groups have vast sums of money and power, how can I make a difference?

 

In this book, Walt Robbins has provided a wonderfully readable account of how he and his wife, and a small group of other concerned citizens took on the Goliaths and challenged the system. When they learned of the shaft that was proposed for "their backyard," to study the burial of nuclear wastes, material that has a half-life of hundreds of thousands of years, they did social action. They asked that there be public hearings to ascertain if the proposal was in the national interest and in the interest of those who will live with the waste forever. They questioned the shaft they were getting.

 

How they went about doing and getting their social actions is fascinating and insightful of ways we, too, can go about addressing our concerns. Herein we come to see the importance of organization; the critical need for thorough research in any social issue; the role of citizen involvement; and the power of the media. Whatever social problem we choose to address, we can make a difference. The power-structure can be confronted if done skillfully, and with understanding.

 

Time is short. There is much mending to be done.

 

Charles Herrick

Unitarian Universalist Minister (retired)

1998

 

 

 

 

Volume One -

1980-1984-

 

Originally published in paperback as "Getting

The Shaft, The Radioactive Waste Controversy in Manitoba."

Volume Two -

update: 1984-1988-

 

The growing prospect of nuclear waste dumps on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border intensifies the controversy

Volume Three -

update:1988-1998

 

Federal Environmental Panel concludes that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s permanent underground nuclear waste burial concept lacks public acceptability.

Volume Four -

update:1998-2008

 

Mixed Oxide plutonium transport and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and

nuclear waste issue grinds on

Nuclear Waste Saga

A free web site dedicated to the well being of future generations

Mission, Purpose, and Biography

 

 

    To help prevent the permanent underground burial of irradiated nuclear fuel waste in Canada.

 

In recent years, problems associated with growing stockpiles of nuclear waste have captured public attention around the world. Protests, including acts of civil disobedience, have occurred in a number of countries over the transportation of radioactive waste and plans for underground "disposal" of the waste.

 

In 1980, my wife, Phyl, and I lived in the eastern Manitoba rural municipality of Lac du Bonnet near a major Canadian nuclear research facility. The Canadian Government and the nuclear establishment, spearheaded by Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., (AECL) a Federal Crown Corporation), decided to develop an underground radioactive waste test facility in a rock formation in the municipality. Quietly, without benefit of public input, work on the 1000 meter deep project began.

 

Together with neighbors, we helped build a Committee of Concerned Citizens, which requested the Government of Canada to suspend work on the project and hold public hearings. These requests and petitions were rejected.

 

What followed can be found in the stories in the four volumes on the right side of this page. At this writing, (September, 2009), a permanent underground nuclear waste dump has yet to be constructed anywhere in Canada.

 

The nuclear establishment spearheaded by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization along with the Government of Canada will continue to seek a site for the first permanent commercial Canadian underground nuclear waste dump. The prospect of a multi-billion dollar windfall in exchange for custodianship of these dangerous, highly radioactive and toxic nuclear wastes, may be too much for some misguided community to resist.

 

I speak as a former member of the nuclear establishment when I say that we do not have the moral right to permanently bury these substances which will remain harmful to future generations for untold aeons of time. Hopefully, someday, a truly scientific and acceptable solution will emerge.

 

 The Great Canadian Nuclear Waste saga is a personal account of my own experiences and perceptions of the issues surrounding nuclear waste and nuclear energy.

 

I call upon concerned citizens everywhere in Canada to join in ongoing efforts to stop this madness.

 

Walter Robbins

 

 

 

 

 

Spring-Summer 2010