In January, OPG submitted a 700-page report at the request of the federal environment minister that included a public opinion survey of 805 adults, using those results to bolster their claims that the public had widespread support for the Lake Huron project.
And while OPG is standing behind the results of their poll, critics have jumped on the skewered results like a duck on a June-bug, pointing out that an analysis of the findings submitted to the government showed they were distorted in favor of the project.
Rod McLeod, with the group SOS Great Lakes, says that instead of showing most people support the project, the poll actually shows most people are against it. “It is clear that OPG misrepresented the findings to the government, to the media and the public,” said McLeod, a retired lawyer and former deputy minister of the environment. “They excel at alternative facts.”
CTV News Canada is reporting OPG spokesman, Kevin Powers stood by the poll results, pointing out that in the 700-page report, which was among 15,000 pages of additional evidence in support of the project, the poll was referenced in just a “single paragraph,” adding the survey was done by one of the country’s top polling firms using sound scientific methodology.
“The survey was intended to give us a clear understanding of what people thought about the (repository) not give us results that we wanted to hear,” Powers said. “We feel that geology, physics, geoscience and engineering—not opinion research—should guide decision making on this project.”
Robin Palin, a public-relations consultant in Montreal analyzed the Gandalf Group survey. Palin says the survey actually shows that only 33 percent of the respondents had support for a repository “somewhere in the province.” This is in stark contrast to what the OPC said when they submitted the report last month.
Digital Journal reported on January 4 that in the report, OPG claimed that more than half of people in Ontario were even aware of the project. “There is little interest among the general public regarding the DGR project,” the report stated. “Ontarians are not looking for information on nuclear-waste disposal in large volumes. This topic is not a popular one nor is it generating large volumes of curiosity.”
Palin also says that some of the statements were skewered in favor of the repository, such as this one: “experts from around the world, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, agree that this deep geologic repository will protect the environment from nuclear waste.”
Actually, critics say that while a few international experts may agree with a repository near Lake Huron, others believe it would be unsafe. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t actually voiced an opinion on the safety of the project.
But as the OPG said in January, it’s time to get on with the digging. “Deferring costs to future generations, when a safe, cost-effective option already exists, is not necessarily in the best interests of society,” the report states. “OPG, therefore, concludes that the DGR project at the Bruce nuclear site remains the preferred location.”
