Nova Scotia premier defends uranium exploration push

Nova Scotia’s premier is defending the province’s move to add uranium as a priority critical mineral.

Earlier this month, the province included uranium on the list and issued a request for exploration proposals at three sites in Pictou, Annapolis and Hants counties.

The move has raised environmental concerns.

But Premier Tim Houston told 95.7 NewsRadio the province needs to find new ways to grow the economy, citing a study that shows Nova Scotia ranks at the bottom of a list of 50 U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces in terms of GDP per capita.

“It wasn’t that long ago that every community in this province was thriving. There were fishing communities, farming communities, forestry communities, mining communities,” Houston said. “We had a thriving province — at one time we were number one in Canada in the economy — and we are not anymore. So we need to look at these things, and uranium is one thing that we are going to look at.”

Legislation passed in March lifted a moratorium on uranium exploration that had been in place for more than 40 years and ended a 15-year ban on uranium mining.

Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton says the list includes critical minerals that the province considers a priority for development.

Rushton says the province hopes to reap economic benefit from the exploration, but a department official said any potential mining project could be “decades” away.

Concern from advocates

The province’s move to lift the ban on fracking and uranium exploration is being criticized by the Ecology Action Centre.

According to the organization, removing safeguards could allow leftover tailings to seep into groundwater, potentially contaminating the environment with toxins. These toxins, the centre warns, could cause a range of health issues, from rashes and burns to elevated rates of cancer and birth defects.

“Trapping toxic effluent from fracking underground or in a tailings pond without any impact on our drinking water is just a complete fantasy,” Thomas Arnason McNeil, a senior energy coordinator with the Halifax-based Ecology Action Centre, told The Canadian Press.

“In terms of their ability to do this sustainably or safely, there is no way,” he said in an interview. In terms of fracking, “we’re talking about a potential explosion of emissions that will completely derail our targets,” Arnason McNeil said, adding that fracking can result in the leaking of methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas.