Dark Secrets.

Elliot Lake is situated on highway 108 about 30 kilometres north of Highway 17 and about half way between Sudbury and Sault Ste Marie.

Elliot Lake once a booming mining town it has suffered the fate of other mining towns with booms or busts happening over the years. The dirty rock extracted in Elliot Lake was uranium used to provide fuel for the US nuclear arsenal. It also is used in power plants to for what is touted as cheap power. 

Cheap nuclear power is another story.

In Elliot Lake the rock mined was then crushed and the uranium removed onsite using a chemical process. The uranium product called yellowcake was then sent elsewhere for more refining and turned into plutonium and other nasty things. But the first stage of uranium removal was done onsite, with the radioactive tailing left behind. These tailings have a fine sand like consistencies to them, just like the stuff you on lay on at the beach.

In the beginning these tailings were just dumped into ravines or small lakes hoping that nature could take care of this mess. It couldn’t and still cannot. Up to ten lakes died in the process and the Serpent River systems was badly compromised.

The legacy left here is that Elliot Lake has more uranium waste product in it now than in all of the rest of Canada put together. 

I went on a Mine Tour put on by Dennison Mines and the radioactive aspect of the tailings was not ever mentioned until I asked. They seemed to focus on the problem that these tailing cause greater acidity in the water. They do. Their solution was to monitor that and to add when needed a lime based solution, to counteract the acidity. 

Carefully places sluiceways are used to skim off water levels, should they get too high from rainwater or snow accumulation. I wondered what radioactive level is held in the waters covering the tailings. I also wondered where this radioactive water cocktail ends up?

Dennison Mines operates a maintenance program to maintain the tailing ponds that keep this nasty stuff from causing more damage. While a representative from Dennison claimed that the tailing have a very low gamma radiation, it is a known fact that tailings can have between 70 to 85 percent of the original radiation found in the uranium extracted. They also said that this maintenance program would probably go on for about a hundred years or long after everyone on the bus was dead and gone. That of course produced a chuckle. It is though not a laughing matter when the lifespan of such tailing last for some 79,000 years. 

Just taking a look at satellite images of the Elliot Lake area one can readily see the immensity of these tailing ponds. I would not want to live in too close a proximity to these ponds. Some are situation in what I feel very close to the Dunlop Lake area, or am I reading the satellite images incorrectly?

There is a monument on Highway 108 going through the city on Horne Lake that commemorates those that died in the mines of Elliot Lake. Subtle wording like occupational illnesses hide the facts that these men died of exposure to radioactive elements. The plain fact is that they died of cancer related illnesses caused from mining. During the fifties and sixties the federal and the provincial governments as well as the Workmen’s’ Compensation Board refused to connect the dots. Their banal answer was that the increased cancer rates had to be from cigarette smoking and not exposure to radiation. 

It was the United Steelworkers Union that blew the whistle warning its workers to not to go to Elliot Lake, because if they did they would die a horrible death from cancer. Balancing a much larger picture, what are a few deaths from radiation causing cancer against the huge profits made from mining this vile rock?

Documentation and truth can be always be distanced so that few now know another fact. Radioactive rubble a by-product of the mining operations was crushed to form building blocks to build the miners houses with. Even some roadways were not spared this fate. The result is that families living in these homes had an increase of up to 40% of cancer related illnesses.

Elliot Lake is now promoted by Elliot Lake Retirement Community, the largest and most powerful lobbying group in town as a retirement haven and it claims that most of the population are people considered to be seniors by their age bracket. This is a radicalization of the truth. In actuality by the 2011 census there are only 35% seniors living in Elliot Lake. Elliot Lake is second in Canada for a seniors base though with first prize going to Parksville on Vancouver Island with its Mediterranean climate. So 35% is a large number yes, but not a majority as claimed incorrectly.

Elliot Lake Retirement claims that Elliot Lake is a thriving and growing centre, when in fact Elliot Lake’s population has been on a steady decline over the years. Without a major industry, or an increase in tourism this city will share the fate of many small communities disappearing into the history books.

Just looking at high school graduation numbers shows some of the facts. Most young people will leave for higher education and good jobs returning only for a family visit.  With no business ventures here to give them a place to live and work, they will move on.

If Elliot Lake was a thriving community it would have shops and suppliers of goods and services. One local I spoke with here laughed about the comment “a thriving community.” He said “if it is such a thriving community, why do I have to travel a hundred miles to buy a pair of socks.” These feelings have been expressed to me by many people that live here.

Elliot Lake is an inexpensive place to rent or buy a home in, yes. All around it in other settlements, home prices are much higher, so what is it about Elliot Lake that keeps it cheap here?

The words “radioactive waste” rings in my thoughts. And goody they are really close by too.

Cheap yes, but how do we know it’s safe here? People swim in the lakes, but is that water really safe to swim in? People fish in the lakes, but are the fish safe to eat?

For no particular reason, I do not fish or swim in the lakes and I drink bottled water. I have also heard of an Application that I can download, to make my smart phone into a Geiger counter. Now where did I hang my HAZ suit?

   

 that some of the miner’s homes and what they were constructed of