The Saskatchewan government is continuing to call on the federal government to share the cost of cleaning up the abandoned Gunnar uranium mine site in northern Saskatchewan.
The governments signed a memorandum of agreement to split the remediation expenses in 2006.
To date, the provincial government has spent over $125 million on the clean-up effort and the federal government has contributed approximately $1.13 million.
“I think that any fair objective observer looking at that information would say that is not equitable and that isn’t fair,” Minister of Energy and Resources Bronwyn Eyre says.
The provincial government filed a statement of claim against the federal government in November 2018.
“We need to have this be an equal share, which is what the statement of claim was about,” Eyre adds “We feel we have a very good case.”
The Saskatchewan Research Council is leading the remediation efforts.
“I would entreat the federal government and the prime minister to stand up and help us here in Saskatchewan in this remediation effort,” she says.
The site is located on the north shore of Lake Athabasca and was shut down in 1963.
“The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has told us as a province that we have not exceeded but have met regulatory requirements for remediation of this site,” the minister of energy and resources says.
(PHOTO: Gunnar uranium mine. Photo by Brendan Mayer.)