Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit launches website

Nunavut’s uranium watchdog organization Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit (Makita) launched its new website May 8.

This website will be used to provide information about uranium mining, the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s assessment of AREVA Resources Canada Inc.’s Kiggavik proposal, and the activities of Makita, said a May 8 news release.

“We will address both the issues under review by NIRB and issues which NIRB has said it will not address — such as the possible end uses of uranium mined in Nunavut. We will focus on the issue of greatest concern to our members and to other community residents: the threat to caribou from the impact that this mine would have and the ‘cumulative effects’ that would result from the development of other uranium mines in the region, the “experimental” storage of radioactive waste on permafrost, etc.,” the release said.

The NIRB said May 4 that AREVA’s revised draft environmental impact statement submission had passed “guideline conformity review” — and was being released for public technical review.

Parties now have one month in which to submit Information Requests for more information to the NIRB.

Makita will provide a user-friendly web interface to AREVA’s draft EIS files on NIRB’s ftp site.

“We will be making a great deal more information available, including critiques of AREVA’s DEIS and a plain-language explanation of the NIRB process as it progresses,” the news release said.

Makita’s new website features this line of caribou as its banner.