Quebec’s largest farmers’ union, the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake and an Oka citizens’ committee have formed a common front in an attempt to stop Niocan Incorporated from creating a niobium mine in Oka. Two weeks ago, lawyers for both Kanesatake and the farmers’ union (Union des producteurs agricoles) filed an appeal with the Quebec Agricultural Land Commission to reverse its decision to approve the project.

All three groups believe the mine will be an environmental disaster to the farm-based residential area, since mining niobium will release dangerous toxic matter such as radon.

But Niocan insists the mine will have absolutely “no negative impact on the environment, on agriculture or on the quality of life in the Oka region,” according to a position statement put out by company president Richard Faucher.

Indeed, Niocan chair René Dufour says the mine is so safe that he would not object if it opened next to his own home. “Sure. No problem at all. There will be no dust. It’s the most ecological project it could be,” said Dufour in a telephone interview. “It’s the ideal rock, environmentally.”

Dufour says Niocan will seal hazardous waste immediately upon each excavation. “As soon as we have mined out a block of ore we will fill it in with a mixture of tailings and mix it with cement,” says Dufour. “That mix will become like rock.”

Niocan says opposition to the project is smaller than purported. Dufour insists that 70 per cent of residents support the mine. But Chief Steven Bonspille of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake calls that figure “garbage.”

“We’ve never seen that study,” says Bonspille. “I did my own petition against the project. Three hundred and twenty adults in Kanesatake signed it. That represents a good two-thirds of the adult population of Kanesatake.”

Oka citizens also voted against the project. “We won a referendum in April. Sixty-two per cent are against the project,” says André Chaput of the Oka Citizens’ Committee. “We’ve been opposed to this mine for four years. It’s a heavy industry and it isn’t in harmony with the agricultural industry in the area.”

Bonspille also disputes Niocan’s claim that they will store their waste without any risk to health or the environment. “No one can safely store nuclear waste, and all of a sudden Niocan has the miracle solution?”

The president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility agrees. “It’s a dangerous project,” says Gordon Edwards. “The material, which is produced as a by-product of the mining operation is the same kind of material produced by uranium mining operations elsewhere in the country. And it has been quite openly acknowledged in government reports that the long term storage of these radioactive materials is a serious unsolved problem,” says Edwards.

“Niocan says it’s not a problem. This flies in the face of reports from around the world that these materials will remain dangerous for over 80,000 years.”

“The project shouldn’t go ahead at all in my opinion because they’re bringing toxic materials to the surface that should remain underground,” Edwards says. “Nature stored them away in hard rock formations deep underground and that’s where we should leave them.”

Niocan calls Edwards’ concerns “nonsense.” “Radon was in place during the Precambrian era, so it’s been emitting radon gas for hundreds of million of years,” says Dufour. “And it’s going to be there until the end of our lives.”

Still, residents are ready for a fight. “It is our traditional territory,” says Bonspille’s brother Barry, a member of the Mohawk/Canada Roundtable. “We don’t know how it will affect the territory. We’re merely here to protect the territory for future generations. We’ve had so many incursions on our land. It’s got to stop.”

“I don’t want it anywhere near me,” says Yves Paquette, who grows apples and wine grapes a kilometre from the site. “The mine says they will give us clean water. It’s a business trick. There’s no national necessity for this mine.”

Craig Segal is a Montreal-based freelance journalist. He has written forAdbusters magazine, the Montreal Mirror and is a columnist for the West Quebec Post. Contact him at [email protected].