My article debunking Nova Scotia politicians and special interest group MANS appeared in the regional Nova Scotia Paper on July 25, 2025. Full text:

Letter to the Editor of the Valley Journal Advertiser

Dr Elisabeth Kosters – geologist.

The July 18 issue of the Valley Journal Advertiser contains an article by Carol Morris-Underhill entitled ‘Letters flood in opposing uranium exploration’.

The article reports on the letter that the Acadia University Faculty Council on the Environment and Sustainability Studies (ESST) sent to protest Premier Houston’s hasty re-opening of the Province to Uranium exploration. It also reports on the letter sent by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) to the Premier, explaining why Uranium exploration (let alone production) remains a massive risk to human health. And it reports on similar statements by the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, the Ecology Action Centre, the West Hants Regional Municipality, and local citizens Sarah Trask and Chad Pothier.

The article then goes on to quote Municipal Affairs minister John Lohr and the Mining Association of Nova Scotia. These quotes paint a deceiving picture to a not-too-well informed public. I’m dismayed that the author did not quote several articles published in the Halifax Examiner by journalist Joan Baxter and myself. These articles take the nonsense out of the statements of the minister and MANS. See www.earthsciencesociety.com for free access.

1. Minister John Lohr promised – in March – that ‘there would be safeguards in place before any mining could occur – while stressing the importance of extracting critical minerals needed to power renewable low-emission energy systems’ (he means low Carbon emissions). ‘Additionally, uranium plays a key role in nuclear energy, providing a stable, low-carbon power source to complement renewables and reduce reliance on fossil fuels’. These are veiled untruths: first of all, a ‘critical mineral’ is a moving target. These days, ‘critical minerals’ are defined as earth resources that are critical for society to transition from predominantly using Carbon-based energy sources to non-carbon energy sources. The Canadian list of critical minerals is produced by the Geological Survey of Canada and can be examined here. Uranium does indeed appear on that list. But what the list doesn’t tell you, is that it takes at least a decade to build a nuclear power plant and that building a nuclear power plant costs a vast amount of conventional Carbon-based energy and that during the time that the plant is under construction, society could be using those resources to build renewable energy sources. And whereas Uranium is what runs a nuclear power plant, Canada doesn’t have a shortage of it – at all. Almost the world’s largest Uranium deposit is present in northern Saskatchewan, in an area the size of Nova Scotia, with a permanent population of 3,000 people in the Indigenous town of Wollaston Lake. The workers of the half dozen Uranium mines in the area are flown in and out. 80% of Saskatchewan Uranium is exported abroad. If we decide we want more nuclear energy in Canada, we just keep the Saskatchewan reserve for ourselves. There is zero need to expose densely populated Nova Scotia to the risk of Uranium mining, even if that practice has become safer than it was in decades past.

• Minister Lohr also states ‘Uranium exists in Nova Scotia but because of restrictions since the 1980s, we have been prevented from even researching it. We don’t know exactly where it is, how much there is, or what it means for Nova Scotians’. This is nonsense. Research was always possible. I myself was a co-advisor on an Acadia University MSc thesis on Uranium in 2011. The student (and I went with her, as did her main supervisor) did field work and examined the cores taken in the Three Mile Plains area in the early ‘90s (the cores are stored at the Department of Natural Resources’ core facility). The ban did not prevent research. If Nova Scotia leadership had decided that it was time to do more research (definitely a good idea), it would have simply tasked DNR with working out a research plan and budget.

• Then the article quotes the Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS) and states that this organization is in favour of lifting the moratorium on uranium exploration and mining (they are a mining industry lobby group, of course they are in favour – does a fish vote for clean water?). MANS is anything but an objective authority, they have too much self interest! The article also quotes MANS stating “some people say we should leave uranium in the ground because they think – incorrectly – it is safer there; the truth is uranium naturally causes health and safety risks, such as radon gas and elevated uranium levels in our water supply. Nova Scotia’s Uranium ban prevented us learning more about our Uranium deposits and to improve public safety”. This is a lie, a plain and blatant lie. The Department of Natural Resources has continued to do excellent research into the risk of Radon and Uranium in groundwater in the past decades. The results are accessible online. Anyone can get a radon test kit and a uranium groundwater test kit at most local libraries. Especially this research is exemplary and exactly what a department like DNR should be doing.

I’m disappointed that this article did not get the critical review it should have gotten before getting published. I suspect that quoting Minister Lohr and MANS counts as journalistically required ‘balance’. I’d love to see a well-researched balanced article about this issue, but this wasn’t it.