YES! Experimental SMRs DO need an impact assessment

Dear Impact Assessment Agency,

Dear Minister Guilbeault,

I was very concerned to learn that the SMR Demonstration Project at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy could proceed without a full Impact Assessment.

I urge you, as Minister of the Environment, to ensure that this project has the benefit of a full environmental Impact Assessment.

Although I live in Ontario, I believe we must share responsibility for federal government decisions which will impact each and every one of us. You have a HUGE opportunity right now to do the responsible thing and require a full environmental Impact Assessment.

If the Assessment is done, at least you and the government will be able to make an informed, unbiased decision based on real facts, free of nuclear industry propaganda.

This first of its kind experimental nuclear project is on the traditional territory of the Peskotomuhkati Nation with ramifications for the rights of the Wolastoqey and Mi'gmaq Nations. Treaty and Indigenous rights must be included in the Impact Assessment.

The proposed project will be located in a beautiful, coastal rural region with locally important fishing, tourism and wild blueberry industries, next to the Musquash Estuary Nature Reserve and near the globally significant UNESCO Biosphere Reserve on the Bay of Fundy.

The SMR Demonstration Project at Point Lepreau ought to attract the most rigorous form of public engagement and planning, through the Impact Assessment Act.

I fully support the request by the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) for you to designate this project for an Impact Assessment.

Sincerely,

Sincerely,
Deb Benoit
<Email address removed> M6R 1T1