Beyond Nuclear

Mourning Eugene and Ann Bourgeois of Inverhuron, Ontario

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thanks to Angela Bischoff, and Marti McFadzean, below, for sharing the sad news, and moving tributes, to Ann and Eugene Bourgeois, which I wanted to be sure all of you on this list-serve received as well.

I really got to know Ann and Eugene better during the fight against DUD1 (DGR1, Deep Underground Dump/Deep Geologic Repository, for all of Ontario's "low" and highly radioactive "intermediate" level radioactive wastes), targeted at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, on Saugeen Ojibwe Nation territory, less than a mile from the Lake Huron shoreline. I stayed with them at their farm a couple times, such as during the DUD1 Joint Panel Review sessions (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission/Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency), held in Kincardine several long years ago now.

Eugene then returned the favor, answering my "SOS!" and "M'Aidez!" calls for help on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., to urge U.S. Members of Congress from the Great Lakes region to help resist the DUD. Eugene came down at least a couple times, for extended several day stays. One of our greatest, clearest/most tangible accomplishments was getting U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (Democrat-Ohio) to actively join the resistance campaign, as well as nurturing and deepening our relationship with such key leadership offices as U.S. Representative Dan Kildee (Democrat-Flint, Michigan), who has really helped lead the bicameral, bipartisan Great Lakes congressional caucus resistance to the Great Lakes shoreline nuclear dump, growing to several dozen members since 2013.

I am glad that both Ann and Eugene lived to see the victory against DUD1, with the 86% to 14% "NO!" vote in the tribal referendum at Saugeen Ojibwe Nation, early this year. (See Eugene's words about this victory, in my P.S. below.) Of course, the fight goes on against DUD2 (Canada's national high-level radioactive waste dump, currently targeted by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization/Ontario Power Generation at South Bruce, Ontario, not far Kincardine and the Lake Huron shore, as well as at Ignace, Ontario, northwest of Lake Superior -- both sites are traditional Ojibwe territory, with First Nations Reserves very nearby.

Eugene's activism extended across borders for decades, including in recent weeks and months. In early July 2020, he joined a coalition of 60 organizations across North America, by signing Friends of Bruce onto a letter opposing an environmentally unjust high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at west Texas. And on September 12th, just a few days before he passed on, he also signed Friends of Bruce onto a 114-group North American coalition letter, opposing an environmentally unjust high-level radioactive waste dump targeting southeastern New Mexico. If either dump opens, large-scale shipping of irradiated nuclear fuel would commence, via road and rail in each of the 8 Great Lakes States, and even via barge on the waters of the Great Lakes themselves.

I hope Ann and Eugene's decades of work and vigilance, as land and Lake protectors immediately next door to the biggest nuclear power plant on Earth (by reactor number anyway -- a total of 9 reactors, including the early vintage Douglas Point prototype, as Ziggy Kleinau corrected me, when I only included the more recent 8 commercial CANDUs!), inspire our collective resistance to DUD2, and other radioactive risks to the Great Lakes, and beyond.

Rest in peace, and power, Ann and Eugene.

Sincerely,

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear & Don't Waste Michigan

P.S. Eugene just emailed me on Sept. 3 that: "Colin thinks the documentary will be finished early next year, perhaps as soon as the Spring." Given Eugene's passion for the documentary film, I thought I'd share the email I received from him on Feb. 3, 2020, which had the subject line "Funding complete":

Dear friends,

Please forward this email.

The Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) voted not to support the DGR (Deep Geologic Repository) on its traditional territory. In their own words: https://www.saugeenojibwaynation.ca/vote-results/

Or, as Ann has so aptly put it: Dead and Good Riddance!

Coincidentally with this decision, last week we achieved our full funding goal of $50,000, including the $10,000 we started with on September 18 when I wrote our first appeal. The filmmakers have been putting together the rough cut, including fresh filming of interviews with an SON elder and me about the nature of water and our connectivity to all things.

A few weeks before the final vote, we were very fortunate to attend a water ceremony led by Elder Shirley John. In this clip, Elder Shirley teaches us about the importance of listening to, honouring, and protecting the water. We believe that the Saugeen Ojibway Nation community has done their part to protect the water for now. Now it is up to all of us to play our part for the next seven generations.

https://vimeo.com/389043054/42260a07a9

Click here to view the trailer:

https://vimeo.com/366294489 Password: wool

This documentary will continue to be made but with the added benefit that we have the luxury of time to produce it now that the impending presence of the DGR is no longer a lodestone around our neck.

Of course, the simple truth remains: just because the DGR will no longer be built here, the waste will stay here for a very long time, right on the shores of Lake Huron. The dirty little secret that OPG (Ontario Power Generation) never raised was that even if the DGR had been built and wastes would go into it, nuclear wastes of all levels would have remained on this shoreline at least until the middle of the 22^nd century. Production of electricity from nuclear energy is slated to last at least until 2064 and that means the Western Waste Management Facility (WWMF), where the DGR was proposed to be built, would continue to receive and ‘process’ them.

This, now, is the problem that we must face.

We have no solution for nuclear wastes. We have no way to neutralise them. Only time will do so. In the case of tritium, with a half-life of 12.3 years, it will take 123 years before the waste is reduced to 1/1,000^th of its radioactivity. Wastes with a longer half-life take correspondingly longer to disintegrate. Meanwhile, we will have no choice but to recognise the inherent long term danger we have created for this planet by creating such a legacy.

Once we come to terms that there are no known solutions to the problem of nuclear waste, prudence alone tells us that we must proceed cautiously with it. It is almost as if we are in a Dr. Strangelove stranglehold with these deadly wastes as we learn to embrace and care for them for as long as will be necessary.

If there are no good places to store nuclear wastes for this period, it is obvious that there are bad ones. OPG’s penchant for consolidating, storing and processing these wastes right on the shore and shoreline of Lake Huron is one such example.

During the DGR Hearings, two intervenors proposed far more sensible solutions.

The one describes a process of “rolling stewardship”. This begins with the premise that, having created such a toxic legacy, we owe it to future generations to package it as well as we can, place it in or on a location that we know will safeguard the environment and biosphere, and monitor it for as long as necessary until the waste becomes benign. However long that takes and however expensive this might be.

The second process is similar. It is founded on the premise that some of these wastes contain useful and valuable by-products. It proposes packaging these wastes appropriately and transporting them to a mine high in the mountains whose mineral supply has been depleted. This has the advantage of having the necessary infrastructure already built to bring the material there and comes with the prior knowledge from mining that this is a high and dry location. Then, after a period of about 300 years, valuable by-products can be ‘mined’ from them, helping to offset the costs of managing them until then.

There could certainly be significant flaws with either of these approaches. What we do know with certainty is that the Joint Review Panel overseeing the DGR Hearings gave these, or any other alternative means or methods, at best a passing glance. Perhaps now is the time to re-open the discussion about these legacy wastes and to do so with minds open to discovering how to make the best of the worst of situations.

Miigwech to our First Nation brothers and sisters and thank you all.

Eugene

Update on September 30, 2020 by

admin

September 21, 2020

Eugene and Ann Bourgeois

This note is to share information relative to the passing of both Ann and Eugene Bourgeois; entrepreneurs, adventurers, generous neighbours and champions of the Inverhuron community.

Ann Bourgeois passed away May 11, 2020 as a result of several cancer diagnoses, which she fought bravely for several years with Eugene's kind care and love.

You will note in the obituary below, written by Eugene's brother, Don, that Eugene passed away at his beloved farm on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 as a result of what appears to have been a heart attack. Eugene had braved the loss of Ann with a positive attitude but they were so connected that I would suspect that his heart was aching.

Many of our Inverhuron residents have known Eugene as the founder/owner of the Philosopher's Wool Co. on Albert Road. As Don mentions in the obituary, the store was a way to share the Bourgeois' love of the land, their sheep and the art of wool and its production and use. Many of you are likely wearing a beautiful sweater or blanket knitted by Ann or one of the knitters who were commissioned by Eugene and Ann.

Eugene was a proponent of Fair Trade relative to his sheep and their wool and he and Ann travelled across Canada and the United States, exhibiting and selling their products and making amazing friends along the way. Eugene indicated that they rarely stayed in a motel along the way as they had so many invitations to visit and stay with friends.

Eugene and Ann had recently sold their sheep and were withdrawing from the business in stages.

In addition to being a businessman and a mystic philosopher, Eugene loved Lake Huron and the hamlet of Inverhuron. Since the early eighties, he monitored the Bruce Nuclear Facility carefully and its impact on him and Ann, his farm and the community. Eugene vehemently fought issues related to the production of nuclear power and its waste. He researched, studied and interacted passionately with Bruce Power, Ontario Hydro and Ontario Power Generation. He represented the Inverhuron and District Ratepayers Association as their interface on many issues related to nuclear production. Latterly, he worked with The Inverhuron Committee to oppose the building of a deep geologic repository at the Bruce site. This project came to a head at the end of January 2020 when the Saugeen Ojibway Nation vetoed the project and Ontario Power Generation has gone back to the drawing board.

Many of you may not know the different files that Eugene took upon himself in order to become involved in what he felt strongly was an effort to protect our community. This included the recent Emergency Preparedness Plan for Nuclear Facilities. Eugene was working to ensure that all of the hamlet of Inverhuron would be included in the Evacuation Plan that was proposed, should there have been a nuclear accident.

There is no question but that Eugene was a thorn in the side of nuclear proponents but he did so with care, concern and the interest of our hamlet. We owe Eugene a debt of gratitude for his perseverance and his dedication to Inverhuron.

It is the plan of the family to hold a gathering at the farm on what would have been Ann and Eugene's 50th wedding anniversary on August 28, 2021.

It has not yet been decided what will happen to the farm.

We salute our dear friends and neighbours - kind people who dedicated their lives to the well being of others.

Marti McFadzean,

Chair,

The Inverhuron Committee

The Inverhuron Committee | 61 Victoria, Tiverton, ON N0G 2T0 Canada

OBITUARY

Eugene Bourgeois

Eugene Bourgeois died on September 16, 2020. He is survived by his brother Don Bourgeois and his spouse, Susan Campbell; his sister Judy Heikel and her spouse, Harv Heikel; and his children Cati Van Veen and her husband Tom Van Veen and their children Jenna (married to Pat Bursey and children, Isaac and Elena), Noah Van Veen and Annika Van Veen; and Alexander Bourgeois and his children (Azalea and Aspen); and Stephanie Bourgeois and her partner (Jason Hall).

Eugene and Ann, who died on May 11, 2020, established The Philosopher's Wool Co. to do good. And it is difficult to think of either Eugene or Ann without thinking of the other - they were a team, each bringing their own talents and enthusiasms to working with other farmers, artisans, environmentalists, and so many others. Philosopher's Wool was not just about wool; it was about people.

Eugene grew up in Kitchener in a working-class family. He attended St. Jerome's High School and became one of the first in the families to get a university education at University of Waterloo. But Eugene certainly went his own way, switching from mathematics to phenomenology - from which came the Philosopher. As he searched for his path, he met Ann. And the path became much clearer.

That path led them to Inverhuron where they built a sheep farm. But that farm was much more than a place to raise sheep. From the sheep came wool and a thriving agri-business with a focus on helping other farm families and growing an Ontario-based business – The Philosopher’s Wool and its many products. They travelled throughout North America and, eventually, many other parts of the world.

Eugene and Ann also developed a deep love for Inverhuron. They worked with others in the community and throughout the world to gain a better understanding of the impact of nuclear power and how to mitigate the risks from it. Eugene worked tirelessly on environmental issues - not to obstruct but to ensure that science and not politics guided us all along the path.

And that is the legacy of Eugene together with Ann - a philosophical one that was to help the community and to light our own paths. And it is a legacy that will continue in the future.