A Game of Chess?

I’m wondering something.  Years ago, transportation was clearly within NWMO’s scope as this document (https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports---Reports/APMREP004400209.ashx?sc_lang=en)shows.  www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports---Reports/APMREP004400209.ashx?sc_lang=en (http://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports---Reports/APMREP004400209.ashx?sc_lang=en) 

Yet, when the IPD was released, transportation was explicitly excluded. 

Could it be that the NWMO excluded transportation because they knew it would prompt a large number of comments, in an attempt to distract from other issues? (If so, the strategy failed because the comments are rich with other issues raised.)  

Or could it be that, by enabling a large number of transportation comments, they are now in a position to say, "We’ve listened, and we’re now including transportation."  This would give NWMO an apparent “win” by showing they’re listening and responding.

NWMO is starting with the DGR project and punting transportation to a later phase, saying that hazardous waste, including nuclear waste, is already transported and separately regulated.  This whole approach is flawed.  

A thought:  Transportation should be first on the table, and the DGR project should be considered only if transportation is adequately addressed.  And here’s the rub:  Considering the rate of commercial vehicle accidents on Highways 11 & 17, 40,000 loads travelling 80 million kilometres, give or take, on our highways & railroads, over 50ish years (excluding the probability of project extensions and expansions) will have accidents.  Hypothetically, if you made the routes 100% safe from accidents, other issues persist: security, crime & corruption, that the payload is high-level radioactive, and we don’t know what we don’t know.  

In a fair and objective analysis, it seems unlikely that transporting this quantity of high-level radioactive waste would be approved.  This would end the DGR discussion.  Ah, another reason that transportation is excluded from the current DGR proposal.   

I don’t know which is correct:  

• That transportation was excluded to try to distract from other issues
    or
• to position for a “win” later
    or
• because including it would kill the proposal
    or
• perhaps, something else.

I applaud and appreciate all those who have commented with specific legal, technical, project, land, and life issues.  In the end, I take the position that the DGR proposal should not proceed regardless of whether transportation is included later or now.