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Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Power Dump

Opened in 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico is the first “deep geologic repository” in the world for radioactive wastes, specifically for disposing of plutonium-contaminated nuclear weapons complex wastes.
Opened in 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico is the first “deep geologic repository” in the world for radioactive wastes, specifically for disposing of plutonium-contaminated nuclear weapons complex wastes.

 

Toronto-based Ontario Power Generation, Inc. (OPG), a multi-billion dollar corporation wholly owned by the Province of Ontario, plans to dig a radioactive waste dump on the eastern shore of Lake Huron at the Bruce Nuclear reactor site. The proposal is to locate the dump “approximately one kilometer inland from the shore of Lake Huron at the surface, and more than 400 meters below the deepest near-site point of Lake Huron.” Bruce’s 2,300 acres is the largest power reactor complex in the world (since Japan’s Kashiwazai-Kariwa site is undergoing earthquake damage repairs), with eight operating reactors.

    “Low-” and “intermediate-level” radioactive reactor waste could be buried in the Bruce dump. Yet “intermediate” wastes are highly radioactive and many remain radio-toxic for over 100,000 years. Some “intermediate” wastes are just as dangerous as used reactor fuel rods — often referred to as “spent” fuel — or “high-level” waste. No scientist, geologist or state agency can guarantee that the dump will not leak for the 100,000-to-300,000 years that nuclear power’s cancer- and disease-causing wastes must be contained.

    Approval of the project, in the municipality of Kincardine (“DGR1”), would set legal precedents (toxicity of waste, proximity to lake, geology) that could smooth the way for a much-publicized second underground radioactive waste dump for high-level waste (“hot” uranium fuel) involving 21 communities (“DGR2”).  In other words, Kincardine’s DGR1 is the Trojan Horse of Canadian nuclear power.

    OPG — which owns all of Ontario’s 20 nuclear reactors and all the radioactive waste they create — is paying $35.7million to the municipalities of Saugeen Shores, Huron-Kinross, Arran-Elderslie, Brockton, and Kincardine, all of which are adjacent to Bruce. Ten-and-a-half million dollars have already been disbursed, even though approval of construction has not been granted.  OPG’s proposal is currently undergoing an official Environmental Assessment (EA).

    Forty million people in the US and Canada rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water, so OPG’s Environmental Impact Statement of course says, “Taking into account the findings of the EA studies, including the identified mitigation measures, it is OPG’s conclusion that the DGR Project is not likely to result in any significant adverse effects on the environment.” The OPG statement runs to 3,432 pages, but its rationale for choosing the Kincardine site is contained in one page.

    An underground radioactive waste dump cut into limestone is unprecedented and of course unproven. It is no secret that radioactive waste dumps in other countries (like Hanford in Washington State) are leaking and contaminating groundwater. OPG’s plan is to spend 35-to-40 years burying radioactive wastes in the dump. Ten years of “pre-closure monitoring” are proposed by OPG to be followed by unmonitored, unspecified “institutional control” and then — if not amended by public outrage —   abandonment.

    Public hearings are expected this spring. An EA “Joint Review Panel” will report to the federal Minister of the Environment, who in turn is to report to the Canadian federal cabinet — which is the ultimate decision maker. Its decision could be handed down in a mere nine months.

    In the words of Rod McLeod, a former Deputy Minister of the Environment, Ontario, “… the OPG proposal is very unwise.” And according to William Fyfe, a retired University of Western Ontario professor and an international consultant on reactor waste, “You do not put nuclear waste near things like the Great Lakes or the great rivers in case there’s a leakage that you haven’t expected.”

    The 40 million people throughout the Great Lakes Basin who can and will be impacted if things go wrong have not been consulted or fully informed of the dump citing and characterization process. The people of the bioregion can expect to get nothing but risk and uncertainty.

    You can add your voice to the list of people in Canada and the US opposed to Ontario Power Generation’s plan to contaminate the Great Lakes with its deadly radioactive waste. Please sign a petition at:  HYPERLINK “http://<www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.html” <www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.html>, and encourage friends, family and others in your clan to sign. For more info’, see:  HYPERLINK “mailto:info@stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com” info@stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com.

John LaForge works for Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin, and has edited its newsletter since 1992.