nuclear-news

Fight will continue to stop radioactive shipment across Great Lakes

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities initiative — representing 73 cities, on both sides of the borders, from Thunder Bay to Rimouski, Que. — says its own analysis of the proposed [radioactive] shipment shows that it violates safety regulations.

Critics of Bruce Power say fight is ‘not over’ – thestar.com, Dan Robson, 5 Feb 2011, A controversial decision to allow Bruce Power to ship 16 radioactive, school-bus sized generators through the Great Lakes will be met with protests and appeals to the Harper government, critics say.“This is not over,” said Mike Bradley, mayor of Sarnia. “There are a couple more chapters to go in this play.”On Friday, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission announced its decision to grant a licence to Bruce Power to move the decommissioned steam generators to Sweden, where they will be recycled.

A timeline for the move is yet to be set. A licence still has to be granted by Transport Canada and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Bruce Power must also receive permission from the United Kingdom, Norway and Demark to move the generators through their waters.

Seven U.S. Senators have written letters to Washington, looking to stop the generators from being shipped through the Great Lakes, Bradley said. First Nations representatives have also raised concerns about the lack of consultation with them through the process.

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities initiative — representing 73 cities, on both sides of the borders, from Thunder Bay to Rimouski, Que. — says its own analysis of the proposed shipment shows that it violates safety regulations.

Bradley said he is calling on the Harper government to challenge the commission’s, ruling, as it has with the CRTC’s plan for usage-based billing for the Internet.

“They have the same opportunity here,” he said. “Except this impacts 14 million people who live on both sides of the border.”

Bruce Power says the project is “the right thing to do” — but critics say moving the generators, in which the radioactive waste is already secure, creates unnecessary risks to the environment, could contaminate drinking water, and sets a dangerous precedent for shipping hazardous materials through the Great Lakes…….

John Bennett, executive director for the Sierra Club of Canada, says calls for a full environmental assessment of the project were simply ignored.

“It’s not for the environment. They’ve never explained the economics of this,” he said, suggesting that financial motives are behind the company’s international recycling project. “(The generators) were safely stored on site. There was no reason to move them.”

“I think that the chances for a major nuclear accident have just increased several fold,” Bennett said. The Sierra Club is looking at legal options for intervening with the commission’s decision.

Bennett also criticized the commission’s relationship with Bruce Power.

“I don’t believe that this system is fair at all,” he said. “I think it’s designed to get the government’s stamp of approval on whatever the nuclear industry wants it to do.”…

Critics of Bruce Power say fight is ‘not over’ – thestar.com

February 7, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, opposition to nuclear