nuclear-news

Nuclear waste dump near Great Lakes – a threat to 40 million people’s drinking water

“If this has to exist, it would make more sense away from the Great Lakes” where 40 million people get their drinking water”

Flood of concern over nuclear dump 3, By Paul Morden, Sarnia Observer, November 14, 2012 Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley is asking his fellow Great Lakes mayors to join him in raising concerns about plans to bury nuclear waste near Lake Huron.

Bradley said he met recently with members of the Inverhuron Committee,
a Huron County citizens’ group opposed to the Ontario Power Generation
(OPG) plan to build a deep geologic repository on the Bruce nuclear
site near Kincardine.

It would manage about 200,000 cubic metres of low and intermediate
waste from nuclear generating stations in Ontario.

Bradley has written to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities
Initiative, a group representing communities on both sides of the
border, urging it to ask for “a full public process that would allow
an international debate on this initiative.”

Bradley said there appears to be little public awareness about the
plan to build the facility near Lake Huron.

“If this has to exist, it would make more sense away from the Great
Lakes” where 40 million people get their drinking water, he said.
OPG is seeking federal approval for the site and a public hearing is
expected in 2013. Construction would take five to seven years and the
earliest the site could begin receiving waste is 2019, according to
OPG…….
A brief the Inverhuron Committee prepared for the cities initiative
says OPG’s facility will be built about 850 metres from the lake.

“That is close enough so that any leakage of nuclear waste would
quickly find its way into the lake,” it says.

Bradley said he’s concerned the federal government has been seen
recently “scoping down and eliminating environmental assessments on a
significant number of issues.”

Environmental groups and communities along the lakes recently raised
the alarm about a plan to ship nuclear waste through the lakes and on
to Europe for recycling.

“We continue, on an annual basis, to fight off attempts to put the
Great Lakes in jeopardy,” Bradley said.

“Every year there’s something new.”

Bradley said his request is expected to go before the board of the
Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative before the end of the
year.

“With 80 to 90 communities and mayors on both sides of the border,
from Chicago all the way through, it has impact,” he said.
http://www.theobserver.ca/2012/11/14/flood-of-concern-over-nuclear-dump

November 15, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, opposition to nuclear, wastes