nuclear-news

Ontario Power Generation waste dump plan does not have the necessary approval of area First Nations.

First Nations oppose Ont. nuclear waste burial project  ROB GOWAN, POSTMEDIA NETWORK, MAY 08, 2015 OWEN SOUND, Ont. — A plan to bury nuclear waste near Lake Huron doesn’t have the key approval of area First Nations.

“Of course we are opposed to it,” Saugeen First Nation Chief Vernon Roote said Thursday. “In our community that I represent … there are no members that are agreeable to the burial at the site at this time.”

The proposal by Ontario Power Generation cleared a key hurdle this week when a federal review panel approved the plan.
OPG continued to insist Thursday approval by the Saugeen Objiway Nation is necessary for the project to proceed.

“As we have stated in the past and we will state again, we will not build this project without SON support,” OPG spokesperson Neal Kelly said.

Roote said he’s concerned about possible contamination of the Great Lakes. “If something were to happen with the disposal or the leakage of nuclear waste, I wouldn’t want to be drinking the water downstream,” he said. “That means the balance of Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and also anyone drinking from those lakes, even into the U.S.A.”

OPG wants to bury low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Ontario’s three nuclear plants in a shaft deeper than the CN tower is tall at the Bruce nuclear site near Kincardine, Ont.

The site is in the traditional territory of the Saugeen Objiway Nation that includes Saugeen and Chippewas of Nawash First Nations. Chippewas of Nawash Chief Arlene Chegahno couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.

Federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq has 120 days to review the environmental assessment report before deciding if she will authorize the panel to issue the licence to prepare the site for the so-called deep geological repository.
In its report, the panel concluded the project is “not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.”

That conclusion dismayed Erika Simpson, an associate professor of international relations at Western University in London, Ont., who has written about the proposal.

“I can’t understand why they can claim the science says it’s permissible. The testimony, which I’ve read, had many scientists, many geologists, questioning the science,” she said…………http://www.torontosun.com/2015/05/08/first-nations-oppose-ont-nuclear-waste-burial-project

May 9, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, indigenous issues, wastes