Canada’s radioactive trash dump plan, all too close to USA border

Canada Might Start Dumping Nuclear Waste Near the US Border, VICE, By Arthur White August 19, 2015 A Canadian plan to build an underground nuclear waste dump less than a mile from Lake Huron is getting unfriendly attention from US lawmakers, who are trying to force the Obama administration to invoke a 106-year-old treaty against its northern neighbor.

Though a Canadian review panel declared that the proposed Deep Geologic Repository will have “no significant adverse effects on the Great Lakes,” opponents wonder why a site so close to the world’s largest freshwater system was chosen. One environmental group even warned that the project could give terrorists the opportunity to steal radioactive materials and blow up a “dirty bomb” in downtown Toronto.

The project would bury 7 million cubic feet worth of low and intermediate level nuclear waste — including contaminated mop heads, paper towels, floor sweepings, but also filters and reactor components — 2,230 feet underground. Ontario Power Generation, which operates two nuclear power plants in Canada’s most populous province, has chosen a site just north of the lakefront town of Kincardine, after getting approval from the municipality.

The power company claims that the site is “ideal” for containing the waste, which will lay ensconced in limestone under a 660-foot layer of shale, a boundary they call “impermeable.” The risk from earthquakes is low, they say, and the rock formations have been stable for millions of years.

Data from a government earthquake database reveal that over the past 10 years there have been about a half dozen earthquakes roughly 20 miles north of the site. At less than 2 on the Richter scale, all of those tremors were extremely weak. The most powerful quake in the region, which hit 4.3 on the scale, was about 50 miles away.

This March, a review panel recommended that the government approve the dump, claiming that the health risks to people living around the lakes are “virtually zero………

That report was sent to Canada’s environment minister, who is expected to announce a decision in early December.

But many challenge the panel’s impartiality, with the Sierra Club Canada saying it’s stacked with ex-nuclear industry officials, and the Canadian Environmental Law Agency (CELA) calling its report biased, incomplete, and “fundamentally flawed.”

“The members of the panel support nuclear power from the outset,” the Sierra Club’s program director, John Bennett, told VICE News. “They’ve never not approved a project.”

CELA blasted the panel and the power company for only considering a “hypothetical” alternative to the DGR plan, without looking at a single other real-world site to bury the waste………https://news.vice.com/article/canada-might-start-dumping-nuclear-waste-near-the-us-border