Canadian government to review plan to dump nuclear waste close to Great Lakes

“No matter what process is followed, burying and abandoning radioactive nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin will always be a bad idea” “The Trudeau government’s environmental credibility is on the line.”

Ottawa to hold public review of new material on proposed nuclear waste dump
OPG to submit information to Canadian government in December By Jim Bloch For The Voice, 20 Nov 16 Next month, Ontario Power Generation will submit to the Canadian government new information about its proposed Deep Geological Repository for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency announced the submission goal in October.

“OPG has stated that it intends to submit the requested information in December 2016,” said the CEAA in a public announcement on Oct. 25.

OPG’s submission will contain new details about alternative locations for the DGR, an analysis of the cumulative effects the dump could have on the environment and an updated list of OPG’s commitments to reduce “each identified adverse impact” of the DRG.

Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Katherine McKenna had been expected to make a decision on the dump, proposed for the shore of Lake Huron in the Ontario municipality of Kincardine, by March 1 of this year. Instead. McKenna made her request for more information on Feb. 18…….

OPG is proposing to excavate a repository 2,200 feet below ground in a layer of Cobourg limestone that has been stable for 4.5 million years. The drill site is slightly more than a half mile from Lake Huron. OPG wants to bury and abandon 200,000 cubic meters of low and intermediate nuclear waste, some of which will remain toxic ten times longer than the Great Lakes have been in existence.

The site is located on the 47-acre Western Waste Management Facility, owned by OPG.

Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear, the Maryland-based non-profit, and a critic of the dump, was buoyed by McKenna’s request for more information from OPG last February.

“Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of geographic land mass,” said Kamps. “OPG’s choice to target a water-soluble limestone formation on the Lake Huron shore makes no sense. As Mayor Mike Bradley of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada has pointed out, siting a Walmart in Ontario would have required a more thorough comparison of alternative sites.”

Beverly Fernandez, founder of Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, based in Southampton, Ontario, Canada, just north of Kincardine, was more critical.

“No matter what process is followed, burying and abandoning radioactive nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin will always be a bad idea,” said Fernandez. “The Trudeau government’s environmental credibility is on the line.” http://www.voicenews.com/news/ottawa-to-hold-public-review-of-new-material-on-proposed/article_e169240e-10e3-53e3-851b-81c841b07dd1.html