This billboard first appeared on the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto on January 7. Photo submitted/ QMI Agency.
Shoreline Beacon reports, “A group of concerned citizens (Stop The Great Lakes Nuclear Dump Inc.) have launched an online petition and a digital billboard on the Gardiner Expressway in Canada’s largest city to sound the alarm about Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) site selection process and plan to construct an underground nuclear waste repository on the shore of Lake Huron, in the municipality of Kincardine, Ontario. A growing number of citizens are opposed to OPG’s plan to build a deep geological repository (DGR) approximately one kilometer from shore and extending underground to approximately 400 meters from the lake. Some of the nuclear waste remains toxic and radioactive for over 100,000 years. Federal government approval is anticipated within nine months.”
“Stop The Great Lakes Nuclear Dump Inc. is a non-profit organization comprised of ordinary Canadians who believe that the protection of the Great Lakes from buried radioactive nuclear waste is responsible stewardship, and is of national and international importance. In order to protect our precious natural resource – the Great Lakes – the group believes that radioactive nuclear waste should not be buried anywhere in the Great Lakes Basin. They are urging citizens to sign their online petition available at www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com and to send a message to the Minister of the Environment to stand up for the protection of the Great Lakes.”
This area of Lake Huron is threatened by both mid- and high-level nuclear waste dumps.
– In April 2011, we noted in a campaign blog a proposed low- to mid-level nuclear waste dump near the shore of Lake Huron. At that time, we noted the release of a 12,000-page environmental impact study projected construction of the deep geologic repository could begin as early as 2013 with it receiving nuclear waste by 2018. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is not assessing this repository, rather it will be evaluated by an independently appointed three-member panel. This is the repository being opposed by the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump Inc. group noted above.
– In December 2011, we also noted that two other communities a short distance from Kincardine – Saugeen Shores (which includes the towns of Port Elgin and Southampton) and Brockton (which includes Walkerton) – were interested in becoming home to a high-level nuclear waste repository through a national Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) process. Saugeen Shores is located directly by Lake Huron, while Brockton is located about 40 kilometres from the water. The Save Our Saugeen Shores groups has set up a website to spread its message, that’s at http://saveoursaugeenshores.org/hello-world/.
The Owen Sound Sun Times reported this past December that, “Local opponents of proposed nuclear waste burial sites known as deep geologic repositories are joining forces. Groups in Grey, Bruce and Huron counties have formed the Bluewater Coalition Against the DGRs…” Their Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/BluewaterCoalition.
