Last night in Toronto there was a public meeting about a proposal to build a nuclear waste dump in the Kincardine, Ontario area- less than a kilometre from the shores of Lake Huron.
The meeting was organized by our friends at Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump: http://stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com/nuclearwastedump.php
Here is some background on the proposed project from their website:
“Ontario Power Generation (OPG), a corporation wholly owned by the Province of Ontario, is asking the federal government to approve its proposal to bury and abandon low and intermediate level radioactive nuclear waste under the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant site, directly on the shore of Lake Huron, in the Municipality of Kincardine, Ontario.
Called a Deep Geological Repository, DGR or Nuclear Waste Dump, the 31 burial caverns are planned to be 680 metres below the ground carved out of limestone, and will extend to approximately 1 kilometre from shore of Lake Huron.
Low level radioactive nuclear waste includes contaminated mops, rags and industrial items. Intermediate level radioactive nuclear waste contains resins, filters, and irradiated components from within the nuclear reactors themselves. Intermediate level nuclear wastes are highly radioactive and many remain radioactive for over 100,000 years.
OPG’s original estimate was that 200,000 cubic metres (7.1 million cubic feet) of nuclear waste in 53,000 containers will be buried in the Dump over 35-40 years. However during the public hearings OPG admitted that they intend to double the size of the Dump to 400,000 cubic metres to also bury and abandon decommissioning nuclear waste leftover after Ontario’s nuclear plants reach the end of life and are dismantled. The Dump will eventually be sealed with a sand/clay mixture and concrete, and the plan is that within a decade of closure it will no longer be monitored for radioactive leaks.”
Currently, the project awaits final approval from the federal Minister of the Environment and that decision has been delayed until after the federal election.
There have been three attempts to build DGR style nuclear waste dumps in the world (Assa II and Morsleben in Germany and the Waste Isolation Pilot project in New Mexico) all three have experienced serious unforeseen failures within years of being established.
Opposition to the proposed DGR is widespread including from the Great Lakes- St Lawrence Cities Initiative, the Michigan Senate and The Great Lakes Legislative Caucus, a nonpartisan group of state and provincial lawmakers from eight U.S. states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) and two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec) which has passed a resolution opposing the OPG proposed nuclear waste repository or any nuclear waste repository in the Great Lakes Basin.
The Council of Canadians stands in solidarity with the Anishinabek Nation, which represents 39 First Nations in Ontario and which opposes the nuclear waste dump. Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee says that according to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples any burial of hazardous materials requires the free, informed, prior consent of nearby First Nations. The proposed waste site would be located on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. Saugeen Chief Vernon Roote opposes the waste site and says, “If something were to happen with the disposal or the leakage of nuclear waste I wouldn’t want to be drinking the water downstream.”
Please take a moment to sign this petition against the DGR : http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.html
