The one-year license issued by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to Bruce Power to ship radioactive waste on the Great Lakes expires tomorrow, Friday February 3. This is a major campaign win and means those shipments cannot take place anytime soon. For an overview of our campaign, please see the key dates below:
September 30, 2011: Council of Canadians Ontario-Quebec regional organizer Mark Calzavara delivers a petition with more than 101,000 names to Queen’s Park demanding that Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty do the right thing and put a stop to the planned shipments of nuclear waste on the Great Lakes, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10868.
June 13: Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow writes Swedish minister of the environment Andreas Carlgren asking him to intervene and revoke a permit issued to Studsvik, a company in Nykoping, Sweden, that is set to receive radioactive waste from the Bruce Power nuclear plant in Ontario. Studsvik has a permit from the Swedish Radiation Authority to receive and decontaminate the waste, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=9399.
May 19: Ontario Member of the Provincial Parliament Peter Tabuns raises the Council of Canadians petition against the radioactive shipments on the Great Lakes in the Ontario Legislature, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=6870.
April 18: Council of Canadians water campaigner Emma Lui visits Amsterdam to meet with Mayor Albert De Hoop, President of KIMO International, and Sean Morris, Secretary for the Nuclear Free Local Authorities, who joined by telephone from Manchester, England. They were meeting to discuss ways to build a trans-Atlantic alliance to stop Bruce Power’s proposed shipments of nuclear waste on the Great Lakes, across the Atlantic Ocean, and to Sweden for processing, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=6580.
March 28: Bruce Power issues a media release stating they, “will delay plans to ship 16 steam generators to Sweden for recycling to allow further discussion with First Nations, Métis and others seeking additional information”, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=6238.
March 21: Calzavara and Lui visit Owen Sound to meet with chapter activist David Walton and Sharen Skelley of CARGOS to build local opposition to the shipments, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=6109 and http://canadians.org/blog/?p=9705.
March 2: We submit our comments to the House of Commons Natural Resources standing committee studying this situation, and issue an action alert requesting relevant Ontario ministers to intervene against the shipments, http://canadians.org/action/2011/great-lakes.html.
February 5: We condemn the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s decision to approve the transport of 16 radioactive steam generators by ship across the Great Lakes to Sweden, http://canadians.org/media/water/2011/05-Feb-11.html.
October 19, 2010: We call on the International Joint Commission (IJC) to reject a proposal to ship 16 steam generators to Sweden, a plan that puts the Great Lakes at risk. The IJC is the body tasked with “finding solutions to problems” in the Great Lakes, http://canadians.org/media/water/2010/19-Oct-10.html.
September 29: Lui presents our opposition to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings on Bruce Power’s application, http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=4770.
September 20: We are contacted by the Ontario Provincial Police about our opposition to the proposed shipments and what our plans are to stop those shipments, http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=4632.
August 20: We issue an action alert opposing these shipments, http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=4410.
