The Toronto Star reports, “Two Bruce County communities have been scratched from the list of possible sites for a high-level nuclear waste storage site. Neither Saugeen Shores nor neighbouring Arran-Elderslie have the physical characteristics to make them suitable to store high-level nuclear waste, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has concluded.”
While the NWMO may say these communities lack ‘the suitable physical characteristics’, “A vocal and well-organized opposition movement has also grown up, which held rallies and launched a petition against the waste site. Opponents in Canada and the U.S. have said itâs a mistake to bury nuclear waste near any of the Great Lakes.” Saugeen Shores (which includes the towns of Port Elgin and Southampton) is located directly by Lake Huron.
The Council of Canadians helped to promote those rallies and the petition.
And on August 1, Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow spoke against the waste storage site at a public event in Port Elgin during her recent Great Lakes tour. The public forum, organized by Save Our Saugeen Shores, was a standing room only event with 470 people in attendance.
The Toronto Star notes, “Cheryl Grace of Save Our Saugeen Shores said Thursday that her group is ‘enormously pleased and relievedâ that the ‘highly inappropriate’ proposal to put the waste site in the town has been scrapped.” She has previously stated, “To say that we would be siting this anywhere in the Great Lakes basin, which provides drinking water for up to 40 million people and is the worldâs largest source of fresh water just seems crazy to us.”
Unfortunately, the article also adds, “Eliminating the two communities still leaves three others in the area in the running (for this high-level nuclear waste storage site): Brockton, South Bruce, and Huron-Kinloss. One town in Saskatchewan also remains a candidate for the waste site, as do a string of locations in Northern Ontario.” In addition, “Ontario Power Generation wants to build an underground site for low and medium-level radioactive waste, beside the Bruce nuclear station (in the communities of Tiverton and Inverhuron).”
The Council of Canadians congratulates Save Our Saugeen Shores and everyone who stood up against this threat to Lake Huron.
Further reading
Council concerned by environmental impacts of nuclear waste
Two Lake Huron communities consider a nuclear waste dump
Why placing nuke dumps by the Great Lakes is an act of insanity
Join Save Our Saugeen Shores on June 30th, 2012 to protect the Great Lakes
Bluewater Coalition against nuclear waste sites near Lake Huron formed
