Take action! Help stop Canada's proposed radioactive waste dump targeted at the Great Lakes shore!

OPG's proposed radioactive waste dump at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. 3/4ths of a mile from the waters of the Great LakesThe growing groundswell of resistance throughout the Great Lakes Basin is having a positive impact on staving off Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) insane plan to dump radioactive waste just 3/4ths of a mile from the Lake Huron shore at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada, some tens of miles to the east of the tip of Michigan's Thumb.

Grassroots "voices in the wilderness" have been warning about the risk of this so-called "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) to the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations since 2002, when the scheme was first revealed to the public. But in the past couple years, a growing number of high-ranking U.S. elected officials have exercised leadership to protect the Great Lakes from this dire threat.

For example, Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk recently published a strongly worded letter to President Obama, calling for action to stop the dump. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, an association of mayors from multiple states and provinces, recently repeated its opposition to the DGR. 100 environmental groups from across the Great Lakes, and beyond, called on the Province of Ontario to pull the plug on the DGR. The Saugeen Ojibwe Nation (SON) has withheld its requisite consent for this radioactive waste dump targeted immediately to its south, risking radioactive stigma to its fisheries and tourism economies, if not outright contamination; the Anishinabek Nation has supported SON. Now, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has introduced the "Stop Nuclear Waste by Our Lakes Act," requring the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of the DGR's risks.

Canadian decision makers recently announced a three-month extension for public comments on the proposal. Now, instead of a Sept. 4, 2015 deadline for the Canadian federal Environment Minister to make her recommendation on the DGR (or, better yet, DUD -- sarcastically apt shorthand for Deep Underground Dump), that deadline has been postponed till Dec. 2nd, as announced by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. This postponement of the ultimate decision -- which will almost certainly be a rubberstamp approval by Prime Minister Harper's administration -- is a thinly veiled attempt to take the issue off the table in the run up to October federal parliamentary elections in Canada.

Help us block this proposed dump once and for all!

Following below are a number of ideas for WHAT YOU CAN DO:

PETITIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS TO SIGN:

Sign the STOP THE GREAT LAKES NUCLEAR DUMP PETITION

Please share this link <http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.html> with everyone you know, and urge them to sign the petition too!

Already, the STOP THE GREAT LAKES NUCLEAR DUMP PETITION has garnered over 83,000 signatures!

Also, sign the SUM OF US petition. The SUM OF US petition has already garnered well over 56,000 signatures, and is well on its way to its goal of 75,000 signatures. Please spread the word about the SUM OF US petition, as well!

Help urge the passage of U.S. Congressional resolutions opposing the DGR (Deep Geologic Repository)

Thank your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative, if they have already co-sponsored S. Res. 134 or H. Res. 194. (See the language in S. Res. 134 and H. Res. 194, posted as PDFs on the website of Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump.)

The U.S. Sens. who are already co-sponsoring S. Res. 134 are (arranged chronologically by co-sponsorship date): Debbie Stabenow (D-MI, original sponsor); Gary Peters* (D-MI); Mark Kirk* (R-IL); Dick Durbin* (D-IL); Tammy Baldwin* (D-WI); Sherrod Brown (D-OH). If your Sen(s). are already co-sponsoring, please thank them for their leadership, and urge them to work harder towards passage of S. Res. 134. (* = original co-sponsor)

If your U.S. Sen(s). are not yet co-sponsors, urge them to do so ASAP! (Learn more about S. Res. 134 here.)

The U.S. Reps. who are already co-sponsoring H. Res. 194 are (arranged chronologically by co-sponsorship date): Dan Kildee (Democrat-MI’s 5^th District, original sponsor); John Conyers* (D-MI-13); Sander Levin* (D-MI-9); Brenda Lawrence* (D-MI-14); Debbie Dingell* (D-MI-12); David Joyce* (R-OH-14); Candice Miller* (R-MI-10); Marcy Kaptur* (D-OH-9); Brian Higgins* (D-NY-26); Louise McIntosh Slaughter* (D-NY-25); Marcia Fudge* (D-OH-11); Robert Dold* (R-IL-11); Jan Schakowsky* (D-IL-11); Tammy Duckworth* (D-IL-8); Sean Duffy* (R-WI-7); Mike Bishop (R-MI-8); John Moolenaar (R-MI-4); Dan Benishek (R-MI-1); James Renacci (R-OH-16); David Trott (R-MI-11); Christopher Gibson (R-NY-19); Richard Nolan (D-MN-8).    

If your U.S. Rep. is not yet a co-sponsor, urge them to do so ASAP! (Learn more about H. Res. 194 here.)

You can phone your U.S. Sens.’ & U.S. Rep.’s offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You can look up your Members’ postal addresses, fax numbers, and web forms at their websites, via: https://www.congress.gov/members.

Likewise, help urge the passage of the "Stop Nuclear Waste by Our Lakes Act"

Introduced on August 10, 2015 by U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), this legislation would require the U.S. State Department to activate the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of the DGR's risks. U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) has co-sponsored the bill, and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee will introduce a companion bill in the U.S. House.

You can likewise contact your state legislators to urge action.

Contact the White House. Urge President Obama to activate the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission to undertake a comprehensive environmental review of the proposed DGR 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

It should not, and does not, require an act of Congress to force President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry to activate the IJC on this matter. They could activate it today, if they so choose. Urge them to! And urge them to take whatever actions are within their power to stop the DGR!

You can likewise urge your state governor to take action.

If they haven’t already, urge your municipality, county, and state to pass a resolution opposing the DGR 

168 municipalities, representing 22.5 million people, have already passed resolutions opposing the DGR (see the map, posted near the top of Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump's homepage). Now we need to get the remaining 17.5 million people who depend on the Great Lakes for drinking water to urge their municipalities to do the same!

As also reported by Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, the National Association of Counties has also now passed a resolution against the DGR. The National Association of Counties represents 2,300 counties across the U.S., in which 255 million Americans reside!

Get your organization to endorse a statement of opposition against the DGR 

100 groups have written the Ontario provincial government, urging it to pull the plug on the DGR. Get your own group to endorse the open letter (see the open letter, and related press release). To endorse the letter, have an authorized representative of your group email complete contact info. to kevin@beyondnuclear.org.

Submit comments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency until Sept. 1, 2015

As announced in a June 3rd Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) notice, the public comment period on the DGR has been extended by three months, to Sept. 1, 2015. (The Canadian federal Environment Minister's recommendation on the DGR proposal has been postponed till Dec. 2nd.) CEAA has provided email and postal mail addresses for submitting comments. Make clear that your opposition to the DGR is unconditional! Additional talking points you can use to fashion your own will be posted at Beyond Nuclear's website in the near future.

Learn more, and spread the word to everyone you know! 

For more info. about Canada’s proposed radioactive waste dump targeted at the Great Lakes shore, see Beyond Nuclear's Canada website section (scroll down to see entries arranged chronologically backwards).