Beyond Nuclear thankful for indefinite delay on Great Lakes nuclear waste dump, vows to redouble efforts to nip the "DUD" in the bud

The Great Lakes serve as the drinking water supply for 40 million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and Washington, D.C., U.S.A.--Late yesterday afternoon, the Canadian federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Catherine McKenna, issued the following statement, a Public Notice entitled Deep Geologic Repository Project — Ministerial Request for Additional Information, posted at the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency website:

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Catherine McKenna, today requested additional information and further studies on the environmental assessment for the proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) Project for Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste in Kincardine, Ontario.

After considering the Joint Review Panel Environmental Assessment Report, the Minister has requested that the proponent, Ontario Power Generation, provide additional information on three aspects of the environmental assessment: alternate locations for the project, cumulative environmental effects of the project, and an updated list of mitigation commitments for each identified adverse effect under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 (CEAA 2012).

Ontario Power Generation has been asked to provide the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, by April 18, 2016, with a schedule for fulfilling the information request. The Minister will contact the Panel, at a future date, regarding its role in the review of the additional information and studies.

The Minister's request for information from the proponent has paused the timeline for an environmental assessment decision to be issued, as per section 54(6) of CEAA 2012. At a later date, the Minister will seek a further timeline extension from the Governor in Council.

March 1, 2016 had previously been set as the ultimate decision deadline for the Canadian Environment Minister to determine whether or not to accept the Joint Review Panel's Environmental Assessment Report recommendation that the DGR be allowed to proceed to construction and operation. The newly announced delay appears to be indefinite in nature, as OPG must report by April 18th on how long it needs to fulfill the three very broad additional information requests made by the Minister.

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear’s Radioactive Waste Watchdog, released the following statement in response.

The Environment Minister's actual letter to OPG is posted here.

A grassroots environmental movement opposed to the DGR has grown from voices in the wilderness, to an international groundswell, over the course of the past 15 years.

But one example of this long, determined defense of the Great Lakes is the October 13, 2012 "Huron Declaration," signed by a large number of individuals, representing many organizations, in opposition to the DUD. (DUD, short for Deep Underground Dump, is an acronym and phrase coined by Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada.) The "Huron Declaration" came out of the Nuclear Labyrinth conference, organized by Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, featuring Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility as keynote speaker, and hosted by Timothy J. Jurkovac, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Sociology, Program Director, Criminal Justice, at Bowling Green State University's Firelands College in Huron, Ohio.

While named after the location of the conference, the "Huron Declaration" also is an allusion to the "Port Huron Statement," which marked the formation of the Students for a Democratic Society in the early 1960s, at a gathering held in Port Huron, Michigan. In fact, the Huron Declaration came 50 years after the Port Huron Statement -- 1962 to 2012.

Recently, Port Huron has become a hotbed of resistance to the DUD, with a St. Clair River rally in August 2015, the formation of Great Lakes Environment Alliance in recent months, a November 2015 event at St. Clair County Community College again featuring Dr. Gordon Edwards of CCNR as keynote speaker, etc.

Port Huron, Michigan is located at the point where Lake Huron flows into the St. Clair River. Port Huron's sister city, Sarnia, Ontario, has also long been a hotbed of resistance to the DGR, thanks in large part to the leadership of its long-serving progressive and environmental mayor, Mike Bradley. Port Huron and Sarnia are the nearest population center downstream of the proposed DUD -- in fact, Sarnia is the biggest city on the shores of Lake Huron.

The international environmental coalition resisting the DUD will now redouble efforts, in hopes of blocking the insane scheme outright. The movement will then move on to address the many other radioactive risks to the Great Lakes, concentrated at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, and at many other places along the Great Lakes shorelines, as overviewed by the International Institute of Concern for Public Health's Great Lakes Region Nuclear Hot Spots map.

Update on February 19, 2016 by admin

Northwatch has also issued a news release.

The following news outlets have reports on this story:

Blackburn News (and a second Blackburn News article); Detroit Free Press; The Globe and Mail; AM980; The London Free Press (reposted at the Sarnia Observer); Associated Press; Toledo Blade; CTV News.

Update on February 19, 2016 by admin

Jim Bloch at The Voice (serving northern Macomb & St. Clair counties in Michigan, immediately downstream from the proposed DGR at Bruce NGS) has also reported on this story.

Bloch also just published a two-part series on the DGR, entitled "On the skin of the beast: Walking the site of the proposed nuclear dump on Lake Huron." See Part I; see Part II.

Update on February 20, 2016 by admin

Michigan Radio has also reported on this story. Paulette Parker's coverage, entitled "Plans to bury nuclear waste near Lake Huron hit new roadblok," quotes Beyond Nuclear:

"We had hoped that the environment minister would have outright rejected the proposal and just simply ended this insane scheme," said radioactive waste watchdog, Kevin Kamps. He is with the group, Beyond Nuclear, which has been fighting the proposal for over a decade.

"We've seen what happened in Flint with lead poisoning of the drinking water – a population of  100,000; well this is a population 400 times larger than that," Kamps said. "Including, ironically enough, the city of Flint which now gets its drinking water, again, from Lake Huron."

OPG insists the limestone formation in the area is geologically stable. Kamps says the shaft OPG drills would pierce that geology and create a new water flow pathway, forming an escape path for radioactive waste.

He says a leak would spell disaster for all points downstream.

"We're talking tens of millions of people in a total of eight states and two provinces, and a large number of Native American first nations, who's water could become poisoned," Kamps said.

Kamps says Beyond Nuclear remains committed to trying to stop the plans.

"We can't risk the drinking supply of 40 million people being poisoned," he said.

Update on February 21, 2016 by admin

The Toronto Star has also reported on this story, as has the Canadian Press.

Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump has released a second video opposing OPG's Deep Geologic Repository

Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump (STGLND) has just released its second video re: Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for radioactive waste burial on the Lake Huron shoreline: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH9fSBtXLF4&feature=youtu.be

Press has already picked this up:

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/02/11/group-opposing-plan-for-nuclear-waste-vault-hope-to-sway-pm-with-his-own-words

STGLND has said folks should feel free to circulate the video widely.

80 Public Interest Groups Urge Canadian Federal Environment Minister: Reject Great Lakes Nuclear Waste Dump

OPG's DGR would be located at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, less than a mile from the shore of Lake Huron.A Canadian-U.S. coalition of 80 environmental groups has written a joint letter to Canada's federal Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, urging her to reject Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed radioactive waste dump on the Great Lakes shoreline.

Northwatch and Beyond Nuclear issued a press release about the joint letter.

The Great Lakes is the drinking water supply for 40 million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations. The Great Lakes comprises 21% of the world's, and 84% of North America's, surface fresh water.

The environmental coalition has fought against the proposed OPG "DGR" (short for Deep Geologic Repository) for 15 years. OPG proposes dumping so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 reactors across the province at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, less than a mile from the Lake Huron shore.

Please help stop the Great Lakes nuke waste dump!

March 1st is Canadian Environment Minister McKenna's deadline for issuing the Decision Statement, but she could issue it sooner than that. We've not got a day to spare!

Please consider taking further action. Here are some ideas:

• Share the joint letter and encourage others to send messages in support 
• Send your own letter to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, the Hon. Catherine McKenna (email is catherine.mckenna@parl.gc.ca)

• Send a copy of your letter to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (email is justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca) or write an individual letter to Prime Minister Trudeau

• Write to your own elected official, asking them to speak up for your concerns, and call on Minister McKenna and Prime Minister Trudeau to reject OPG's nuclear waste burial scheme

• visit the website of Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, there you can watch a powerful three minute video, see the map of 184 resolutions from municipalities across the Great Lakes Basin passed in opposition to the dump (is your town on there yet?!), and sign their petition, fill out a  STGLND poster, take a selfie and email it to McKenna.  
  
  THEN DO IT ALL AGAIN! INVITE A FRIEND TO DO THE SAME!

Beyond Nuclear in Port Huron against the DGR: "Radioactive Wastes - Hidden Dangers for the Great Lakes & Our Fresh Water Supply"

This image included in Kevin's presentation was a crowd favorite at the event. It originated in the anti-uranium mining movement in Australia, led by Aboriginal peoples. The image has been popularized internationally through its use by World Information Service on Energy, as part of its "Don't Nuke the Climate!" campaign.Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, was honored and privileged to be invited to speak by GLEA (Great Lakes Environmental Alliance) on “Radioactive Wastes - Hidden Dangers for the Great Lakes & Our Fresh Water Supply,” at its regular meeting on Feb. 2. The meeting was held at the M-Tec Building, on SC4's Campus (St. Clair County Community College), in Port Huron, Michigan.

Here is GLEA's description of the event:

With the ongoing public health crisis in Flint, and knowing that radioactive pollutants can be both invisible and tasteless, we must rethink our efforts to protect the public drinking water supply. Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist from Beyond Nuclear and a Michigan native, will address what we can do to stop the permanent deep burial of nuclear wastes beside the largest fresh water source for North America. Mr. Kamps will also give an update on other Great Lakes nuclear issues. Find out how you can get involved and what GLEA is doing to safeguard our important natural resources.

GLEA's webiste is: www.GreatLakesEnvironmentalAlliance.org/

GLEA's contact is: Elizabeth Zimmer-Lloyd; Great Lakes Environmental Alliance, Promotion Committee; thumperbunny2u@aol.com

Here is a link to the Power Point Kevin presented. His talk focused primarily on Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for radioactive waste dumping on the shore of Lake Huron, just upstream from Port Huron. He also made connections to the Flint, Michigan drinking water lead-poisoning catastrophe, as included in his Counterpunch article entitled "After Flint, Don't Let Them Nuke the Great Lakes Next!" (Flint and Port Huron are only an hour's drive apart.) The very same U.S. and Michigan agencies (EPA, MDEQ, MI Governor Snyder's administration) that have brought us the Flint catastrophe, are the very same ones OPG met with, that have flippantly signed off on the DGR, apparently oblivious to the risks to the drinking water supply for 40 million people (including the 100,000 residents of Flint, who now, once again, draw safe, clean Lake Huron water as their drinking water source; it was the state decision, from April 2014 to October 2015, to switch to the highly corrosive Flint River, with no corrosion-control program in place, that led to the catastrophe).

Kevin was also privileged to be asked to announce the first installment in the "Kay Cumbow Award," which was inaugurated at SC4's Global Awareness Day last November, that also focused on OPG's DGR. The award, named after a modern day Paul Revere, Port Huron area anti-nuclear environmental watchdog Kay Cumbow, who is active with GLEA (and was among the very first to raise the alarm about the DGR in 2001, in the Blue Water area of St. Clair and Macomb Counties), was awarded to Jeremy Whitmore and Valerie Daggett. Jeremy and Valerie organized the rally on the St. Clair River in Port Huron last mid-August, calling attention to the DGR during Port Huron's river festival.

At Kay Cumbow's invitation, Kevin has presented in Port Huron a number of other times over the years, including just after the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, around the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, Kay also helped "rope" Kevin into anti-nuclear power activism in the first place. She coordinated Palisades Watch in southwest Michigan back then. The group's public outreach effort at Kalamazoo's New Years Fest on 12/31/1992 is when a Palisades Watch volunteer, Mike Martin of Gobles, handed Kevin a flier.

Kay also pointed out a moving connection at the Feb. 2 event. Dr. Mona, a Flint crisis hero, attended the Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination Backyard Eco Conference in central Michigan, as a child. Backyard Eco was a primary gathering of the Michigan environmental movement for many long years on end. (Kay is also a former CACC board member, and still a proud member. Kevin was very honored last year, when CACC invited him to join its advisory board.) The outdoor educational experience for children was always at the heart of Eco.

U.S. Representative Candice Miller: ‘No’ to nuclear waste near Lake Huron

U.S. Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI-10th)U.S. Represenative Candice Miller (Republican-Michigan, photo left) has published an op-ed in the Detroit News opposing Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for radioactive waste burial on the Great Lakes shoreline as unacceptably risky to the drinking water supply of 40 million North Americans.

Miller is a seven-term, senior Republican in the U.S. House. As reported on her official website:

Representative Miller serves as Chairman of the Committee on House Administration – currently serving as the only woman chair of a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.  She serves as Vice Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, as well as Chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, and is a member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.  In Congress, Representative Miller has been a leader in protecting the Great Lakes and promoting Michigan industry.

The 10th U.S. House Congressional District of Michigan, which she represents, is the closest one downstream from OPG's proposed DGR.

(Beyond Nuclear does disagree, however, with Rep. Miller's implicit advocacy in favor of the long proposed, and now cancelled, Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste dump, as expressed in her op-ed.

It is worth noting that no U.S. nuclear power utility, or government agency, has suggested dumping radioactive wastes on the Great Lakes shoreline.

In fact, among the 184 resolutions passed in opposition to the DGR, a number came from Chicagoland -- home of Exelon Nuclear. Another came from Port Clinton, OH -- the company town of the Davis-Besse atomic reactor. The U.S. nuclear power industry isn't even that crazy, to propose dumping radioactive waste on the Great Lakes shoreline! See STGLND's website for a map showing where the resolutions have been passed.

However, the U.S. nuclear power industry, and its friends and supporters in government, ARE crazy enough to generate and store radioactive wastes on the Great Lakes shores. As Dave Kraft of NEIS of Chicago has pointed out, re: Chicagoland's many resolutions opposing OPG's DGR -- if burying radioactive waste on the Great Lakes shores is unacceptable, then what about making it, and storing it, there?

That said, it can't stay there forever. Mary Sinclair, founder of Don't Waste MI, warned about that two decades ago. But Mary also agreed that Yucca Mountain was unacceptable as a dumpsite.

The Yucca dump would violate environmental justice principles, is not consent-based, and is technically unsuitable. That is, it would leak massively into the environment, is ever opened and operated, and would be done against the will of the Western Shoshone National Council, where it is located, as well as against the will of the State of Nevada, within the borders of which it is located.

Likewise, parking lot dumps targeted at Native American reservations, already heavily contaminated Department of Energy sites, and already heavily burdened nuclear power plants, are also a bad idea.

The nuclear industry should stop making the wastes on the Great Lakes shore. For what already exists and is stored there, a coalition of more than 200 environmental groups, representing all 50 states -- including Michigan -- have long advocated Hardened On-Site Storage. One of the principles calls for safeguarding dry casks against leakage over long periods of time. Another calls for storing wastes as safely as possible, as close to the point of generation as possible. That is, some sites -- including on the Great Lakes shore -- are unsuitable for long-term radioactive waste storage, given the inherent risks to the freshwater supplies of our continent, as Dr. Sinclair warned two decades ago.)