"Not on our Great Lakes: anti-nuclear activist criticizes proposed Ontario waste site"

Jim Bloch of The Voice, serving northern Macomb and St. Clair Counties in eastern Michigan, has reported on the speaking tour of Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps across Michigan, which featured showings of the documentary film "Into Eternity" about the proposed geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste in Finland. The tour was organized by Kay Cumbow of Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), to ring the alarm about the DGR ("Deep Geologic Repository," or DUD, as Greenpeace Canada's Dave Martin dubbed it, for Deep Underground Dump) targeted by the nuclear utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG) at the Bruce Nuclear Complex on the Ontario shoreline of Lake Huron, 50 miles from Michigan and upstream of such communities on the U.S. side as Alpena, Bay City, Port Huron, and Detroit.

Although supposedly "only" for so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 atomic reactors in Ontario, as Bloch reports, the DUD could easily morph into a catch-all for every category of radioactive waste, including high-level, from 22 operable and additional shutdown reactors across Canada. Concerned citizens and environmental groups are urged to express their opposition to Canadian decision makers by visiting the proposal's environmental assessment website. The Great Lakes (photo, above left), 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and drinking water supply for 40 million people in the U.S., Canada, and a large number of Native American/First Nations, would be put at radiological risk.

It's interesting that OPG chose to cut off its consideration of earthquakes in the area at just 180 years ago: 200 years ago, the New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the largest in North American recorded history -- were powerful enough to impact the Great Lakes region, even though they were epicentered in Missouri. Native American oral history in Michigan, for example, speaks of tsunami-like waves on the Great Lakes. The DUD's entrance tunnel mouth would be located about a half-mile from the Lake Huron shore, as would its surface facilities for handling and storing radioactive wastes.

Gordon Edwards: "SNC-Lavalin and the Demise of CANDU Competence"

Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), recently wrote this essay, "SNC-Lavalin and the Demise of CANDU Competence." SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based multi-national corporation, recently took over Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd.'s (AECL) CANDU reactor division for the bargain basement price of just $15 million. Its situation since can only be described as in meltdown. Its stock value has plummeted, with $1.5 billion in losses, prompting a shareholder class action lawsuit. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided its Montreal headquarters, related to $56 million in "untraceable and un-accounted for payments, presumed to be bribes." And a former SNC-Lavalin vice president, with close ties to the Gadhafi family in Libya, which he used to land a controversial Libyan prison contract, is now in a Swiss prison himself, charged with "fraud, money-laundering, and corruption of officials." Another SNC-Lavalin consultant is now in a Mexican jail, charged with "consorting with organized crime, falsifying documents, and human trafficking." Meanwhile, CANDU nuclear engineers are leaving the company in droves, and remaining nuclear engineers are threatening a major strike, due to deep cuts in pay and pensions threatened by SNC-Lavalin. Dr. Edwards warns this dangerously undermines CANDU competence -- and an attached news article shows how the strike and departures could well impact CANDU operations in New Brunswick and Ontario, Canada, as well as a number of overseas countries with CANDUs.

Beyond Nuclear discusses bi-national radioactive waste risks on Sarnia, Ontario radio interview

On the 26th annual commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe (April 26, 2012), Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps discussed the risks of a proposed radioactive waste dump on the Lake Huron shoreline at Bruce Nuclear Complex with radio station CHOK, located in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Sarnia is downstream of Bruce, and is located just across the narrow and shallow St. Clair River from Port Huron, Michigan, U.S.A. Kevin had been the featured speaker the previous evening after a showing of "Into Eternity" at a meeting of the Blue Water Sierra Club at Port Huron city hall.

Last year, on March 23, 2011 (just 11 days after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe in Japan began), Kevin also spoke with CHOK about the risks of Bruce Nuclear's proposed shipment of radioactive steam generators by boat right down the St. Clair River between Port Huron and Sarnia. This shipment has been held off by determined resistance stretching from the Great Lakes to Europe. CHOK broke the news story about the proposed shipment in spring 2010.