Great Lakes Nuke Dump Decision Postponed; Critics Call for Dump's Cancellation

OPG's DUD would be built on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water, just 3/4ths of a mile from the shoreline of the Great Lakes.The newly appointed Canadian Environment Minister, the Honorable Catherine McKenna, has postponed the deadline for deciding whether or not to approve Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposal to bury radioactive wastes on the Great Lakes shore at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario. The deadline had been next Wednesday, December 2, 2015; she has postponed the decision until March 1, 2016.

Beyond Nuclear has issued a press release (see the Word version for live links to relevant documents). In it, Beyond Nuclear thanks a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation of 32 Senators and Representatives for writing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and urging him to cancel the Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) outright, or at the very least, postpone the decision until they can meet with him in person to communicate the concerns and objections of tens of millions of U.S. citizens in eight Great Lakes states. Beyond Nuclear has expressed confidence that Minister McKenna's review of the 13 years of growing resistance to the DUD (short for Deep Underground Dump) will convince her to reject OPG’s proposal as unacceptably risky to the drinking water supply for 40 million people. See Beyond Nuclear's Canada website section for more information.

65 U.S. & Canadian groups call on new Canadian Environment Minister to reject OPG's DGR!

For Immediate Release
November 19, 2015

Public Interest Groups Urge Federal Environment Minister:
Reject Nuclear Waste Dump

Ottawa – Calling the federal review report issued in May on a proposal to bury nuclear waste beside Lake Huron “deeply flawed”, sixty-five Canadian and U.S. public interest groups have sent a joint letter to the federal minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna, urging her to reject Ontario Power Generation’s bid to bury radioactive wastes right beside Lake Huron.
 
McKenna has a deadline of December 2^nd to issue a “Decision Statement” under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The previous government made drastic changes to that Act, including setting strict timelines. They also gave themselves an extension to the original deadline for responding to the hearing Panel’s May 6^th report so that the decision date would fall after the October 19^th federal election.
 
Ontario Power Generation’s proposal was to bury 200,000 cubic metres of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes produced during reactor operations deep underground in a series of underground caverns carved out of limestone. Weeks before the federal hearing began in September 2013, OPG publicly acknowledged its intention to double that amount by adding decommissioning wastes - including radioactive reactor components and contaminated building materials and rubble – through a license amendment after approval based on the initial proposal has been issued.
 
In May of this year a panel appointed by the former Conservative federal Minister of the Environment Peter Kent and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in 2012 provided the Minister with its final report on the review of Ontario Power Generation’s proposed Deep Geologic Repository for Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Wastes. The Joint Review Panel (JRP) recommended that the federal minister approve the proposed repository, despite the expert evidence they heard throughout the public hearings about numerous technical uncertainties, and an incomplete plan.  The review panel effectively delegated the most important parts of the assessment to bureaucrats within the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, after additional research has been done.
 
The proposal faces large and growing public opposition. 179 municipalities representing more than 22 million people have passed resolutions opposing OPG’s proposed waste repository. On November 5, 2015, a bipartisan group of six U.S. Senators and 26 U.S. Representatives from a number of Great Lakes states wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau urging him to block the deep geological repository. On September 26, 2015 the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus, a nonpartisan group of state and provincial lawmakers from eight U.S. states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) and two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec) passed a resolution opposing the OPG proposed nuclear waste repository or any nuclear waste repository in the Great Lakes Basin. The Great Lakes are the drinking water supply for 40 million people, in  eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces and numerous First Nation communities.

“These wastes have to be isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years; burying them in limestone right beside Lake Huron simply makes no sense”, said Kevin Kamps a radioactive waste specialist with U.S. based group Beyond Nuclear.
 
“Ontario Power Generation’s experts during the hearing talked about Lake Huron being large enough to dilute radioactive wastes that leaked from the repository. That a federal hearing panel would accept using the Great Lakes for the dilution of radioactive pollution as a solution to the industry’s waste management problems robs their report of any credibility.” Said Eugene Bourgois, an area resident and the closest neighbour to the proposed dump.
 
“The Joint Review Panel got one thing right: they named OPG’s proposed burial plan as “precedent-setting” and described it as “likely … to assist” in the push to bury high level nuclear waste. We’ve always seen this project as the nuclear industry’s trial balloon for nuclear waste burial”, said Brennain Lloyd, a spokesperson with Northwatch.
 
Ontario Power Generation also holds majority control in the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, an association of provincial utilities in Canada who operate nuclear reactors. The NWMO is currently investigating nine communities as potential burial sites for high level nuclear fuel waste, including 6 in northern Ontario and three in the vicinity of the Bruce nuclear site.

– 30 –

 
For comment contact:
 
Brennain Lloyd                       tel. (705) 497 0373, cell (705) 493 9650
Eugene Bourgois                   tel. (519) 368-5354
Kevin Kamps                          tel. (240) 462-3216

Update on November 20, 2015 by admin

This update just in from Brennain Lloyd of Northwatch and Nuclear Waste Watch:

Yesterday, our letter with 65 signing organizations went to Minister McKenna, urging her to reject OPG's nuclear waste dump.

So what's next?

The federal minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna has a deadline of December 2nd  to issue a “Decision Statement” under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Still new to office (she was sworn in on November 4th) and with the Paris negotiations on the Climate Change Convention occupying centre stage, the Minister (and her staff) need to hear the message more than once that approving Ontario Power Generation's plan to bury radioactive waste beside Lake Huron is not an option. In addition to signing the Joint Letter, here's what you can do:

• Send your own letter to Minister McKenna (if you sent final comments at the end of the 2014 hearing or sent comments on the "potential conditions"  produced by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, consider sending a copy of those comments as an attachment to your letter).
• Sign the petition calling on the Minister to reject OPG's nuclear waste dump
• Ask your local elected officials to contact the Minister and express concern on your behalf
• Hold an event to let others know about this issue and send the Minister a report, passing on the concerns of others who participated
• Follow the Minister on Facebook  and / or Twitter and message her about OPG's plan
• If you missed signing on to the November 19th Joint Letter send us an email and we'll add you on; next week we'll send an update to the Minister's office, letting her know that more groups have signed on.

Letter to Minister McKenna

Joint Review Panel Report [very large document -- takes time to download]

[Email Nuclear Waste Watch at: info@nuclearwastewatch.net ]

Beyond Nuclear presents at day-long forum in Port Huron, MI in opposition to Canada's Great Lakes radioactive waste dump

Beyond Nuclear was honored to present at St. Clair County Community College's (SC4) 19th annual Global Awareness Day, focused on "The Global Legacy of Nuclear Waste." See the event flier here.

See Beyond Nuclear's powerpoint presentation here, entitled "The Global Legacy of Nuclear Waste: Nuclear Dumps in Canada and Worldwide."

The day-long event was devoted to stopping Ontario Power Generation's proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for radioactive waste burial at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (NGS) in Kincardine, Ontario on the Lake Huron shore, upstream of Port Huron, MI.

Other presenters included: the keynoter, Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsiblity; sheep farmer Eugene Bourgeois (the nearest neighbor to Bruce NGS); Dr. John Sass, a geophysicist; Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Great Lakes; Natalia Malaydach, a SC4 student from Ukraine, on the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe; Kay Cumbow and others from the newly formed Great Lakes Environmental Alliance (GLEA); Lynn Rosales, a member of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located across the St. Clair River from Port Huron, MI in Sarnia, ON; and others. SC4 sociology professor Kraig Archer hosted the event.

GLEA launched a letter writing campaign against the DGR. It is calling for concerned citizens to write their friends, family, etc. in other U.S. states, urging them to urge their U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators to join the Michigan congressional delegation in calling for the Obama administration to activate the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of the DGR scheme's risks to the Great Lakes.

Contact your two U.S. Senators, and your U.S. Representative (get patched through to their offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121), and urge them to co-sponsor the bipartisan U.S. Senate (S.Res. 134) and House (H.Res. 194) resolutions opposing the DGR; if they already have done so, thank them; if they have not, urge them to ASAP. Likewise, urge them to co-sponsor U.S. Senate and House legislation, the "Stop Nuclear Waste by Our Lakes Act," (S. 2026) introduced by U.S. Sens. Stabenow and Peters, and U.S. Rep. Kildee (Democrats from Michigan). The "Stop Nuclear Waste by Our Lakes Act" (S. 2026) will invoke the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, and mandate the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission (IJC) to undertake a comprehensive review of the DGR proposal.

32 Members of Congress urge newly elected Canadian Prime Minister to cancel DGR

As reported at the website of Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, a bipartisan delegation of 6 U.S. Senators and 26 U.S. Representatives has written newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to cancel Ontario Power Generation's proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for burial of radioactive waste on the Lake Huron shore at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario.

At the very least, the 32 Members of Congress request Prime Minister Trudeau to postpone the December 2, 2015 deadline now set for his newly installed Environment Minister to decide yea or nay to go forward with the DGR, until the delegation can meet with him to express its concerns.

You can help, by contacting your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators, and urging them to join this effort to protect the Great Lakes. Your congressional members can also co-sponsor legislation and a resolution, calling for U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission comprehensive review of the DGR scheme.