SOS Great Lakes on DGR, re: International Comity [or Lack Thereof!]

See SOS Great Lakes' analysis, which concludes that the U.S. federal government exhibited comity towards Canada, when it suspended Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) site searches for radioactive waste dumps that could impact Canadian waters in the 1980s, but that Canada is not reciprocating when it comes to the DGR targeted at the Lake Huron shore at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario.

SOS Great Lakes on DGR: CANADA’S INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS WHEN THERE ARE POSSIBLE TRANSBOUNDARY ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: OPG, THE JRP AND ITS CREATORS (ENVIRONMENT CANADA AND CNSC) FAILED ON EVERY COUNT

SOS Great Lakes (also known as Save Our Saugeen Shore) provides this overview of its analysis:

The location of OPG’s proposed deep geologic repository on the shores of a trans-boundary watershed requires specific attention to environmental effects.

Canada is obliged by its own law, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 (CEAA 2012), as well as numerous binational legal obligations and customary international practice, to adhere to these principles.

And in conclusion of its forceful, fully referenced critique, SOS Great Lakes provides this summary:

By missing or bypassing virtually every requirement relating to possible transboundary environmental effects, OPG, the JRP, including its creators (ENVIRONMENT CANADA AND CNSC), who wrote its Terms of Reference (TOR), showed a troubling ignorance of and/or disregard of CANADA’s International Obligations particularly to the US and the US Border States.

Critics accuse nuclear safety official of acting as industry cheerleader

As reported by Gloria Galloway in an article in The Globe and Mail entitled "Critics accuse nuclear safety official of acting as industry cheerleader":

Opposition politicians and environmentalists are questioning the priorities of the man responsible for nuclear safety in Canada after a string of incidents in which he publicly defended the industry and was dismissive of concerns about potential hazards – a stance that runs contrary to his mandate at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The CNSC was established by the federal government to protect the health and safety of Canadians and to regulate the use, possession and storage of all nuclear substances in Canada. No part of its mission entails promotion of the country’s reactors. But, in the more than eight years that Michael Binder has served as president of the CNSC, he has repeatedly extolled the merits of the nuclear industry and chastised critics who voiced concerns about potential hazards. [see entire article here]

This news article followed a letter, signed by a binational coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, to the Canadian federal Minister of Natural Resources, Jim Carr, who has oversight on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The coalition letter, sent on Oct. 11th, was spearheaded by Ziggy Kleinau, of the Bruce Peninsula Environment Group. (See the French language version of the coalition letter, here.)

 The letter stemmed from a scathing report by the Canadian Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, regarding significant failures by the CNSC to do its job to protect public health, safety and the environment from nuclear power's risks. Given the two highest CNSC officers' acknowledgment of the accuracy of the Canadian Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's report, and their refusal to tender their resignations, the environmental coalition urged Minster Carr to relieve the two CNSC leaders of their duties.

See The Globe and Mail's coverage of the Canadian Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's scathing report about CNSC's failures, here.

Beyond Nuclear -- a "serial intervenor" in the words of the CNSC -- has been involved in many Canadian nuclear proceedings over the past decade. This has included butting heads with CNSC staff, Commissioners, and even its President -- Dr. Binder himself -- on numerous ocassions!

SOS Great Lakes on DGR: ACCIDENTS, MALFUNCTIONS, MALEVOLENT ACTS, AND RELATED CONTINGENCY PLANS: THIRTY EXAMPLES OF FAILURE TO PROPERLY CONSIDER

See SOS Great Lakes' (also known as Save Our Saugeen Shores) analysis of 30 major ways Ontario Power Generation's proposed DGR1* has violated Canadian environmental law and regulation (the "governing documents") when it comes to "accidents, malfunctions, malevolent acts and related contingency plans."

*DGR is short for Deep Geologic Repository. DGR1 refers to OPG's plan to bury and abandon all of Ontario's (20 reactors worth!) so-called "low" and "intermediate" (some of which is considered as highly radioactive as irradiated nuclear fuel itself) radioactive waste less than a mile away from the Lake Huron shore, at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (BNGS) in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.

The designation "1" is needed because of the multiple dumps targeted at various areas of Canada, especially the Great Lakes shore and basin.

DGR2 refers to the highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel dump-site for all of Canada (22 reactors worth) -- three municipalities near BNGS and DGR1 are still in the running for that. There is fear that DGR1 and DGR2 could simply be merged into one DGR at some point, in order to save billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars, by avoiding duplication.

DGR3 is a proposed expansion onto DGR1, for decommissioning wastes. Very late in the DGR1 licensing process, opponents pressured Canadian government regulators enough that OPG was required to admit that DGR1's proposed 200,000 cubic meter radioactive waste inventory (comprised of operational and refurbishment wastes) would someday be doubled to 400,000 cubic meters, in order to accommodate 200,000 cubic meters of decommissioning wastes.

Because of such absurdly high risks to the drinking water supply for 40 million people in two countries -- the Great Lakes -- Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada dubbed the DGR, the DUD (short for Deep Underground Dump).

Canadian Highly Radioactive Liquid Waste truck shipments to South Carolina (potentially through numerous states) formally delayed -- SRS Watch & Canadian news of Oct. 3

Published on Oct 4, 2016

Liquid Nuclear Waste Convoys: A Threat of the Waters of the Great Lakes – Media Conference, Queen's Park, Toronto, Oct 3 2016. Complete press package at http://ccnr.org/GLWQA_pack.pdf. Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility; Janet McNeill, Durham Nuclear Awareness; Christine Elwell, Sierra Club of Canada Foundation; introduced by Angela Bischoff, Ontario Clean Air Alliance. Watch the 24 minute 30 second-long video recording on YouTube!

In addition to a postponement, from September till February, in the proposed, high-risk truck shipment campaign, a coalition of environmental groups has also written to U.S. President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, demanding an Environmental Impact Statement be carried out. The coalition also wrote to the binational Great Lakes Executive Committee, demanding required notification under the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

More.