Nuclear waste storage near Lake Huron? Congress pushes back

As reported by the Detroit Free Press.

Ontario Power Generation insists on burying nuclear waste beside Lake Huron: Walkom

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna keeps asking OPG to look at other locations. The utility keeps not obliging.

As reported by the Star, and posted at SOS Great Lakes.

No matter how many times Environment Minister Catherine McKenna asks, OPG is unwilling to look at alternate sites to bury nuclear waste because they already found one.

OPG settled on Kincardine, a municipality on the shore of Lake Huron that hosts Bruce Power’s nuclear plant, where nuclear means jobs to local people and politicians. 

In 2016, OPG took almost a year to come up with a strikingly inadequate report that did not identify alternative sites and their latest report (released on May 26 2017) still does not identify specific alternate sites.

Read the full article.

Pickering operations are "persistently abysmal"

In a submission to the Ontario Energy Board this week, the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) association states that it is now convinced that “OPG’s plan to extend operations at Pickering is not economically feasible and, far from producing savings for ratepayers, may increase the price of electricity service in Ontario.”

CME also noted that Pickering’s operating performance is “persistently abysmal…by any objective measure”.

In its submissions CME acknowledged “the considerable efforts of Environmental Defence in bringing to light the significant potential for negative impacts on the price of electricity service associated with Ontario Power Generation’s plan for Pickering Extended Operations and the absence of sufficient economic analysis supporting OPG’s planned expenditures taking into account accurate and current production forecasts, fully allocated costs and prices associated with comparable alternative sources of generating capacity.”

According to Environmental Defence’s calculations, keeping the outdated Pickering Nuclear Station operating from 2018 to 2024 would raise electricity costs by $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion.

To read CME’s full submissions to the Ontario Energy Board please click here.

To read Environmental Defence’s submissions please click here.

Please sign the Ontarion Clean Air Alliance petition asking Premier Wynne to close the Pickering Nuclear Station in 2018, when its licence expires, and watch a video by OCAA's Angela Bischoff here.

Kildee on Canadian Nuclear Waste Storage Near Great Lakes

As posted at the website of U.S. Representative Dan Kildee (D-MI):

May 30, 2017

Press Release

Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05) issued the following statement today after a Canadian company released new information on its plans to permanently store nuclear waste on the shores of Lake Huron:

“Permanently storing nuclear waste less than a mile from the Great Lakes defies logic and common sense. Nuclear waste remains radioactive for thousands of years and would pose a major risk to our shared water resources. Neither the U.S. nor Canada can afford to jeopardize the health of the Great Lakes.

“In its latest letter, Ontario Power Generation says that storing nuclear waste in Kincardine, on the shores of Lake Huron, would be the most cost-effective for them. While this might be best for Ontario Power Generation’s financial interests, storing nuclear waste so close to the Great Lakes is a threat to our way of life in Michigan. The Great Lakes are an invaluable resource that propel our economy. Millions of jobs and billions of dollars in annual economic revenue are generated by our clean freshwater resources. Our economy and jobs are at risk if the Great Lakes were to ever become contaminated due to a nuclear accident.

“I continue to respectfully ask the Canadian government to reject this site so close to Lake Huron. Surely in the vast land mass that comprises Canada, there must be a better location to bury nuclear waste than on the shores of the Great Lakes.”

Beyond Nuclear presents at Heartwood re: courts deferring to agencies, on unprecedented highly radioactive liquid waste shipments

Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, presented at the 2017 Heartwood "Strong Roots!" forest protection council on Sat., May 27th.

Kevin's talk was entitled "Head-On Collision: Chevron Deference Meets Mobile Chernobyl on Steroids." (See the power point presentation; or the PDF version.) He described the efforts by an environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, to stop unprecedented high-risk, highly radioactive liquid waste truck shipments from Chalk River Nuclear Lab, Ontario, Canada to Savannah River Site, South Carolina. Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio has served as legal council for the coalition since 2013; he was assisted by attorney Diane Curran of Washington, D.C. at oral arguments in Jan. 2017.

However, in Feb., 2017, a federal judge deferred to the U.S. Department of Energy's supposed expertise, greenlighting the truck shipments without an environmental impact statement. The judge cited an obscure, but widely invoked, legal doctrine called "Chevron Deference" (named after a 1984 lawsuit between Chevron and Natural Resources Defense Council) as a key basis for her adverse ruling.

The shipments began in April 2017. Routing is top secret, given the security risks, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. But the most direct routes could take the 150 truck shipments, set to continue for four years, near the location of the Heartwood gathering in the mountains of western North Carolina -- as on highways such as I-81 and I-26, as through Asheville. (See map, above left, showing one such potential route; see here for a larger version of this route map). See Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Transportation website section for more information about this particular scheme, as well as similar ones.

Also presenting (see the power point, "Judicial Deference to Federal Agency Actions: In Theory and Practice") during the session was Perrin W. de Jong, an attorney who has faced adverse rulings based on the "Chevron Doctrine" himself, in lawsuits seeking to protect the tranquility of hiking and horseback riding nature trails through forested areas, against the threat of disturbance by gun shooting ranges.

Carol Polsgrove, a free lance journalist who organized the workshop sessions, compiled a bibliography, with links to documents on the subject matter. (See .docx version; see .pdf version.)