On-site work on nuclear waste disposal in NW Ontario suspended due to coronavirus pandemic concerns

As reported by TBNewsWatch.com.

The site, midway between Ignace, Ontario and the Wabigoon Ojibway First Nation, is being targeted for Canada's high-level radioactive waste dump. It is "in competition" with South Bruce, Ontario, very near the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station as well as the Saugeen Ojibwe First Nation, for the dubious distinction.

During Honor the Earth concert tours nearly two decades ago, Ojibwe environmental activist Winona "No Nukes" LaDuke said on stage that "The best minds in nuclear science have been hard at work for fifty years for a solution to the nuclear waste problem, and they finally got one: haul it down a dirt road and dump it on an Indian reservation."

At the time, she was referring to U.S. nuclear power industry and U.S. government schemes to dump high-level radioactive waste on the Skull Valley Goshutes Reservation in Utah (a so-called "consolidated interim storage facility"), as well as permanent disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada on Western Shoshone land.

But her words apply equally well today, re: the Canadian government and nuclear industry's attempt to dump high-level radioactive waste in Anishinaabe aki, Ojibwe country.

In recent months, the Saugeen Ojibwe Nation voted -- by an 86% to 14% margin -- against a proposed "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive waste dump, also targeted at their homeland.

See a 2013 map by Anna Tilden of IICPH (International Institute of Concern for Pubilc Health) showing the radioactive hot spots on the Great Lakes Basin, including (inset, upper right), the two-dozen sites then under consideration for Canada's high-level radioactive waste dump. That has now been whittled down to Ignace/Wabigoon Ojibway First Nation in extreme w. Ontario (150 miles from Lake Superior), and South Bruce/Saugeen Ojibwe Nation in s. Ontario (on the Lake Huron shore).

"I firmly believe TMI Unit 2 is the most radiologically contaminated facility in our nation outside of the Department of Energy’s weapons complex."

So wrote the State of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary, Patrick McDonnell, to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairwoman, Kristine Svinicki. The DEP secretary wrote the NRC chair expressing many concerns regarding the recently announced intention by EnergySolutions of Utah to take over the Three Mile Island Unit 2 site from current owner GPU Nuclear, for rapid decommissioning, despite still lingering high radioactivity contamination risks resulting from the March 28, 1979 reactor meltdown there.

The DEP secretary's concerns include environmental and safety impacts, cost of clean-up and financial responsibility, and radioactive waste handling.

See the letter posted at the NRC website here.

Contractor at nuclear power plant tests positive for COVID-19

As reported by The Times-Tribune, re: the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in PA.

Fires deliberately set around Chernobyl plant

Two fires -- one now extinguished, the other still burning -- were deliberately set by an individual who said he set grass alight "for fun." The man was apprehended but the larger fire still burning has spread to 250 acres of forest, and has increased the levels of radiation to substantially higher than "normal" levels, according to news reports. These increased radiation levels have complicated the ability of firefighters to tackle the blaze.

Forest fires have broken out in the Chernobyl Zone in the past, and, reports Radio Free Europe:

"Scientists have been concerned for decades about potentially catastrophic wildfires inside the exclusion zone around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine -- the site in 1986 of the world's worst nuclear accident.

"That's because trees and brush in the zone have absorbed radioactive particles that can be released into the air by the smoke of a wildfire."

(Image shows resuspension and atmospheric transport of radionuclides due to wildfires near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 2015. Work of:Evangeliou N, Zibtsev S, Myroniuk V, Zhurba M, Hamburger T, Stohl A, Balkanski Y, Paugam R, Mousseau T, Møller A, Kireev S)

Workers 'terrified' at Limerick nuclear plant amid coronavirus

Workers at the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, currently undergoing refueling, have expressed terror at the crowded working conditions, which, they say, puts them in extreme danger of contracting the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Workers described being packed "elbow to elbow" into training rooms and computer labs with no social distancing in place.  “Being put at risk like this makes us mad," one worker told the Pottsdown Mercury.

“I’m in a constant state of paranoia. In my opinion, it’s just a complete breeding ground, a cesspool for this,” another worker told the newspaper. There are reportedly at least 1,400 workers on the site for the refueling project.

At least two cases of Covid-19 have already been confirmed among the Limerick workforce. Read more.

(Pictured, Limerick workers during a 2018 refueling. Photo: NRC)