"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.

Fears continue over potential collapse of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool

Common Dreams has reported on May 28th in an article entitled "Growing Fear Over Fukushima Fuel Pool 4 as Wall Bulge Detected".

The article is based largely on New York Times reporting in an article entitled "Concerns Grow About Spent Fuel Rods at Fukushima Daiichi," by Hiroko Tabuchi and Matthew L. Wald on May 26, 2012.

The New York Times reported that Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment and nuclear minister, inspected "the No. 4 reactor building at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Saturday, May 26, 2012. The visit by Hosono, apparently aimed at demonstrating the safety of the facility, came amid renewed concerns about conditions at the plant's No. 4 reactor after its operator reported a bulging of the building's wall. (Toshiaki Shimizu, Japan Pool) [Yellow reactor containment dome at center background.]" (see photo, left; note that the high-level radioactive waste pool is located beneath the white plastic tarp just beside Hosono on his left).

The New York Times also quotes Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute and one of the experts raising concerns: “The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state, down to the floor that holds the spent fuel pool. Any radioactive release could be huge and go directly into the environment.”

(Koide spoke on May 5th at the University of Chicago. Beyond Nuclear partner Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) information tabled at the event, while Beyond Nuclear covered the Chicago Green Festival.)

The New York Times also quoted Tadahiro Katsuta, an associate professor of nuclear science at Tokyo’s Meiji University: “Japan did not want to admit that the nuclear fuel cycle might be a failed policy, and did not think seriously about a safer, more permanent way to store spent fuel.”

(In August 2010, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps was introduced to Dr. Katsuta in Tokyo, not long after Kevin had visited Fukushima Daiichi. In September 2010, Dr. Katsuta requested that Kevin help him arrange meetings in Washington, D.C. Dr. Katsuta was working in collaboration with Dr. Frank Von Hippel at Princeton University on a study regarding alternatives to reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel in Japan. While the Nuclear Energy Institute's Steve Kraft, and the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future's Allison Macfarlane, gladly accepted Dr. Katsuta's invitation to meet, not one office at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted the request. This despite initially positive responses from a number of NRC Commissioners' offices, as well as NRC's Spent Fuel Project Office, its international relations office, etc. Apparently, the kabosh was put on any meetings taking place at NRC once the Office of Public Affairs found out. NRC's OPA is headed by Elliot Brenner, who previously headed communications for Dick Cheney.)

Update on May 31, 2012 by admin

On May 30th, Thom Hartmann, host of The Big Picture, interviewed Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear about the latest news on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4's high-level radioactive waste storage pool (this discussion begins at minute 7:30 -- prior to that, Thom and Kevin discuss the breaking news of Fukushima radioactively contaminated bluefin tuna documented on the California coast).

Update on May 31, 2012 by admin

Urge your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative to support U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) call for the U.S. government to offer assistance to the Japanese government to accelerate removal of the irradiated fuel from the precarious pool. Phone your Congress Members via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Also contact the White House with the same urgent request.

"Fukushima Daiichi: It May Be Too Late Unless the Military Steps In"

Workers in white radiation suits beside the surface of the elevated high-level radioactive waste storage pool at Fukushima DaiichiJapanese diplomat Akio Matsumura has posted a new blog proposing that military intervention be deployed to prevent the worst from happening at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 (see photo, left). He proposes that the Japan Self-Defense Forces be deployed to Unit 4 to offload high-level radioactive waste, before another, almost inevitable earthquake topples the building and its irradiated nuclear fuel catches fire. Unit 4's pool holds 8 times the radioactive Cesium-137 released by Chernobyl. But a fire in Unit 4's pool would very likely lead to the evacuation of the entire site, risking 85 times Chernobyl's hazardous Cesium-137 escaping if all 7 of Fukushima Daiichi's pools are allowed to boil dry and catch fire (not to mention what more would happen if its three melted down reactor cores are no longer cooled either).

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.

Urge Senate Majority Leader Reid and your own U.S. Senators to block "consolidated interim storage" legislation!

Grace Thorpe, whom President Obama has praised for her work to block "centralized interim storage" sites for high-level radioactive waste targeted at Native American communitiesOn April 26th, 2012 -- the 26th annual commemoration of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe -- the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill that would authorize and fund a "pilot" program for "consolidated interim storage" of high-level radioactive waste at one or more locations in the U.S. The bill had previously passed the U.S. Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee for Energy and Water, chaired by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. The Chernobyl date is most ironic, for this "consolidated interim storage" proposal would launch unprecedented numbers of truck, train, and barge shipments of high-level radioactive waste onto the roads, rails, and waterways through most states -- risks critics have long dubbed "Mobile Chernobyls" due to the potential for accidental disasters (and "dirty bombs on wheels," regarding the potential for intentional terrorist attacks).

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future made "consolidated interim storage" its highest priority in its final report in January 2012. It did so without even reading the thousands of comments provided by concerned citizens and environmental groups. Those thousands of comments opposed "centralized interim storage" parking lot dumps, as well as the risky radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails and waterways they would unnecessarily create. For over a decade now, a united environmental movement nationwide has advocated hardened on-site storage instead, for wastes that already exist. For wastes that do not yet exist, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: STOP MAKING IT!

The BRC's prioritization of "consolidated interim storage," and its refusal to recommend against targeting Native American communities for such parking lot dumps, is also most ironic. BRC was created by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu, to seek a "Plan B" after their wise decision to cancel the scienitifically unsuitable Yucca Mountain national dumpsite. But they appointed 15 pro-nuclear members, which decided to repeat the long tradition of "radioactive racism" -- targeting Native American, as well as other low income communities, for such high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps. This, despite President Obama himself, in spring 2009, praising Native American environmental justice activist Grace Thorpe (see photo, above left) for blocking such dumpsites targeted at her own Sauk and Fox Reservation in Oklahoma, as well as scores of other reservations across the country. 

Please contact the office of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) at 202-224-3542. Urge that Sen. Reid block this dangerous bill from reaching the Senate floor. Remind him and his staff that such large-scale high-level radioactive waste shipments, to such Western targets as the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, or the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, would increase the risks of those wastes eventually being transferred to Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- a dumpsite Sen. Reid has successfully opposed for longer than a quarter century.

Also contact your two U.S. Senators via the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Urge them to block this bill.