Great Lakes radioactive waste dump hearings end, resistance continues

MI State Rep. Sarah Roberts (D-St. Clair), and Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood (D-Taylor), spoke to local press along the shores of Lake Huron at Macpherson Park in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada. They travelled there to testify against the dump before the JRP. Photo credit Kincardine Times.The Canadian federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) has concluded over a month of environmental assessment hearings about Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes. The dumpsite is targeted at the Lake Huron shore in Kincardine, Ontario, at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, currently one of the world's single largest operating nuclear power plants.

The testimony heard by the JRP included a presentation by Beyond Nuclear, and statements by a large number of additional environmental and public interest opponents to the insane proposal.

The JRP will now advise the Canadian federal environment minister, who will take the rushed decision to the Canadian cabinet, bypassing Parliament. The U.S. has barely been notified, much less consulted, in violation of bi-national treaty obligations.

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps recently appeared on Michigan State Senator Hopgood's television program, alongside Michigan State Representative Roberts. Hopgood and Roberts (photo, above left) have taken the lead in the Michigan State Legislature in opposition to the proposed dump, threatening the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.

Please sign and circulate the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition, and urge your city, county, and state governments to pass resolutions in opposition.

Beyond Nuclear on "The Hopgood Hour" re: Great Lakes radioactive waste dump

Rep. Roberts and Sen. Hopgood led a town hall meeting at Wayne State University's Law School in downtown Detroit in August regarding the DGR. Kevin took part on the panel.Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, as well as Michigan State Representative Sarah Roberts (D-St. Clair Shores), are guests on Michigan State Senator Hoon-Yung Hopgood's (D-Taylor) "The Hopgood Hour" television program. They discussed the "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) for radioactive waste targeted at the Lake Huron shoreline by Ontario Power Generation. Both Sen. Hopgood's and Rep. Roberts' districts are downstream of the proposed DGR, and their constituents draw their drinking water from the Great Lakes and connecting rivers. Last spring, Sen. Hopgood introduced a State Senate resolution challenging the DGR that was passed unanimously by the Republican majority chamber. Both Sen. Hopgood and Rep. Roberts testified before the Canadian federal Joint Review Panel overseeing the environmental assessment on the DGR, as did Kevin.

What can you do to help stop the Great Lakes radioactive waste dump? If you haven't already, please sign the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition, already signed by more than 40,000 people. And please share it with everyone you know.

You can also urge your city, county, and state elected officials to pass a resolution opposing the DGR, as numerous communities already have.

Finally, please urge your elected officials at all levels to do what they can to stop this dump, as U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) recently have done. If you live in Michigan, please contact Sens. Levin and Stabenow and thank them for taking action. You can contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard, (202) 224-3121. Urge them to join Sens. Levin and Stabenow in calling on the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, to activate the International Joint Commission on this threat to the Great Lakes.

OH and MN NRC nuke waste con public comment meetings rescheduled for Dec. 2 & 4, respectively; comment deadline now Dec. 20

North Anna watchdog Erica Grey, and Diane D'Arrigo of NIRS, unfurl a banner at NRC's first Nuke Waste Con Game meeting, held Oct. 1st in the NRC Commissioners conference room at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD. Photo by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps.As posted at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate website, the public comment meetings on NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS), to be held in Perrysburg, OH near Toledo, and Minnetonka, MN near the Twin Cities, have been rescheduled for December 2nd and 4th, respectively.

NRC has also announced that the deadline for public comments on the "Nuke Waste Con Game," or "Nuke Waste Con Job," as critics call it (see photo, left), has been extended till December 20th.

The reason for the changes is the October government shutdown, which caused a postponement of the public comment meetings.

Please see Beyond Nuclear's previous action alerts for how you can plug into the public comment meeting nearest you, and how you can submit vitally needed written comments anytime between now and December 20th!

Transport risks and economic pressure rear their ugly heads at DGR hearings

As reported by the Toronto Star's John Spears, in an article entitled "Burning truck hauling nuclear load flies under the radar," a load of uranium hexafluoride bound from Canada to the U.S. attached to a semi truck that caught fire was abandoned on the side of the interstate for a period of time. The incident was never reported to state or federal nuclear authorities in the U.S., nor to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The incident takes on added urgency in light of Ontario Power Generation's proposal to construct and operate a deep geological repository (DGR) for so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 reactors across Ontario at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, about 50 miles across Lake Huron from Michigan. The DGR, or DUD, as critics have sarcastically dubbed it (for Deep Underground Dump), would be located just 3/4ths of a mile from the Lake Huron shoreline. The Great Lakes serve as the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.

After all, those LLRWs and ILRWs from 12 other Ontario reactors must be transported to Bruce (where there are 8 operable commercial reactors, plus an additional early prototype reactor, long shutdown), if they are to be buried at the DUD.

In addition, a national high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) dump is being targeted at the Kincardine area, perhaps even at the DGR itself. A half-dozen Kincardine area municipalities, disproportionately populated by Bruce Nuclear workers, have raised their hands as potential "hosts" for a "DGR" for HLRWs from all the commercial atomic reactors across Canada (around two dozen), including from New Brunswick and Quebec. Those HLRWs would also have to be transported to the Lake Huron shoreline, if a Kincardine-area dumpsite is chosen, whether it be by truck, train, and/or barge upon the Great Lakes themselves.

A Bruce Nuclear proposal to ship 64 city bus-sized radioactive steam generators by boat on the Great Lakes was recently cancelled due to intense grassroots activism that extended from the U.S., to Canada, Native American First Nations, and even to European shores. The so-called "low level" radioactive wastes (despite containing five isotopes of ultra-hazardous plutonium) were bound for Sweden, to be "recycled" into consumer products.

In addition to the Bruce Nuclear workers living in the Kincardine-area municipalities, Bruce Nuclear Generating Station and OPG hold powerful economic sway in the region.  As reported by the Globe and Mail's Shawn McCarthy in an article entitled "OPG pressed non-profits to back Bruce County nuclear-waste plant," OPG pressured nearly two-dozen area non-profits to speak out in support of the controversial DUD. OPG's implicit threat to the non-profits' funding streams seems obvious. Area non-profits have come to depend on OPG's relatively large funding donations, although, relative to its profits, OPG's charitable donations are a vanishingly small fraction of its revenues.

In fact, OPG has promised a total of $25 million to Kincardine and neighboring towns, but only if they continue to adequately support and promote the DGR. That money began to flow around 2005. OPG gets to decide if a recipient municipality is performing enthusiastically enough in promotion of the DGR. Again, the implicit threat is that the promised funding will be yanked.

The federal Canadian Joint Review Panel environmental assessment hearings have now ended in Kincardine, after several weeks of testimony.

The Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition now has over 40,000 signatures. If you haven't signed it yet, please do. And please spread the word to everyone you know.

NRC re-schedules IL and CA Nuke Waste Con Game public comment meetings postponed by govt. shutdown

North Anna watchdog Erica Grey, and Diane D'Arrigo of NIRS, unfurl a banner at NRC's first Nuke Waste Con Game meeting, held Oct. 1st in the NRC Commissioners conference room at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD. Photo by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps.As reported by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate, in regards to the disruption of the previously scheduled, hard-won, court-ordered "Nuke Waste Con Game" draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) public comment meetings:

"The Chelmsford [MA], Tarrytown [NY], Charlotte [NC], Orlando [FL], and November 14 NRC headquarters [Rockville, MD] meetings are taking place as planned.

The NRC has rescheduled the Oak Brook, Illinois meeting for Tuesday, November 12; the Carlsbad, California meeting for Monday, November 18; and the San Luis Obispo meeting for Wednesday, November 20. The NRC is still working on rescheduling the Perrysburg, Ohio, and Minnetonka, Minnesota meetings. The NRC will communicate dates for rescheduled meetings to interested groups and individuals through the Waste Confidence webpage and the WCOutreach@nrc.gov e-mail list."

Please see last week's Beyond Nuclear weekly bulletin web posting on how to submit comments, either orally at public meetings, or in written form at any time, to NRC regarding its Nuke Waste Con Game.