Nuclear waste repository angers American Great Lakes lovers

By John Spears Toronto Star June 26 2012

It ought to be a tourist area’s dream: The Lake Huron shoreline north of Kincardine is gaining a reputation across the U.S.

But the attention coming from states as far-flung as California, Missouri, Tennessee and Florida isn’t centred on the lake’s blue water and white beaches.

It’s coming from Americans who are angry that Canada would consider building a storage area for low and intermediate level nuclear waste beneath the shoreline of one of the Great Lakes.

U.S. residents have been peppering a federal panel set up to study the proposal with angry objections, many of them short and pithy.

“20 per cent of the world fresh water in the Great Lakes…and you want to dump nuclear waste there! What?????” wrote Phyl Morello of Tennessee. “Please NO!”

“Cancel proposal to bury radioactive waste on the Great Lakes shoreline!” wrote Stuart Phillips of Eugene, Oregon.

“I am a proud resident of Illinois, a state that shares coastline along the Great Lakes, and I find this proposal absolutely appalling!” wrote Hope Grable.

“I really hope you rethink your really scary plan to bury radioactive wastes located only half a mile from Lake Huron which supplies drinking water for tens of millions of people,” wrote Gayle Janzen of Seattle. “Unless you can say 100 per cent that this dangerous waste will never get into the water supply, how can you even think about doing something this risky?”

“It’s time Canada leads the way and does what Japan finally found out is the best thing for the Earth: quit nuclear altogether,” wrote Rich Moser of Santa Barbara, California.

“If Canada leads, maybe the stupid USA will follow. That means no burying of waste next to the Great Lakes – Duh! Epic Stupidity!”

The Ohio Sierra Club has also sent a stiff letter of objection, arguing the site “threatens radioactive contamination of the drinking water supply for tens of millions downstream.”

Patricia Marida, who chairs the club’s nuclear issues committee, said in an interview that a better solution that a deep underground cavern is a more easily accessible facility built on or close to the surface, where the containers holding the waste could be more easily monitored for centuries to come.

The comments are posted on the website of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which has established a review panel to study the project.

The proposal by Ontario Power Generation, known as the “deep geologic repository project,” would store radioactive material – but not spent fuel – in caverns excavated 680 metres below the Bruce nuclear site.

Much of the material stored would be slightly radioactive, such as clothing and mops exposed to low kevels of radiation. Some items, such as reactor components, would be more radioactive, and would be encased in protective material.

The repository would not contain any highly radioactive spent fuel. A separate process to find a spent fuel storage site is now under way; the communities of Saugeen Shores, to the north of the Bruce site, and Huron-Kinloss to the south, have both expressed interest in getting it.

While much criticism has been posted on the site, there’s also support for the proposal from local business groups.

The Kincardine & District Chamber of Commerce says the economic opportunities from the waste site’s construction and operation “would support, sustain and nurture existing and new businesses.”

The Penetangore Regional Economic Development Corp. also supports the site, arguing that Ontario Power Generation has safely stored waste on the site for more than 40 years.

“The nuclear industry is a key component of the economic fabric of Kincardine and the DGR (waste site) will enhance and support the existing industry,” it writes.

Meanwhile, activist networks in the U.S. are spreading the word about the Bruce proposal.

Stephen Shuput, a doctor in Utah, calls the proposal “ridiculous, dangerous and ill advised.”

He said in an e-mail that he monitors nuclear proposals through the website beyondnuclear.org, which has several posts about the Bruce proposal.

OPG spokesman Ted Gruetzner said OPG welcomes all comments on the project. “They’re a valuable part of the process,” he said

Comments about the proposal are still being accepted on the review panel website.

OPG has information about the proposal on. http://www.opg.com/power/nuclear/waste/dgr/