A Foreword by Doug Draper
The Council of Canadians, an Ottawa-based citizens group, is urging the federal government to say no to plans by Ontario Power Generation to deposit nuclear waste at a site upstream from the drinking water supplies of millions of Canadian and U.S. residents in the lower Great Lakes.
Council of Canadians director Maude Barlow
The wastes from nuclear power facilities in Ontario would be placed in underground tunnels a caverns only about a mile away from the shores of Lake Huron, and resident groups from both sides of the Canada/U.S. border have already begun expressing concern about this plan and any possibility of future leaks of the radioactive material into Great Lakes waters.
The Council of Canadians argues that this plan by OPG, athe power generating branch of what was once Ontario Hydro, is one more reason why both countries should declare the Great Lakes basin (home to more than 38 million people) a “Commons, Public Trust and Protected Bioregion” for present and future generations.
You can obtain further information on this issue by reading the May 16 media release from the Council of Canadians, which we are posting below.
Nuclear waste repository is a serious threat to the Great Lakes, warns Council of Canadians
The Council of Canadians is warning of the risks from a proposed nuclear waste repository on Lake Huron. The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has submitted a proposal for a deep geologic disposal facility on the Bruce Nuclear site in Kincardine, Ontario. The facility will be 680 metres underground and only one mile away from Lake Huron.
“Extreme caution is needed when nuclear waste and freshwater are involved,” says Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow. “Water breaches from deep geological repositories have occurred in the past and we don’t want to see that happening on the shores of Lake Huron.”
A network of tunnels and storage caverns, in which up to 200,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste would be buried, are planned for the site. Organizations and residents in both the US and Canada have expressed concerns over risks of leaks.
“While Japan is still dealing with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, governments need to be prudent in their decisions on nuclear materials,” says Emma Lui, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians. “The Canadian government needs to uphold the precautionary principle in international law and stop the plan in order to protect our Great Lakes Commons.”
The Council of Canadians is calling for the Great Lakes to be declared a Commons, Public Trust and Protected Bioregion. In a report entitled Our Great Lakes Commons: A People’s Plan to Protect the Great Lakes Forever, Barlow highlights the threat that nuclear power poses to the Great Lakes.
Public hearings in Canada are expected to be held in 2012. However, residents in the US will not be given an opportunity to comment on the facility even though the US coast is approximately 90 kilometres from the proposed facility. The facility could open in 2013 and start receiving waste by 2018.
OPG states that the repository will hold low-level and intermediate-level waste. However, there are growing concerns that once the facility is approved, high-level waste will also be deposited at the site posing an even larger threat to the Great Lakes.
As another means of dealing with radioactive waste, NEWGreen Legacy Services Inc. is planning to open a decontamination facility in Perry Township near Cleveland, Ohio. The Council of Canadians also cautions against the facility that will threaten Lake Erie and release millions of pounds of decontaminated metal to be reused by manufacturing companies.
“The risks of these plans show the dangers of nuclear energy,” adds Lui. “The least harmful alternative is leaving the waste on-site. It’s not an ideal solution but given the choices we have, it’s the best answer until we transition away from nuclear power.”
The Council of Canadians rejects nuclear power because it poses an unacceptable risk to people and the environment. Council of Canadians rejects any new nuclear facilities and supports a just transition away from a nuclear dependent society. The Council is currently campaigning against the proposed shipments of nuclear waste from the Bruce Power nuclear plant on the Great Lakes.
Visit the Council of Canadian’s website at www.canadians.org for more information on this and other issues this organization is addressing.
(Please share your comments on this issue below and visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to resident in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
Wow, Ontarians sure are hypocrites!
50% of our power comes from Nuclear energy. Where did we think ‘we’ were going to store ‘our’ Nuclear waste … in Africa? In the Ocean?
Let’s assume that after Fukushima (it appears to be far worse than Chernobyl; the Japanese are starting to ban ocean fishing & seaweed harvesting; look at the spread of air-borne radiation … to the world: http://www.SocialIntensity.org ), and the above Nuclear Storage problems, Ontario somehow decides to let our Nuclear plants ‘expire’ rather than replace them. Most Ontario townships are petitioning the province for a Big Wind moratorium, so how are we going to generate enough power to light our homes?
Will we become like a developing country with daily brownouts and rolling blackouts to account for 75% of our power (50% from abandoning Nuclear and 25% from abandoning Coal)?
All we have left is Hydro which produces ~25%, and everyone seems to think that the new 20-year contract rates for Solar and Big Wind are too expensive, so whatever government we elect in the Fall will do … what exactly?
Ontario bet on the wrong horse (Nuclear) in the 1960’s and now we can’t find anything else in the stable that we like …. We’re in Trouble.
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… and people object to wind turbines. People find wind turbines ugly.
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… and they seem to find the many High Tension Lines beautiful, as they march across our landscape.
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Nuclear waste and mountain top mning are pretty.
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The City of Toledo Ohio recently dredged their harbour of toxic sludge the stuff was deamed so dangerous, that it could’nt be landfilled, the answer! take the toxic sludge into the middle of Lake Erie and dump it back into the lake, diluting the pollution was the solution, we in Niagara Region drink that toxic brew.insanity rules! the end is near in more ways than one..We are ruled by the inmates of some insane asylum, and some escaped and became politicians. we are all doomed.
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