Beyond Nuclear

See the official vote results, as well as the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (S.O.N.) press release, here.

See the nuclear utility, Ontario Power Generation (OPG), response to the S.O.N. NO vote, here. OPG is the proponent for the DGR, the Deep Geologic Repository, for so-called "low," and highly radioactive "intermediate," level radioactive wastes (L&ILRWs) from more than 20 reactors across the province of Ontario. The L&ILRWs would have come from reactor operations, as well as decommissioning of permanently shutdown reactors.

Beyond Nuclear has fought since its founding in 2007 against this DUD -- the late Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada's aptly sarcastic acronym, short of Deep Underground Dump -- since our founding.

Other environmental, environmental justice, and anti-nuclear groups, such as Don't Waste Michigan, have fought it since it first reared its ugly head, way back in 2001 to 2002.

Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump led the effort to gather 223 resolutions throughout the Great Lakes Basin, representing 23.4 million people, opposed to the DUD, as well as more than 100,000 petition signatures opposed to the dump.

Save Our Saugeen Shores (SOS Great Lakes) also showed the neighbors do not consent to the DUD.

Bipartisan, bicameral caucuses in both the State of Michigan Legislature, as well as in the U.S. Congress, representing all eight of the Great Lakes States, have been very engaged for several long years, in resistance to this DUD. Michigan State Senator Hopgood, and Michigan State Representative Roberts, deserve special mention for getting the ball rolling in the Michigan State Legislature in 2013. At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint Twp., MI), and both Democratic U.S. Senators from Michigan, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, deserve thanks for their tireless leadership in resisting the DUD.

But we all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, whose overwhelming NO vote has stopped the Lake Huron shoreline DUD dead in its tracks.

Please note, however, that there is still another DUD left to stop. A DUD for high-level radioactive waste (irradiated nuclear fuel) from all the reactors across Canada is still targeted, by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), at South Bruce/Huron-Kinloss, 20-some miles from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario.

Please see this 2013 map by Anna Tilden and John Jackson, showing (in the upper right hand corner), the 20 previous targets for Canada's national HLRW DUD, now narrowed to two remaining targeted sites: South Bruce/Huron-Kinloss, near Bruce NGS (as well as near the Saugeen Ojibwe Nation!); and Ignace, Ontario, 150 miles northwest of Lake Superior, north of Minnesota, just outside the Great Lakes Basin, but still in Ojibwe country.

In addition to the on-site risks at the HLRW DUD itself, the HLRW transport risks (road, rail, waterway, as in Great Lakes surface water barges) must be considered.

Update on February 4, 2020 by

admin

From: Gordon Edwards <ccnr@web.ca>
To: Gordon Edwards <ccnr@web.ca>
Date: February 1, 2020 at 10:49 AM
Subject: Proposed Lake Huron Nuclear Waste Dump for LILW: Saugeen Ojibway Nation Votes No

Background: February 1 2020

The Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) has voted against Ontario Power Generation’s Deep Geological Disposal (DGR) project, planned to house all of Ontario’s Low and Intermediate Level Waste at a site within a mile of the northwestern shore of Lake Huron.

To prevent confusion: there are two DGR (Deep Geological Disposal) Projects that have been under consideration in Ontario in recent years.

One DGR is for all of Canada’s irradiated nuclear fuel (called “High :Level Waste (HLW)”). That project is under the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) acting under the authority of Canada's Nuclear Fuel Waste Act. The NWMO site selection process has recently (late 2019) narrowed from 22 candidate sites (potential “willing host communities”) to 3 sites. One of the remaining three candidate sites is at Ignace, north of Lake Superior not far from the border between Ontario and Manitoba; the other two candidate sites are quite close to the Bruce Nuclear Power Station right beside Lake Huron. The process for finding a home for Canada’s HLW is still in its early stages even though it has been going on for decades — over 20 years under NWMO, and over 20 years before that under AECL, Ontario Power and the Seaborn Panel.

The following article has to do with another DGR project, completely different from the first. It is a separate facility proposed by Ontario Power Generations (OPG, a provincial crown corporation that owns all of Ontario’s nuclear power reactors). The OPG DGR is NOT intended for high level waste (HLW), but for storing Ontario’s low level radioactive waste (LLW) and intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW), from all of Ontario’s nuclear reactors -- with the exception of “decommissioning waste”, for which there is at present no designated approach. The OPG DGR was intended for a precise selected site close to Lake Huron, not far from Kincardine Ontario, which is also in the vicinity of the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant.

The OPG DGR project — intended for Ontario’s Low and Intermediate Level Wastes (LILW) — was given a green light by an Environmental Review Panel that held public meetings on the matter, but the federal government has delayed giving its approval for various reasons — and that approval is necessary before the project can proceed. In recent months, the major remaining stumbling block has been the lack of explicit permission from the Saugueen Ojibway Nation (SON) on whose unceded territory the OPG DGR would be located. Ontario Power Generation has pledged repeatedly that the project will not proceed without the approval of SON, and the federal government has been awaiting word from the SON.

SON has now spoken. The answer is “No”. There will be no implementation of the OPG DGR project at the site beside Lake Huron that was selected for that purpose.

However, the OPG project for LILW has no direct bearing on the first DGR project for HLW that was described in the opening paragraph above. NWMO will continue to search for a willing host community to build a DGR to house all of Canada’s irradiated nuclear fuel, including two candidate sites in the same general neighbourhood as the OPG DGR project which has now been rejected.

The nuclear waste issue is nothing if not complicated! And the Age of Nuclear Waste is just beginning….

Gordon Edwards. [CCNR, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Montreal, Quebec, Canada]