U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI): Protecting the Great Lakes

U.S. Representative John Moolenaar (Republican-Michigan) has published an op-ed in the Midland Daily News, stressing the importance of protecting the Great Lakes environment, including this passage:

We must also protect the Great Lakes from the dangers of nuclear waste. The Canadian government has proposed using a site on the shores of Lake Huron to store nuclear waste. Lake Huron is a treasure between our two countries and I hope the government of Canada will look for a new location outside of the Great Lakes Basin. I have sent a letter to the Trump administration asking it to work on this issue with Canada and find a more suitable location that will not endanger the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Stabenow, Peters, Kildee Introduce Resolution Opposing Nuclear Waste Storage Site in Great Lakes Basin

As posted online at U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow's (Democrat-Michigan) website.

Stabenow and her Democratic junior U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, as well as U.S. Representative Dan Kildee (Democratic-Flint Twp., MI) continue to lead a bicameral, bipartisan coalition of members of congress, striving to protect the Great Lakes against Canada's proposed shoreline radioactive waste dump.

As listed in the press release, the coalition currently includes:

U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Al Franken (D-MN), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are also original co-sponsors of the Senate resolution.  Mike Bishop (MI-08), Debbie Dingell (MI-12), David Joyce (OH-14), Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Louise Slaughter (NY-25), Mark Pocan (WI-02), David Trott (MI-11), Jackie Walorski (IN-02), Luis Gutiérrez (IL-04), Sander Levin (MI-09), Paul Mitchell (MI-10), Brian Higgins (NY-26), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), and John Moolenaar (MI-04) are also original co-sponsors of the House resolution.

If YOUR U.S. Senator(s) and U.S. Representative are included above, please contact them and thank them.

If NOT, please urge your U.S. Senator(s) and Representative to add their name as a co-sponsor!

You can phone your U.S. Senators' and U.S. Representative's D.C. offices via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

You can also look up your U.S. Senators' D.C., as well as in-state, office phone numbers (and also online email web forms) at this helpful Center for Biological Diversity directory.

And you can look up the contact info. for your U.S. Senators here; you can look up the contact info. for your U.S. Representative here.

Update on March 15, 2017 by admin

TV 6 in Michigan's U.P. has reported on this story.

Update on April 5, 2017 by admin

Also see "Nuclear Tomb: A Town Divided," as reported by CTV's program W5.

The report features such opponents to the DUD (short for Deep Underground Dump) as U.S. Representative Dan Kildee (Democrat-Michigan, a leader of the bipartisan, bicameral U.S. congressional effort described above), representatives from Great Lakes Environmental Alliance (GLEA) in the Port Huron, Michigan area, representatives from Save Our Saugeen Shores (SOS) Great Lakes, and other concerned residents who lives in the shadows of Bruce Nuclear Generating Station and its proposed DUD.

Public comments submitted in opposition to OPG's DGR

The following public comments were submitted in opposition to Ontario Power Generation's DGR (Deep Geologic Repository), or DUD (Deep Underground Dump), a proposal to "abandon" radioactive wastes on the Great Lakes shoreline:

Comments by Beyond Nuclear/Don't Waste Michigan/Nuclear Information and Resource Service;

Comments by Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility;

Alert! Comment by midnight March 6, 2017 on OPG's "additional information"

Action alert by Kay Cumbow and Great Lakes Environmental Alliance (GLEA):

Hi everyone,

Great Lakes Environmental Alliance (GLEA) has posted key documents/websites with information on the current public comment period to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) on “additional information” provided by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) on their proposed deep underground dump for "low" and "intermediate" radioactive wastes from their 20 Ontario reactors. The additional information was requested by the new Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna.

This dump is proposed to be built deep under Lake Huron’s shores in the Municipality* of Kincardine, Ontario, and adjacent to land occupied by the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station and the Western Waste Management Facility, which together make up the world's largest nuclear facility. The entrance to the dump would be less than a mile from Lake Huron - waters shared by communities in the U.S. and Canada, many First Nations, U.S. Tribes and other Indigenous Peoples as well as wildlife and aquatic freshwater ecosystems. The Great Lakes hold roughly 90% of surface fresh waters in North America. The United States Geological Survey states freshwater is only 3% of the Earth's total water and only .3% of that is available at the surface. 40 million people depend on the Great Lakes for drinking water, for fisheries, agriculture, recreation and tourism.

*To my understanding a Municipality is roughly akin to a county in the U.S., though can be larger.

Here is the February 2016 letter from Minister to OPG requiring additional information from OPG
OPG's "additional information" is posted here: CEAR # 2883  (This is what the public is commenting on.)

Finally, here is the CEAA's Public Registry  on the proposed deep underground dump – a wealth of information and questions from intervenors, commenters throughout the Great Lakes, government officials, public hearings and documents from the proponent (OPG).                        

It is best if comments are written in your own words and certainly you are welcome to tell in your introduction who you are, what your connection to the Great Lakes is and why this proposed dump concerns you. Then, do focus on at least part of the information OPG has written and whether or not they have answered the Minister of Environment and Climate Change’s questions adequately. SOS Great Lakes and Northwatch's Updated Backgrounder (both posted below) have good information on this.

Comments will be accepted if they are emailed by midnight of March 6, 2017, or if they have a postmark of March 6, 2017.

Mail to:
Deep Geologic Repository Project Project Manager
Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
160 Elgin Street, 22nd Floor, Ottawa ON K1A 0H3
Email to:
CEAA.DGR.Project-Projet.DGR.ACEE@ceaa-acee.gc.ca

Here are the posted resources. Thank you to GLEA!

Resources for Understanding OPG's Proposed Nuclear Dump

LINKS TO IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING [THIS COMMENT PERIOD RE:] THE PROPOSED NUCLEAR DUMP ON LAKE HURON

Burying Nuclear Waste at Bruce NGS  www.bruce-nuclear-waste-burial.ca

Northwatch:
Updated Backgrounder(02/2017)

Northwatch also posted a webinar from February 14 on this issue with Jill Taylor (SOS Great Lakes) and John Jackson, long-time Great Lakes activist.

Recording of February 2017 Webinar

Other key NGO resources:

SOS Great Lakes - http://www.sosgreatlakes.org/
Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump - http://www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com/
Beyond Nuclear - www.beyondnuclear.org/Canada
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility - www.ccnr.org (Do a search for OPG's proposed DGR)
Northwatch - www.northwatch.org/
Know Nuclear Waste - http://www.knownuclearwaste.ca/ (focused mainly on high level waste or irradiated fuel in Canada, but has some information on OPG's proposed DGR)

 Other key documents (also listed in my message above):

The CEAA's Public Registry  on the proposed deep underground dump                            
The February 2016 letter from Minister to OPG requiring additional information from OPG
OPG's "additional information" is posted here: CEAR # 2883 

Great Lakes group urges residents to oppose nuclear waste dump on Lake Huron

As reported by Jim Bloch at The Voice, "Public Comment Deadline is March 6."

Bloch quotes Beyond Nuclear:

The Great Lakes Environmental Alliance hosted a forum on OPG’s additional information Feb. 22 in the St. Clair County Building in Port Huron. Two prominent critics of the dump, Dr. Gordon Edwards, who is Canadian, and Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist with Beyond Nuclear in Maryland, spoke via satellite...

At WIPP in New Mexico, “there was a barrel of waste that exploded and turned into a flame-thrower,” Edwards said. “It was through chemical reactions with the kitty litter that was used as packing material. As a result of the accident, the plutonium dust rose through the waste chambers, 750 meters up to the surface and contaminated 22 workers.”

“A single barrel burst and the current price tag for recovery is $2 billion,” said Kamps. “It was lucky there weren’t workers underground at WIPP.”

If there had been, the consequences of the accident would have been worse.

“Up until 2014, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and OPG really hung their hats on the WIPP project,” said Kamps. “They kept pointing to the WIPP project and saying it was a successful example of how a DGR could work. When the WIPP accident happened, OPG and the CNSC could not back peddle fast enough.”...

“Just on the three questions the minister has asked, they should be given a failing grade,” said Kamps. “The entire application should be rejected outright.”