Kamps' prepared statement for press conference re: highly radioactive liquid waste truck shipments from Canada to U.S.A.

Ottawa Citizen map showing one of the more likely shipping routes from Chalk River, ON to SRS, SC for highly radioactive liquid waste truck shipments. (See larger sized map linked at end of entry.)Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, delivered a statement to members of the news media on a press conference call sponsored by NIRS. An environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, has filed a lawsuit seeking to block up to 150 unprecedented truck shipments of highly radioactive liquid wastes, from Chalk River Nuclear Labs in Ontario, Canada through multiple states, to Savannah River Site nuclear weapons and radioactive waste complex in Aiken, South Carolina, U.S.A.

See the press release and invitation to a NIRS-hosted press tele-briefing here. (The audio recording from the tele-briefing is available online. See below in the Update.*)

See the environmental coalition's lawsuit (Complaint), and associated exhibits, here.

See additional background documents here.

(Full size, legible route map -- see above left -- linked here.)

Update on August 16, 2016 by admin

*Diane D'Arrigo of NIRS, who hosted and facilitated the press briefing, has posted the following instructions for accessing the audio recording:

The press briefing from earlier today is available on my Google drive – sharing with everyone…

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3nMrAEZqvOUaVk1NFpwNkluWXM/view?usp=sharing

It will say

WHOOPS

There was a problem playing this audiofile.

BUT CLICK either

at top  OPEN WITH MUSIC PLAYER FOR GOOGLE DRIVE

OR

DOWNLOAD in the blue box

We will get it up on our website in a few days without the WHOOPS message.

CNSC review dismissing nuclear-safety concerns called a ‘sham’

As reported by Gloria Galloway in an article entitled "CNSC review dismissing nuclear-safety concerns called a ‘sham’" appeared in The Globe and Mail:

An internal review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission dismisses allegations that important information was withheld during the licensing of nuclear plants but two nuclear scientists say the review is “less than impartial” and a “sham” that should give Canadians no comfort.

In June, CNSC president Michael Binder received an anonymous letter, purported to have been written by employees at the nuclear regulator, that pointed to five separate cases in which the commission’s staff sat on relevant information that might have called the safety of a nuclear plant into question...

But two nuclear experts have written subsequent letters to Mr. Binder asking him to discard Mr. Elder’s review and to allow an arm’s-length inquiry into the allegations of the anonymous whistle-blowers.

Frank Greening, a nuclear chemist who is a former senior research scientist at Ontario Hydro, the predecessor of Ontario Power Generation, wrote that Mr. Elder’s claim to have conducted an independent investigation was “quite extraordinary and ridiculous.”...

[Read the entire article here.]

Letter claims info on nuclear risks withheld from safety commissioners

As reported by Gloria Galloway at the Globe and Mail, an anonymous letter written by Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) staffers alleges that the agency staff has kept the CNSC Commissioners, and the CNSC President, in the dark about significant safety issues at Canadian nuclear power plants such as Darlington just east of Toronto, and Bruce on the Lake Huron shore just upstream of Port Huron and Detroit, Michigan.

The letter was sent not only to CNSC President Michael Binder, but also to two leading Canadian environmental groups, Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) and Greenpeace Canada.

As the article reports:

...Although it is impossible to verify that the letter was written by CNSC specialists, environmentalists who received copies of the document say the level of detail, the manner of speaking and the amount of complexity suggest it was written by someone with inside knowledge. And, they say, the problems are symptomatic of a culture at the commission in which employees are expected to act as boosters of the nuclear industry rather than watchdogs of nuclear safety...

Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, who was the other environmentalist sent a copy of the letter, said actions of this sort – in which whistle-blowers make such specific allegations – are both rare and surprising. But, she said, she has no doubt it was written by someone inside the CNSC.

“We are often very concerned that commissioners are not getting the full story from the proponents or the regulatory staff,” Ms. McClenaghan said. “In the hearings, we really do see a frustrating amount of apologetics for the industry going on by staff.”

Mr. Stensil, of Greenpeace, said the most serious issue raised in the letter is the allegation suggesting that CNSC staff knows about additional risks being posed by reactors, but is ignoring them. That is what happened at Fukushima, he said.

“That’s not a nuts-and-bolts or an engineering issue,” Mr. Stensil said. “That’s a safety culture issue.”

Beyond Nuclear has engaged in numerous CNSC proceedings over the past decade, from: reactor operating license extensions at Bruce; to a reactor new build proposal at Darlington, as well as a license extension proceeding; and a license extension proceeding at CAMECO's uranium processing facility in Port Hope, Ontario. Beyond Nuclear's biggest involvement, however, has been its opposition to Ontario Power Generation's proposed radioactive waste dump at Bruce, on the Great Lakes shore. Beyond Nuclear can vouch, from extensive, direct experience, that CNSC staff's extreme bias in favor of nuclear power promotion is over the top.

It's Time to Speak Up!

SOS Great Lakes:

It’s time to speak up. Let your voice be heard.

Follow us on twitter, like and share our Facebook page with your friends!

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In April, Canada’s Minister of Environment & Climate Change, received a schedule from Ontario Power Generation indicating that they will submit the information on their proposed nuclear waste deep geologic repository by the end of this year. If we are to successfully oppose OPG’s plan to build a nuclear waste dump on the shore of Lake Huron, we have to move quickly.

 

The good news is, we are prepared.

If you are willing to lend us your voice and help us share our information, we believe we can prevent this threat from becoming a reality. We are writing now to bring you up to date on our strategy and to show you how you can make your voice heard in this important discussion.

 

We changed our name.

Formerly known as SOS Save Our Saugeen Shores, we are now known as SOS Great Lakes. Our original name served us well when we were fighting the idea of a high level nuclear waste dump in Saugeen Shores. The issue now is the threat to drinking water for 40 million people posed by OPG’s planned nuclear waste dump near Kincardine, on the shore of Lake Huron. We changed our name to bring this threat to the attention of the millions of people who rely on the Great Lakes for fresh water through a coordinated campaign. 

We Launched a new website.

 

Our plans are on our new website, sosgreatlakes.org. You will be receiving updates and information going forward. We will launch a video, we will start a web-based fund-raising campaign and we will intensify our efforts with the governments of Ontario, Canada, the United States, Great Lakes states, and all municipalities in the Great Lakes basin on both sides of the border.  Please make sure you receive this information by putting our new name and email address in your address book:

 

SOS Great Lakes - info@sosgreatlakes.org.

Let your voice be heard.

 

By taking a few simple steps, you can help to ensure our success.  Most important, we would like you to share our news.  To be successful we have to alert the millions of people who rely on the Great Lakes, that their drinking water is at risk.  That’s a tall order, but if you tell your friends, and they tell their friends and so on, we can do it. We will give you the tools to help you communicate this message.
 
Please let our voices be heard by sharing the information we give you, with your own network.
 
Your voice is more powerful than you think.
Please help us tell this important story by passing along this information to your friends and networks.  When I hit the send button on my email, I reach out to you, the 2,000 members who are committed to helping us achieve our goals.
 
When you share our information with your friends and networks, you reach out to 200,000 people who know you and trust you.  If they share our messages with their networks, some 20 million people will become aware of this issue. At that point, politicians on both sides of the border will be forced to listen to our concerns.

We can do this. You can do this. Please help us save the Great Lakes from nuclear waste.

 

Your lakes.  Your choice.
 
 

Sincerely,

Jill Taylor
President, SOS Great Lakes

 

 

Urge President Obama: After Flint, don't let them nuke the Great Lakes next!

OPG proposes to construct and operate the DGR at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, less than a mile from Lake Huron in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.President Obama deserves thanks for answering the call by an eight-year-old Flint, Michigan girl -- Mari Copeny -- to come to the city of 100,000 devastated by lead poisoning via the public drinking water system, due to a cost-saving measure by the State of MI that utilized highly corrosive Flint River water.

While there, Obama declared safe drinking water is "part of the basic responsibilities of a government in the United States of America."

But the safe drinking water of Lake Huron -- to which Flint has now returned -- is itself imperiled by another potential "man-made disaster": Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposal to bury 400,000 cubic meters of radioactive wastes on its shore.

(The OPG proposal is still under review on the Canada side. OPG has said it will fulfill the Canadian Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna's, requests for additional information by the end of this year -- a rushed environmental assessment timeline Beyond Nuclear has blasted as "half-baked" and "insincere.")

The very same American government agencies whose incompetence and even criminal wrongdoing -- MI Governor Rick Snyder's administration, the MI Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- caused the Flint catastrophe, have also signed off on OPG's Deep Geologic Repository (DGR), thus putting the Great Lakes drinking water supply for 40 million people at risk of eventual hazardous radioactive waste contamination.

After Flint, we can't let them nuke the Great Lakes next!

Please contact President Obama and urge that he work with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to block OPG's insane scheme, as by activating the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission to do a comprehensive review of the unacceptably risky DGR proposal.

To learn more about the DGR and ways you can help stop it, please visit Beyond Nuclear's Canada website section.