Beyond Nuclear's closing remarks opposing Great Lakes radioactive waste dump

OPG's proposed Deep Geologic Repository would be located less than a mile from the waters of the Great Lakes, amidst the Bruce NGSBeyond Nuclear has submitted closing remarks opposing the radioactive waste dump (or "DGR," for Deep Geologic Repository) targeted at the Ontario shore of Lake Huron, thus meeting the deadline set by the Canadian federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) overseeing the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the proposal.

Beyond Nuclear has opposed the insane proposal since the organization was founded, in 2007, providing staff testimony twice, in person, in Kincardine, Ontario before the JRP, as well as numerous written submissions.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) proposes burying all of the province's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes -- from 20 reactors -- on the Great Lakes shore. The proposed burial site is at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (NGS), itself one of the world's single largest nuclear power plants, with a total of nine reactors on site.

OPG's proposal has generated a groundswell of opposition throughout the Great Lakes Basin, on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. The Great Lakes provide drinking water for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations. The Great Lakes comprise 95% of North America's, and 20% of the planet's, surface fresh water. They are the life blood of one of the world's largest regional economies.

The JRP will now prepare its EA conclusions in the near future, and report to the Canadian federal Environment Minister. She will then make a recommendation to Prime Minister Harper's Cabinet, bypassing Parliament.

As Beyond Nuclear concluded its closing remarks, Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada dubbed OPG's DGR the DUD -- short for Deep Underground Dump, but also succinctly summing up the inanity and insanity of the proposal!

Dr. Frank Greening's closing remarks to DGR JRP

Dr. Frank GreeningDr. Frank Greening, a scientist who worked at Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and its predecessor (Ontario Hydro) for decades, has submitted his closing comments to the Canadian federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) overseeing the Environmental Assessment (EA) on the proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR). Closing comments are due on October 9, 2014.

The DGR would be located at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (NGS), on the shore of Lake Huron in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada. It would bury all of Ontario's so-called "low-level" and "intermediate-level" radioactive wastes (L&ILRWs), from 20 reactors across the province.

Dr. Greening, whose previous submissions to the JRP have revealed major underestimates by OPG and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) regarding such basic issues as the radioactivity content of the waste, has here focused on two mass-exposure accidents at OPG (and Ontario Hydro's) commercial nuclear facilities: 55 workers exposed to internal Carbon-14 contamination at Pickering NGS in March, 1985; and 557 workers exposed to internal alpha-particle contamination at Bruce NGS in November and December, 2009.

Greening argues that those accidents, as well as the February, 2014 radioactivity release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, should serve as a serious warning against rushing ahead with this ill-considered DGR proposal.

Greening ends with this powerful conclusion:

What concerns me most about the proposed DGR is OPG’s level of ignorance about its size, about its radionuclide inventory, about how it will operate and about the potential for things to go horribly wrong through unexpected synergisms, as in the tragic Lac Mégantic disaster where a combination of relatively minor problems led to a major catastrophe. It is quite evident that OPG’s DGR proposal is based on only a pretense of knowledge of all possible risks within the proposed facility. As a result OPG ignores true uncertainty, as defined by U.S. economist F.H. Knight, which is something that is not susceptible to measurement and can never be eliminated from human endeavor. Or as J.M. Keynes eloquently described it: “... matters where there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know.”

Therefore I strongly urge the JRP to reject OPG’s DGR proposal. We know so very little about the long-term safety of a DGR and the American experience with the WIPP facility shows why we should err on the side of caution before proceeding with such a venture. After all, it took only one bad waste container to spoil an entire DGR facility! And besides, it is evident that a lot more research and development is needed before DGR technology could be declared to be safe and reliable. But in the meantime, we certainly do not need the existing WWMF [Bruce NGS's Western Waste Management Facility] to become home to a deep underground nuclear waste disposal test-bed on the shores of Lake Huron. Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread....".

Binational coalition asserts Fermi 3 transmission corridor violates NEPA

Atomic reactors and their electrical transmission lines are inextricably interlinked, yet NRC staff has failed to undertake a NEPA review of the proposed new Fermi 3 transmission line corridor's environmental impacts.The environmental coalition intervening against the proposed new Fermi 3 reactor has re-asserted its nearly three-year old challenge, directly to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's five Commissioners themselves, that the inextricably interlinked transmission line corridor needed to export the electricity to the grid is still in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The coalition's Toledo-based attorney, Terry Lodge, filed a Petition for Review with the NRC Commissioners by their ordered deadline. The petition defends not only the contention's merit, but also its separation from the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel's request to the Commissioners for permission to undertake a sua sponte review.

That is, the ASLB panel has requested permission to review, on its own initiative, the NRC staff's apparent violation of NEPA, by failing to undertake an Environmental Impact Statement review of the proposed new transmission corridor, which will past through forested wetlands, likely habitat to endangered and threatened species.

Detroit Edison (DTE) proposes to construct and operate a General Electric-Hitachi (GEH) so-called Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) -- "Unit 3" -- at the Fermi nuclear power plant in Frenchtown Township, on the Lake Erie shore in southeast Michigan. The Fermi nuclear power plant is less than ten miles away from Ontario, Canada, directly across Lake Erie.

Fermi 3 would be located immediately adjacent to Fermi Unit 2, the world's single largest Fukushima Daiichi twin design (a GE Mark I BWR). Ironically enough, Fermi 3 would be build on the exact same spot where Fermi Unit 1, an experimental plutonium breeder reactor, suffered a partial core meltdown on Oct. 5, 1966, a near-catastrophe documented in John G. Fuller's book We Almost Lost Detroit (Reader's Digest Press, 1975).

The binational coalition intervening against Fermi 3's license includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario (CEA), Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter. The coalition initially filed its intervention in March 2009, and has submitted dozens of contentions since.

Grassroots opposition to Canada's Great Lakes radioactive waste dump gaining traction at state and federal level!

Ontario Power Generation proposes to bury "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 reactors across the province at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on the Lake Huron shore. The Great Lakes comprise 95% of North America's surface fresh water, providing drinking water to 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.As reported by the News Herald, an effort to block Canada's proposed radioactive waste dump on the Great Lakes shoreline -- initiated by Ed McArdle of the Sierra Club's South East Michigan Group -- first succeed at the state level, and has now moved into the federal realm. At the state level, Ed's Michigan State Senator, Hoon-yung Hopgood (D-Taylor), introduced a resolution opposing the dump that past the State Senate by a unanimous vote. At the federal level, Michigan and New York Democrats have introduced a congressional resolution opposing the dump in the U.S. House; a bipartisan resolution has likewise been introduced in the U.S. Senate.

Great Lakes nuclear dump?! Speak now, or forever hold your peace!

The radioactive waste dump would be located less than a mile from the Lake Huron shore, surrounded by the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, one of the biggest nuclear power plants in the worldThe Canadian federal Environmental Assessment (EA) on Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) on the Great Lakes shore is entering the final phase. Two weeks of public hearings end on September 18th.

Beyond Nuclear Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, testified before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) Joint Review Panel (JRP) on Sept. 16th. See his powerpoint.

Kevin's presentation summarized his July 21st written submission.

There is a video archive of every day of the two weeks of hearings. Kevin spoke second in the afternoon session of Sept. 16th.

What can you do to help stop the Canadian Great Lakes radioactive waste dump?

Urge your U.S. Representative to support the Kildee-Levin congressional resolution, introduced last week, H.Res. 716, opposing the DGR.

You can phone your U.S. Representative via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

You can also look up your U.S. Representative's direct phone number, fax number, email/webform, as well as snail mail address.

If you haven't already, you can also sign the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition, now over 70,000 signatures! Please also forward it to everyone you know!

As featured on the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump website, resolutions continue to come in from across the Great Lakes Basin, opposing the DGR. The current total is around 130 resolutions! Get your municipality to pass a resolution too! Contact Kevin Kamps for more information at (240) 462-3216, or kevin@beyondnuclear.org.

Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump has run a second powerful ad in the Toronto Star.

Additional background

Beyond Nuclear has joined with numerous environmental allies in testifying against the DGR during the past two weeks of public hearings, including: local concerned residents, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, Northwatch (and its experts from Southwest Research Information Center and Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force), Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, Michigan state legislators Hopgood and Pavlov, Canadian Environmental Law Association, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, ZeroWaste4ZeroBurning, and Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes.

Save Our Saugeen Shores (SOS) and the Southampton Residents Association (SRA) released a press statement on Sept. 18th regarding Bruce County's response to the Bellchamber closed meeting report. On Aug. 7th, the Canadian Press reported that "Bruce County mayors broke [the] law by holding secret meetings on storing Ontario['s] nuclear waste, probe finds." In their Sept. 18th press release, SOS and SRA:

"We have written today to André Marin, the Ontario Ombudsman, asking him, for the reasons set out below, to review this entire matter.

We have also written today to the Hon. Kathleen Wynne, asking her, for the same reasons, to do whatever is necessary to facilitate a review by the Ombudsman and, after considering his report:

1. establish appropriate penalties for contraventions of the Municipal Act requirement of open, minuted public meetings of municipal councils, whether through Bill 8 or otherwise, and

2. determine appropriate direction to give OPG."

The Saugeen Ojibwe Nations (SON) also expressed deep skepticism, and asked critical questions, regarding the permanent burial of so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes on their traditional territory along the Lake Huron shoreline.

After the JRP public hearings conclude today, the JRP will go behind closed doors to determine whether the EA is acceptable, or not. They will communicate their decision to the Canadian federal Environment Minister, who will deliver her conclusion to Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet. They will decide whether or not to approve the DGR, bypassing the Canadian federal Parliament.

Update on September 18, 2014 by admin

As reported by the Associated Press, as well as ABC News 10, on the very day that the JRP hearings ended, a U.S. Senate resolution was introduced in opposition to the Canadian Great Lakes radioactive waste dump. The bipartisan resolution is co-sponsored by Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow (Democrats from Michigan), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Mark Kirk (R-IL). The Senate Resolution has not yet been assigned an S.Res. number.

Please contact your own two U.S. Senators and urge them to support this Senate Resolution against the Canadian Great Lakes radioactive waste dump. You can phone them via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or find their other contact information (email address and/or webform, fax number, snail mail addresses) at the link provided above.

Update on September 19, 2014 by admin

The Toronto Star has reported on the ending of the JRP hearings.

Update on September 24, 2014 by admin

As reported by the Huron Daily Tribune, Michigan State Senator Phil Pavlov (R-St. Clair Twp.) is conducting a series of town hall meetings in eastern MI opposed to OPG's DGR. At the most recent, held in the Village of Sebewaing, he was joined by Steve Pego, chief of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.

“We call [the Great Lakes] our lifeblood, because without it we wouldn’t survive,” Pego said. “What about our grandchildren, when the tanks corrode?”