Saugeen Ojibway Nations challenge the targeting of their traditional territory for a high-level radioactive waste dump

Saugeen First Nation logoThe Saugeen Ojibway Nations (SON, the Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation and the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation) live on the Lake Huron shoreline of Ontario. Their Communal Lands are just 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the Bruce Nuclear Complex. With a total of 9 atomic reactors (8 operable, 1 permanently shutdown), as well as "centralized interim storage" (including incineration!) for all of Ontario's 20 atomic reactors' "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes, Bruce is amongst the world's single largest nuclear sites. 

But now a Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for burying all of Ontario's "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes has been proposed by Ontario Power Generation (OPG), owner of Ontario's 20 atomic reactors. 

As the SON have submitted to the Canadian nuclear establishment, the likelihood that its traditional lands are also targeted for Canada's national HIGH-level radioactive waste dump (for all of Ontario's, Quebec's, and New Brunswick's irradiated nuclear fuel) means that OPG's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the DGR is illegally deficient, failing to consider the cumulative impacts associated with the potential for this high-level radioactive waste DGR in the immediate vicinity of Bruce.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), comprised of Canada's nuclear utilities, has been hired by OPG to represent it in the "low"/"intermediate" DGR Environmental Assessment proceeding, and is also in charge of the high-level radioactive waste dump site search in Canada. NWMO has entered into ever deepening stages of consideration for locating Canada's national high-level radioactive waste dump at any of five municipalities surrounding the site of the proposed Bruce DGR, namely: Saugeen Shores, Brockton, Huron-Kinloss, South Bruce and Arran-Elderslie.

Dr. Gordon Edwards speaks against Canadian national high-level radioactive waste dump on Great Lakes shoreline

Dr. Gordon Edwards of CCNRAs reported by the Saugeen Times, Dr. Gordon Edwards (pictured, left), president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, spoke at an event sponsored by Southampton Residents Association-Save Our Saugeen Shores (SRASOS) on the Ontario shoreline of Lake Huron near the Bruce Nuclear Power Complex, just 50 miles across Lake Huron from Michigan. He was joined by John Jackson, acting Executive Director of Great Lakes United. SRASOS opposes the Canadian national high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Saugeen Shores, Ontario, as well as number of other communities nearby Bruce. In addition to the targeted communities on Ontario's Lake Huron shoreline, additional Canadian communities on Lake Superior's shoreline have also been targeted, as well as yet more in Saskatchewan. The selected high-level radioactive waste dump would then permanently host all of the irradiated nuclear fuel from all of Canada's nuclear power plants (20 reactors in Ontario, 1 in Quebec, and 1 in New Brunswick).

This proposed high-level radioactive waste dump is supposedly different than and distinct from the "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) for "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes, also targeted at the Bruce Nuclear Complex itself by Ontario Power Generation, the provincial nuclear utility which owns 20 atomic reactors. But of course, how different and distinct can two such dumps be, located so close together?! And with DGR "storage space" astronomically expensive, as shown by the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada, high-level radioactive waste repository and its estimated nearly $100 billion price tag, how could two DGRs located very close together, rather than just one consolidated DGR, be economically justified?!

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, a long-time member of the Great Lakes United (GLU) Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force, is serving as an expert witness for GLU in the environmental assessment proceeding regarding the proposed DGR.

To confuse the two proposals yet more, the Nuclear Waste Management Organziation (NWMO), comprised of Canadian nuclear utilities, is in charge of both the high-level and DGR dump proposals.

FENOC weather seals severely cracked Davis-Besse shield building exterior -- 40 years too late

Painters work high off the ground to apply a protective weatherproof coating to Davis-Besse’s concrete Shield Building. Cracks were discovered in the fall that were blamed on the Blizzard of 1978. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGTAs reported by the Toledo Blade in an article entitled "Work crews apply waterproof coating to Davis-Besse: Project not silencing critics of plant," the only "corrective action" FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) plans to take, in response to severe cracking of its radiological containment "shield building," is to weather seal the exterior of the steel-reinforced concrete structure -- four decades too late. FENOC blames the cracking on the "brutal Blizzard of 1978,"which Beyond Nuclear has dubbed a snow job -- a charge repeated on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by long-time Davis-Besse watchdog, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), whose constituents live immediately downwind and downstream from the problem-plagued plant. 

The article quoted both Terry Lodge, Toledo-based attorney representing the bi-national environmental coalition (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio)battling against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension, as well as Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

"I'm not at all comforted that they discovered an error that never should have happened to the most expensive and safety-significant building on the site," Mr. Lodge said Thursday.

Added Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, "It's 40 years too late. Weather sealant will not fix the cracks that are there."

As reported by Fox 8 Cleveland, a FENOC spokesman outright lied: “The shield building meets all its design parameters, we have evaluated it for all its parameters, and it is fully operable,” said Jon Hook, the design engineer manager at the plant.

In fact, both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FENOC itself have acknowledged that Davis-Besse's severe shield building cracking violates the atomic reactor's design and licensing bases. At an August 9th public meeting in Oak Harbor, OH, an NRC spokesman, with an audible scoff, admitted that NRC has generously granted FENOC until December 2012 to merely come up with a "plan for a plan" to "restore conformance" -- that is, pencil whip the violations, making everything appear okay on paper.  

Hook also told the Toledo Blade the shield building "wasn't coated originally because 'there was no requirement that it be done...'." Why such a basic no brainer as weather sealant was not required -- on the shoreline of Lake Erie, which suffers severe winter weather -- has never been explained, neither by FENOC nor NRC. Further deepening the mystery is the fact that all other -- much less safety significant and expensive -- concrete structures on site were weather sealed. When asked to explain, FENOC spokeswoman Jennifer Young has simply said it was done for aesthetic reasons, as those other structures appeared "splotchy." 

WNWO also reported on this story.

Crack contention against Davis-Besse 20-year extension bolstered by NRC FOIA revelations

At the reator's front gate, "Homer Simpson and Humpty Dumpty act out" FENOC's snow job "Blizzard of '78" theory for why/when/how Davis-Besse's concrete containment shield building cracked. The March 24, 2012 street theater was held in solidarity with the SAGE Alliance's day of action to shut down Vermont Yankee, and protested FENOC's Feb. 28th "root cause report."The U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition challenging FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) proposed 20-year license extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, near Toledo on the Lake Erie shore, has bolstered its contention on the severe shield building cracking by citingU.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents revealed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by Beyond Nuclear. The coalition has issued a media release about its latest contention supplementation.

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge filed this FOIA supplement, the coalition's fifth this year, since filing the original contention on January 10th, just five days after the environmental intervenors confronted NRC and FENOC about the cracking at a special public meeting at Camp Perry, OH. The others include: (1) a Feb. 27th filing, based on U.S. Rep. Kucinich's (D-OH) revelation that the shield building's outer rebar layer was no longer structurally functional, due to the cracking; (2) a June 4th filing, in response to FENOC's woefully inadequate Aging Management Plan (AMP) for the shield building's cracks; (3) a July 16th filing, in response to FENOC's revised root cause analysis report, which revealed that shield building cracking was first observed not in October 2011, but rather August 1976; (4) a July 23rd filing, based on revelations in FENOC contractor Performance Improvement International's revised root cause assessment report, which revealed 27 areas of skeptical NRC questioning about FENOC's "Blizzard of 1978" theory of shield building cracking (the environmental Intervenors also posted documents supportive of its fourth supplement). The environmental coalition also defended its crack contention, on February 14th, against challenges by NRC staff and FENOC.

Beyond Nuclear has prepared a report, entitled "What Humpty Dumpty Doesn't Want You to Know: Davis-Besse's Cracked Containment Snow Job," which summarizes the coalition's work in 2012 on Davis-Besse's dangerously degraded condition.

Kucinich demands OIG investigation of NRC's two-faced "snow job" on Davis-Besse's cracked containment

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a long time watchdog on the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactorU.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, photo at left) has written to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Office of Inspector General (OIG), demanding an investigation of NRC wrongdoing in regards to its Region 3 safety engineers telling him and his staff one thing months ago about Davis-Besse's shield building cracking, and another thing last Thursday night. Rep. Kucinich's office has issued a press release about his demand as well.

Kucinich referenced Beyond Nuclear's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to NRC, which has revealed, among many other things, that NRC staff worked evenings, weekends, and even through the Thanksgiving holiday, in order to rush approval for FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) to restart Davis-Besse on December 2, 2011 -- despite not knowing the "root cause," extent, and safety and environmental risk significance of the cracking in the concrete shield building, nor what corrective actions needed to be made.

Kucinich joined with U.S. and Canadian environmental coalition allies seeking to block Davis-Besse's proposed 20 year license extension at a press conference in the reactor's hometown of Oak Harbor, OH, 21 miles from Toledo on the Lake Erie shore, prior to a special NRC public meeting about the cracking scandal. Beyond Nuclear unveiled a new report, "What Humpty Dumpty Doesn't Want You to Know: Davis-Besse's Cracked Containment Snow Job," which summarizes NRC's FOIA revelations. The environmental coalition's Toledo-based attorney, Terry Lodge, will file a motion this week to introduce into the record of the NRC Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board operations extension proceeding these FOIA revelations.