As reported by the Toronto Star's John Spears, in an article entitled "Burning truck hauling nuclear load flies under the radar," a load of uranium hexafluoride bound from Canada to the U.S. attached to a semi truck that caught fire was abandoned on the side of the interstate for a period of time. The incident was never reported to state or federal nuclear authorities in the U.S., nor to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
The incident takes on added urgency in light of Ontario Power Generation's proposal to construct and operate a deep geological repository (DGR) for so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 reactors across Ontario at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, about 50 miles across Lake Huron from Michigan. The DGR, or DUD, as critics have sarcastically dubbed it (for Deep Underground Dump), would be located just 3/4ths of a mile from the Lake Huron shoreline. The Great Lakes serve as the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.
After all, those LLRWs and ILRWs from 12 other Ontario reactors must be transported to Bruce (where there are 8 operable commercial reactors, plus an additional early prototype reactor, long shutdown), if they are to be buried at the DUD.
In addition, a national high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) dump is being targeted at the Kincardine area, perhaps even at the DGR itself. A half-dozen Kincardine area municipalities, disproportionately populated by Bruce Nuclear workers, have raised their hands as potential "hosts" for a "DGR" for HLRWs from all the commercial atomic reactors across Canada (around two dozen), including from New Brunswick and Quebec. Those HLRWs would also have to be transported to the Lake Huron shoreline, if a Kincardine-area dumpsite is chosen, whether it be by truck, train, and/or barge upon the Great Lakes themselves.
A Bruce Nuclear proposal to ship 64 city bus-sized radioactive steam generators by boat on the Great Lakes was recently cancelled due to intense grassroots activism that extended from the U.S., to Canada, Native American First Nations, and even to European shores. The so-called "low level" radioactive wastes (despite containing five isotopes of ultra-hazardous plutonium) were bound for Sweden, to be "recycled" into consumer products.
In addition to the Bruce Nuclear workers living in the Kincardine-area municipalities, Bruce Nuclear Generating Station and OPG hold powerful economic sway in the region. As reported by the Globe and Mail's Shawn McCarthy in an article entitled "OPG pressed non-profits to back Bruce County nuclear-waste plant," OPG pressured nearly two-dozen area non-profits to speak out in support of the controversial DUD. OPG's implicit threat to the non-profits' funding streams seems obvious. Area non-profits have come to depend on OPG's relatively large funding donations, although, relative to its profits, OPG's charitable donations are a vanishingly small fraction of its revenues.
In fact, OPG has promised a total of $25 million to Kincardine and neighboring towns, but only if they continue to adequately support and promote the DGR. That money began to flow around 2005. OPG gets to decide if a recipient municipality is performing enthusiastically enough in promotion of the DGR. Again, the implicit threat is that the promised funding will be yanked.
The federal Canadian Joint Review Panel environmental assessment hearings have now ended in Kincardine, after several weeks of testimony.
The Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition now has over 40,000 signatures. If you haven't signed it yet, please do. And please spread the word to everyone you know.