U.S. Congressmen, Cities of Toronto, Kingston, and Windsor, ON, join opposition to Canada's Great Lakes radioactive waste dump
As reported by the Macomb Daily Tribune, four Democratic U.S. Congressmen from Michigan have joined the growing chorus questioning the Great Lakes radioactive waste dump:
"U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, along with several fellow Democrats in the Michigan congressional delegation --Reps. Dan Kildee of Flint, Sander Levin of Royal Oak, who represents much of Macomb County, and John Dingell of Dearbon -- sent a letter to the Canadian review panel urging it to consider the potential threat that the site could pose to the Great Lakes. They also called for an open dialogue as the process proceeds."
Here is the letter the four U.S. Congressmen wrote to the federal Canadian Joint Review Panel overseeing the environmental assessment of the proposal.
U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI's 5th District) issued a press release.
Rep. Levin is the Ranking Member on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Dingell is the longest-serving Member of the U.S. House in history. Rep. Peters has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Carl Levin (Sandy's younger brother), who is retiring.
They thus join with both of MI's Democratic U.S. Senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, in expressing opposition to Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR, or Deep Geologic Repository, DUD) on the Lake Huron shore. In the Michigan State Legislature, Senator Hoon-Yung Hopgood and Representative Sarah Roberts have led the opposition to the dump.
Meanwhile, Canada's largest city -- Toronto, population 2.8 million -- just passed a resolution opposing the DUD (critics' sarcastic appellation for the DGR, standing for Deep Underground Dump).
This was followed by a resolution opposing OPG's DUD on Nov. 19th by the City of Kingston, Ontario, population 123,363. Kingston is where Lake Ontario flows into the St. Lawrence River.
On Oct. 27th, USA Today reprinted a Detroit Free Press article about the DGR.
The Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition now has nearly 42,600 signatures. If you haven't signed yet, plesae do. And please spread the word! Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump also has a sample letter you can use to contact your elected officials about this issue.
If you live in the Great Lakes Basin -- or if you regard the Great Lakes as a precious natural resource, the irreplacable drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations -- please urge your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative to join Michigan's in expressing opposition to the OPG DUD targeted at the Lake Huron shore! You can call your Members of Congress via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
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The City of Windsor, Ontario has also passed a resolution opposing OPG's DUD! Its population is 215,000. It is Canada's southern-most city, and the only Canadian city to look north to see the U.S. -- specifically, the City of Detroit, MI, just across the Detroit River from Windsor!
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The Associated Press has reported on this story. The article quotes local residents near Bruce Nuclear, Beyond Nuclear allies in the struggle against OPG's DUD:
'...Most of the waste would decay within 300 years, but the company acknowledges the intermediate waste would stay radioactive for more than 100,000 years. That's too long for Eugene Bourgeois, who has a wool yarn business near Bruce Power.
"We have only recently discovered radioactivity," he said. "It's arrogant to think we're smart enough to know what it will do to life on this planet over such a long time."
Beverly Fernandez, leader of the group that started the online petition, lives in Saugeen Shores but admits she's focusing on rally[ing] opposition outside the area because the industry is so popular in Bruce County -- which she dryly labels "the nuclear oasis."...'
The article also reports:
'...But Charles Rhodes, an engineer and physicist, contended seeping groundwater would fill the chamber in as little as a year, become contaminated and eventually reach the lake through tiny cracks in the rock.
"It's only a question of how long, and how toxic it will be when it gets there," he said in an interview...'
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The Town of Ajax "By the Lake" (Lake Ontario, that is), just east of Toronto, near the 8-reactor Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, has also passed a resolution against the DUD. Ajax, as of 2011, had a population of 109,600.
This takes the total population of municipalities (cities, towns, townships, counties, villages, etc.) with resolutions against the DUD to around 17.8 million.