Dumping Nuke Waste On Lake Huron Coast
By James Donahue
August 2, 2017
One might think that with all of the world concern about dealing with our polluted and overcrowded planet that everyone . . . even big business leaders . . . would be giving serious thought to the disposal of industrial waste. And after the disasters at Fukushima, Japan, and Chernobyl, Ukraine the handling of nuclear plant waste would be getting extra careful handling.
Not so with officials at Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in Ontario, Canada, it seems. That company, which operates the Bruce Power nuclear complex on the coast of Lake Huron, near Kincardine, wants to dump an estimated 200,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste in a rock-lined repository right in the heart of the complex and within a few hundred feet of the lake.
The idea is not going over well with communities all along the Great Lakes coastline, from Chicago north to Duluth and south to Detroit and East to Buffalo and Kingston. To date more than 200 cities have signed formal objections to the company’s plans but so far their complaints appear to be falling on deaf ears.
The Great Lakes, which contains some of the last remnants of fresh water in the world, provides drinking water for an estimated 40 million people. The worst thing we need is contamination of the lakes by a leaking radioactive repository either now or at some time in the distant future.
Company spokesman Kevin Powers is assuring everyone that the waste materials will be so well sealed that there will be no danger of lake contamination. He says it will be encased in rock and buried over 2,000 feet underground. A Detroit News story quoted one unnamed company source is stating the makeup of the rock at that depth appears perfect for safely storing the radioactive waste for “hundreds of years.”
The problem, however, is that radioactive material remains toxic for thousands of years.
Approving that site will be up to the Canadian government’s minister of environment and climate change. So far Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has been calling for the company to investigate alternate sites located away from the lakes. Last week OPG submitted its report which said it still finds the Bruce Power site to be the best of several disposal sites included in the study.
“The studies show that relocating the (deep geologic repository) to an alternate location would result in increased environmental effects and significant incremental costs, with no assurance of increased safety to workers and the public, or protection of the environment,” the report concluded.
The strongest argument in that statement is that the very act of trucking highly radioactive waste across a populated countryside produces a high risk of accidental contamination for everyone in its path.
And there lies the extreme irony in the rush to nuclear power in the years following World War II. Nuclear electric generating plants require a lot of water to control the heating uranium coils used in generating steam generators. Consequently all of the nuclear electric generating plants in the world are located on large rivers or at the banks of lakes and world oceans. The Fukushima plant meltdown is currently polluting a large portion of the entire Pacific Ocean and to date, company engineers have found no way of stopping the ongoing disaster, which literally threatens the Northern Hemisphere of the planet.
OPG’s other major argument against moving the toxic waste away from the Lake Huron shoreline is typical for corporations operating in a capitalistic society. They say the cost of moving the material and preparing a new site would be prohibitive.
By James Donahue
August 2, 2017
One might think that with all of the world concern about dealing with our polluted and overcrowded planet that everyone . . . even big business leaders . . . would be giving serious thought to the disposal of industrial waste. And after the disasters at Fukushima, Japan, and Chernobyl, Ukraine the handling of nuclear plant waste would be getting extra careful handling.
Not so with officials at Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in Ontario, Canada, it seems. That company, which operates the Bruce Power nuclear complex on the coast of Lake Huron, near Kincardine, wants to dump an estimated 200,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste in a rock-lined repository right in the heart of the complex and within a few hundred feet of the lake.
The idea is not going over well with communities all along the Great Lakes coastline, from Chicago north to Duluth and south to Detroit and East to Buffalo and Kingston. To date more than 200 cities have signed formal objections to the company’s plans but so far their complaints appear to be falling on deaf ears.
The Great Lakes, which contains some of the last remnants of fresh water in the world, provides drinking water for an estimated 40 million people. The worst thing we need is contamination of the lakes by a leaking radioactive repository either now or at some time in the distant future.
Company spokesman Kevin Powers is assuring everyone that the waste materials will be so well sealed that there will be no danger of lake contamination. He says it will be encased in rock and buried over 2,000 feet underground. A Detroit News story quoted one unnamed company source is stating the makeup of the rock at that depth appears perfect for safely storing the radioactive waste for “hundreds of years.”
The problem, however, is that radioactive material remains toxic for thousands of years.
Approving that site will be up to the Canadian government’s minister of environment and climate change. So far Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has been calling for the company to investigate alternate sites located away from the lakes. Last week OPG submitted its report which said it still finds the Bruce Power site to be the best of several disposal sites included in the study.
“The studies show that relocating the (deep geologic repository) to an alternate location would result in increased environmental effects and significant incremental costs, with no assurance of increased safety to workers and the public, or protection of the environment,” the report concluded.
The strongest argument in that statement is that the very act of trucking highly radioactive waste across a populated countryside produces a high risk of accidental contamination for everyone in its path.
And there lies the extreme irony in the rush to nuclear power in the years following World War II. Nuclear electric generating plants require a lot of water to control the heating uranium coils used in generating steam generators. Consequently all of the nuclear electric generating plants in the world are located on large rivers or at the banks of lakes and world oceans. The Fukushima plant meltdown is currently polluting a large portion of the entire Pacific Ocean and to date, company engineers have found no way of stopping the ongoing disaster, which literally threatens the Northern Hemisphere of the planet.
OPG’s other major argument against moving the toxic waste away from the Lake Huron shoreline is typical for corporations operating in a capitalistic society. They say the cost of moving the material and preparing a new site would be prohibitive.