Deep Geological Repository Updates & News
Deep Geological Repository
A nuclear threat to the Great Lakes and surrounding Canadian-USEcosystem
Deep Geological Repository Updates & News
The "two" plants at Bruce are the four A" reactors and the four "B" reactors - eight altogether. Bruce Power proposes to construct four more reactors at the site and this project is on the fast track. The draft EIS is not due out yet on the proposed new reactors, but Bruce Power has already published it. It truly does not make sense to produce more centuries of nuclear waste when there is no satisfactory solution for storing it over those centuries, and keeping it out of our waters, our air, our soil, our gene pool. Also, to clarify a possible misconception here: environmentalists do not want any radioactive wastes stored in deep geological repository, whether it is designated "high", "low" or "intermediate". Also, Bruce Power only operates the eight Bruce reactors. located on the shores of Lake Huron. (Two of the Bruce "A" reactors are undergoing costly and intensive renovation). Ontario Power Generation owns and operates the four reactors at Darlington and the eight reactors at Pickering, all located on the shores of Lake Ontario.
Local News
PUBLISHED: Sunday, June 8, 2008
Down in the dumps
Canadian plan to store plants' waste near Huron provokes outrage
By Chad Selweski
Macomb Daily Staff Writer
Macomb County officials are leading the charge in opposition to a proposed nuclear waste dump near Ontario's Lake Huron shoreline, upstream from the county's drinking water plants. The Canadian plan calls for an underground repository to store waste from 20 nuclear power plants. The waste dump would be located less than a mile from Lake Huron, adjacent to a large, waterfront nuclear power site with two electricity-generating plants.
Downstream from the proposed half-mile-deep site is an estimated 35 million to 40 million people who rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water, in cities ranging from Port Huron, Mount Clemens and Detroit, to Toledo, Cleveland and Toronto.
"They've got to store this stuff for thousands of years without it ever leaking. If there's a leak, how do they fix it?" said Doug Martz, chairman of the Macomb County Water Quality Board. "You don't put this kind of thing in the Great Lakes basin. Who in their right mind would come up with an idea like this?"
The Water Quality Board and the county Board of Commissioners have passed resolutions opposing the waste site and county officials hope to convince dozens of downstream communities to join the fight. Martz said he seeks a united front from the Michigan congressional delegation and the Granholm administration.
The state Department of Environmental Quality has already expressed concern about the safety of the drinking water plants on Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. DEQ spokesman Robert McCann said a similar underground site, if proposed in Michigan, probably could not meet state standards.
"Obviously, any time you're talking about storing nuclear waste near the Great Lakes, we want to take a pretty close look at it and get more detail," McCann said.
Canadian officials say the site would store only waste with "low" and "intermediate" radioactivity, but authorities and environmentalists want a commitment that high-level waste, such as spent fuel rods, will never be stored there.
The "deep geological repository" would be located outside the Ontario town of Kincardine, which is about 50 miles directly east of Tawas City, Mich.
Nicholas Girard, a spokesman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said the CEAA "welcomes public comments" from the United States about the project. He said the Canadian government is working with a Michigan-based environmental group, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, to keep connected to American concerns.
But the citizen group's director, Kay Cumbow, said federal and provincial Canadian officials haven't adequately addressed fears of a nuclear accident that could contaminate the Great Lakes waters.
"The Canadian government really hasn't done a very good job of outreach because they feel the only impact would be to the local fisheries and the local communities, such as Kincardine," said Cumbow, a St. Clair County resident. "We need full representation of the areas downstream and downwind - elected officials and citizens. We need a voice."
A lengthy review process is under way, but a recent public meeting scheduled in Kincardine was twice cancelled by the government and, when it was finally held two weeks ago, only seven citizens attended.
The project carries great importance for the province of Ontario, which generates half of its electrical power from nuclear plants and is expected to move further in that direction.
Claudia Lemieux, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Nuclear Association, an industry group, said that Ontario's 20 nuclear plants are run by a private company, Bruce Power, and the removal and disposal of used fuel is overseen by a provincial agency, Ontario Power Generation.
Under the approval process, the proposed waste site at Kincardine will undergo a lengthy environmental impact study. When that's completed, a 3-member government panel will review the material and issue a report with recommendations.
Final approval will be a federal decision by the Canadian Cabinet. The approval or rejection may not come until 2013.
To receive more information or periodic updates about the proposal, send an e-mail to dgr.review@ceaa.gc.ca.
Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination will hold a public workshop about the proposal on Monday, June 16, at 7 p.m. at the offices of Clean Water Action, 38875 Harper, Clinton Township.*
*More meetings are listed on the HOME page of this website
Brennain Lloyd of Northwatch was invited to be
the 'guest writer' for Great Lakes Town Hall a few months ago, and her
week-long stint is now upon us.
Her first story is a general intro to nuclear facilities on the Canadian
side of Lake Huron, and the second story is background on the Bruce nuclear
generating station (8 reactors) and the proposed 4 new reactors or "new
build." Before the week is finished, she plans to cover radioactive wastes
stored at Ontario Power Generation's Western Waste Management Facility,
adjacent the Bruce - and the proposed deep underground dump, the uranium
refinery in Blind River, and old and new uranium mining along the north
Nuke plant a health risk, farmer says; Power company denies 'ridiculous' claims
Edmonton Journal
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Page: B5
Section: Cityplus/Alberta
Byline: Steve Lillebuen
Dateline: EDMONTON
Source: The Edmonton Journal
Eugene Bourgeois has been living in the shadows of a nuclear power plant for decades, but two particular days remain locked in his memory -- the days he got gassed.
Working in his fields, the Ontario sheep farmer alleges he was caught in a sour gas leak in 1985 and again in 1988. "I saw stars," he says. "I couldn't string two words together."
The gas, also known as hydrogen sulphide, had been used at the neighbouring nuclear power facility to extract heavy water as part of the nuclear reactor process. Bruce Power took over the plant years later and has plans to expand into Alberta.
Flaring of the gas was common at the time when the plant was run by Ontario Hydro, but the company insisted its emissions couldn't have reached the concentrated levels capable of causing such problems on the nearby farm.
But Bourgeois says he couldn't add or make simple decisions, symptoms a university expert concluded were the result of exposure to toxic fumes.
Bourgeois took his claims to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, where they were debated at length, but he remains disappointed with their response. Commission members concluded that no further assessment was required.
Bourgeois says he has never fully regained his health. He says his flock frequently lost a third of its lambs each spring. Sometimes, the sheep went blind.
Bourgeois, 62, plans to share his story this week with Alberta landowners who may end up living near another nuclear power facility, proposed for Lac Cardinal, about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
"Most people are not going to know whether the industry is pulling the wool over their eyes or whether they're being straightforward and honest," Bourgeois says. He will be travelling through Peace River and Grimshaw June 28 and 29.
Steve Cannon, a spokesman for Bruce Power which is the applicant in Alberta, dismisses all of the farmer's various claims and concerns, calling them "ridiculous."
"If we were unsafe in anyway, if any of the things that Mr. Bourgeois will occasionally say about the industry had merit to them, we wouldn't be operating," he says. "It's as simple as that."
The debate about the proposed Alberta plant could span nearly a decade since such plants require a full environmental assessment and community consultation.
Action Alert
To sign on to the letter below, (No Radioactive Waste Dump in the Heart of the Great Lakes!), simply email kevin@beyondnuclear.org your name, title, organization, and full contact information. Individuals are also welcome to sign. Please sign on by noon on Wednesday, June 18th so that we can submit our group comment to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency by the official deadline later that day.
If you'd like to submit additional comments, email them to DGR.Review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca no later than Wednesday, June 18th.
No Radioactive Waste Dump in the Heart of the Great Lakes!
The proposal to build a deep underground dump (DUD) for radioactive wastes on the shoreline of the Great Lakes is unacceptable. Water is the most likely dispersal medium for toxic materials in general, and for radioactive wastes in particular.
Nevertheless, that's what is being considered at the Bruce nuclear complex on the Canadian side of Lake Huron. The DUD would be located just over one kilometre (less than one mile) from the Lake, and would house all of the radioactive wastes from 20 commercial nuclear power reactors in Ontario – with the exception of the irradiated nuclear fuel.
It was recently reported that the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) wants to manage the DUD project. But the NWMO deals exclusively with the long-term management of irradiated nuclear fuel, and has nothing whatever to do with other categories of nuclear waste materials. Does the NWMO's involvement mean that the proposed DUD will eventually become a permanent repository for high-level radioactive waste -- making it the "Yucca Mountain" of the Great Lakes region?
The Bruce nuclear complex currently hosts nine reactors (one of them permanently shut down), with proposals for four more. This would make it the largest nuclear power complex in the world. Already there are 500 outdoor silos for the “interim storage” of irradiated nuclear fuel about one kilometre from Lake Huron, and there are plans to build 2,000 more.
Since the DUD is only 50 miles from Michigan across Lake Huron, leakage of radioactivity from the dump could directly affect tens of millions of residents in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, and contaminate the drinking water in Port Huron, Sarnia, Detroit, Windsor, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Toronto and countless other communities downstream.
Thus, this DUD proposal is not just a Canadian issue, but an international one. In 1986, Canada protested when the U.S. proposed a high-level radioactive waste dump in Vermont because it was too close to the Canadian border; that proposed dump was subsequently cancelled. Now it is time for U.S. residents to speak out. The Canadian DUD proposal sets a dangerous precedent for the establishment of perpetually hazardous facilities on the Great Lakes, and impacts people on both sides of the border.
The successful emplacement of the DUD for so-called “low” and “intermediate” level radioactive wastes from across Ontario – and potentially from the rest of Canada – will create a threat to the Great Lakes watershed for generations to come. It will also increase the likelihood of the Bruce site becoming a permanent disposal dump for high-level radioactive wastes (i.e. irradiated nuclear fuel), which would increase the risks by many orders of magnitude.
Alarming as this proposal is, the process for assessing its environmental impact is also cause for grave concern. In Canada, environmental panels reviewing proposed nuclear facilities have always been independent of the nuclear establishment -- until now. But for the DUD, the Government of Canada intends to place the review panel under the control of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) which is the regulatory authority for licensing nuclear facilities in Canada.
Six months ago, the President of the CNSC was fired by the Canadian federal government for being too strict in her enforcement of reactor safety regulations. The new CNSC President has clear instructions to fast-track all nuclear regulatory approval processes. No environmental assessment panel will be credible if it is dominated by this highly politicized regulatory agency.
Despite the conflict of interest, the CNSC stands ready to chair the environmental assessment panel and to fill two of its three positions. CNSC’s domination of the Full Panel Review is unprecedented, and will undermine the panel's credibility. We urge CNSC’s exclusion from the Panel, so the panel's independence is assured.
We ask that the public comment deadline be extended for six months beyond June 18th. Given the longevity and the unprecedented nature of the hazard that the DUD represents for the entire Great Lakes ecosystem, as well as the minimal outreach to the United States and Native American/First Nations that the Canadian federal government has undertaken, this extension request is reasonable.
Sincerely,
Gordon Edwards (Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Montreal, Quebec) and Michael Keegan (Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, Monroe, Michigan)
Co-Chairs
Great Lakes United Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force
Espinoza, Brown Fight to Stop Risky Canadian Nuclear Dump, Refinery article online
Projects along St. Clair River, Lake Huron put Michigan water, land in danger
June 19, 2008
LANSING - State Representatives John Espinoza (D-Croswell) and Terry Brown (D-Pigeon) today urged Congress to do everything in its power to protect the health and safety of Michigan's residents and natural resources by opposing the construction in Canada of an underground nuclear waste dump along Lake Huron across from the Thumb, and a giant oil refinery on the St. Clair River shoreline across from St. Clair and Marine City.
"It is outrageous that Canada, which has for so long treated Michigan as a dumping ground for its trash, now believes it has the right to endanger our water and land with two major hazardous projects," said Espinoza, whose district is subjected to hundreds of Canadian trash trucks crossing into Michigan each day. "We are already fighting to restore the St. Clair River, and we can't risk further damage from toxic discharges and accidental oil spills. Thousands of jobs in Michigan's agriculture and tourism industries, as well as the drinking water of thousands of Michigan families, depend on us protecting our rivers and lakes."
The mammoth oil refinery complex that Shell Canada seeks to build is less than 3,000 feet away from local hospitals. The other project is an underground radioactive waste repository to be built less than a mile from Lake Huron by Ontario Power Generation. Radioactive waste from 20 nuclear plants would be buried there. Downstream from both facilities, an estimated 35 to 40 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water.
Espinoza and Brown introduced a resolution today calling on the Michigan House of Representatives to urge Congress to do all it can to oppose both projects. Both Brown and Espinoza have voted for a tough plan to stop the flood of trash from other states and Canada by attacking the economics of the trash trade. The House passed that plan more than a year ago, and it is now stalled in the Senate.
"In addition to dumping their trash on us for all these years, Canada is eager to put our water and land at significant direct risk just to make an enormous profit," Brown said. "We cannot afford the hardship that leaks of nuclear waste - or even the fear of them - would create for our tourism industry, let alone the damage that contamination would do to our agricultural industry. The health of our residents, our natural resources and our economy must come first."
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Ontario Power is at it again...this time they want four new nuclear reactors at Bruce!
News Release
Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
Bruce Power New Nuclear Power Plant Project
Final Environmental Impact Statement Guidelines and
Joint Review Panel Agreement Issued
OTTAWA, August 22, 2008 - The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (the Agency) and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (the CNSC) issued two documents today – the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Guidelines and the Joint Review Panel (JRP) Agreement – related to the proposed Bruce Power New Nuclear Power Plant Project, located in the Municipality of Kincardine, Ontario.
The EIS Guidelines identify the information needed for Bruce Power to prepare the EIS which will provide a detailed analysis of the potential environmental effects of the proposed project. The Guidelines also list the requirements for a licence to prepare the site. The JRP Agreement establishes how the panel will function and the terms of reference for conducting the environmental assessment and for determining the information required to consider the licence application to prepare a site.
The draft Guidelines and the draft JRP Agreement were subject to public consultation from April 4 to June 18, 2008 and were amended following consideration of the comments received.
The final Guidelines, and Agreement, along with more information on this project, are available at www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca , registry number 07-05-25738 and at www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca .
Next steps will include the appointment of JRP members, the submission of Bruce Power’s EIS and licensing documentation to the JRP, and a public consultation on the EIS.
The project represents a proposal by Bruce Power Inc. for the site preparation, construction, operation, decommissioning and abandonment of up to four new nuclear reactors at the existing Bruce Nuclear Site, located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, in the Municipality of Kincardine. The project is expected to generate approximately 4,000 megawatts of electricity to the Ontario grid.
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About the Agency:
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency administers the federal environmental assessment process, which identifies the environmental effects of proposed projects, and the measures to address those effects, in support of sustainable development.
About the CNSC:
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regulates the use of nuclear energy and materials to protect the health, safety, and security of Canadians and the environment; and to respect Canada's international commitments on the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
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For more information, media may contact: Lucille Jamault Senior Communications Advisor Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Tel.: 613-957-0434
Sunni Locatelli Director, Public Affairs and Media Relations Division Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Tel.: 613-995-2903
