SOUTH BRUCE: Opposition gathering - nuclear waste dump

[Oscar]

Opposition gathering to irradiated nuclear fuel disposal vault in South Bruce (Ontario)

[ https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/ ... outh-bruce ]


Background:

Dr. Gordon Edwards June 26, 2020

Traditionally, when a monarch passes away, one says - “The king is dead, long live the king.”

Well, the DGR is dead . . . But ANOTHER DGR is very much alive . . .

Four months ago, on January 31, 2020, the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) voted against the underground nuclear waste dump proposed by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to house all of the diversely-level and intermediate-level radioactive wastes from OPG's fleet of 20 nuclear power reactors.

OPG's so-called “Deep Geological Repository” (DGR) would have been located less than a mile from Lake Huron, near the town of Kincardine. Although the project was given a green light by the federal government’s Environmental Assessment Review Panel in 2015, strong opposition has been expressed by hundreds of municipalities in both Canada and the USA, and Michigan lawmakers have strenuously objected to the idea of abandoning long-lived radioactive waste (dangerous for over 100,000 years) so close to the Great Lakes, the source of drinking water for 40 million people.

As a result of the SON vote, OPG's contentious project is now dead. The chosen site would have been on unceded indigenous land, and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation had the final say. But the radioactive waste is of course still there, and OPG is already busy searching for another site for such a DGR.

The DGR is dead; long live the DGR!

Even as the door was closing on OPG’s proposed DGR for low-level and intermediate-level waste, the welcome mat was being rolled out for Canada’s other DGR, one that would host ALL of Canada’s high-level radioactive waste. That’s all the irradiated nuclear fuel from all of the nuclear reactors in Canada, most of them in Ontario (OPG and AECL), but a few elsewhere: in Quebec (Gentilly), New Brunswick (Lepreau) and Manitoba (Whiteshell).

The search for a DGR dates back to 1977, when – after 30 years of claiming that nuclear energy is “clean” energy and therefore has no toxic waste – the Government of Canada issued a policy paper called the Hare Report, claiming that the “problem” can be solved by “simply” burying the waste.

See [ http://www.ccnr.org/me_worry.html [ and [ http://www.ccnr.org/me_worry_update.html ].

After a 15-year, $700 million research effort, initiated in 1978, including an “underground Research Laboratory” in Manitoba, accompanied by a 10-year environmental assessment process, with public hearings in five provinces, all leading to a series of recommendations to the Government of Canada in 1993. The so-called “Seaborn Panel" was divided on some fundamental issues, but they unanimously recommended the creation of an “independent” nuclear waste management agency reporting regularly to parliament.

[ http://www.ccnr.org/hlw_fearo_summary.html ] and [ http://www.ccnr.org/hlw_history.html ]

Instead, the Liberal government of the day (under Prime Minister Chretien) created the NWMO - the Nuclear Waste Management Agency - wholly owned by the nuclear waste producers, to find a “willing host community” to inch towards the implementation of the original AECL DGR proposal.

See [ http://ccnr.org/follow_path_back.pdf ]

The late David Martin commented that the DGR (Deep Geological Repository) should be called a DUD (Deep Underground Dump) — since the final phase of the plan is abandonment, and as soon as one walks away from it, the carefully engineered “repository” becomes, in effect, a derelict “dump”.

The farming community of Teeswater, just 25 miles (40 kilometres) east of Kincardine, is one of two “finalists” (out of an initial list of 22 candidates, 3 of them in Saskatchewan and the other 19 in Ontario) to become a “willing host community” for NWMO’s proposed DGR for HLW (High Level Waste). Teeswater is located in a county called “South Bruce”. By the way, the entire county is still in the traditional unceded territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), the same First Nation that brought about the cancellation of plans for the OPG’s DGR for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive wastes. It is unlikely that SON will accept the DGR for much more dangerous high-level wastes when they have already rejected the DGR for lesser wastes. Time will tell.

Gordon Edwards, President
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
http://www.ccnr.org

P.S. Thursday, June 25, 6 pm, NWMO will be giving an internet “Virtual Information Session" for South Bruce residents and anyone else who is interested in receiving virtual information.

See notice at the bottom of this email.

= = = =

From: Mike Borie <mikeborie@hotmail.com>
Subject: "South Bruce - Virtual Information Session" Deep Geological Repository
Date: June 24, 2020 at 7:49:15 PM EDT

South Bruce - Virtual Information Session

[ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/south-bruc ... linesearch ]

South Bruce - Virtual Information Session

South Bruce is one of the communities being considered for a Deep Geological Repository (DGR). Curious? Attend this session to learn more! [ http://www.eventbrite.com ]