Advocacy groups speak out against nuclear repository

TRAVERSE CITY - Feb 06 - Grand Traverse Herald, The (MI

A proposed nuclear waste repository less than a mile off the shoreline of Lake Huron could soon receive final approval from the Canadian government - but not if local advocacy groups have their way.

Ontario Power Generation , a government-owned electricity provider that generates about 60 percent of its energy from nuclear power plants, wants to spend the next 15 years constructing the underground storage facility in Kincardine, Ontario .

The proposed site is expected to house about 7.1 million cubic feet of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste like mop heads, rags, paper towels, resins, filters and other used reactor components. Burial caverns would house the radioactive materials more than 2,200 feet below the ground - or about as deep as 22 Park Place Hotels stacked vertically.

It's an issue For Love of Water (FLOW) a Traverse City -based advocacy group has been monitoring closely, said Claire Wood , the organization's office manager. The project is a potentially dangerous idea that could have severe and unexpected consequences for the Great Lakes , she said.

"There have only ever been three deep geological repositories ever and all of them have leaked," she said. "That's not exactly a good sign."

FLOW this week signed onto a collaborative letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment Katherine McKenna urging her to turn down the project. The letter was penned by representatives from a regional coalition of environmental organizations, community groups and individuals in northeastern Ontario and will be sent Monday, Wood said.

The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay has also voiced opposition to the project, but Policy Specialist TJ Andrews said the organization tends to focus more on issues centered directly on Grand Traverse Bay and not on adjacent coastlines.

"That threat is unknown," she said. "It hasn't been proven to be safe so we have to assume that it's not safe. It's about burden shifting; it's up to the advocates who want it to show what the risks are and what the harms are."

But officials at Ontario Power Generation said there is a minimal risk to the Great Lakes .

"It's been a long process ?" OPG spokesman Neal Kelly said. "It's the most rigorous form of environmental assessment you can go through in Canada ."

The company still is waiting for approval from the Ojibway Nation of the Saugeen Indian Reserve before it continues with the project, regardless of McKenna's decision on March 1 . Ongoing discussions with tribal leaders are going well, Kelly said.

A petition from stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com has more than 92,000 signatures and is scheduled to be sent to the Canadian government before March 1 . More than 180 resolutions have been passed from communities surrounding the Great Lakes , including one last year from the City of Traverse City .

"After the decision, we're still a long way to building this facility," Kelly said.

http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=38690225