Monday, January 18, 2016

Lake Huron radioactive waste dump site still on the table

This blog noted the other day that the Wisconsin Assembly's sudden embrace of nuclear power generation could put the Badger state on top of a list of possible radioactive nuclear waste dump sites.

And before you say, 'who would use the Great Lakes region for such a crazy notion,' consider that Canadian officials were OK with the construction of an underground nuclear waste storage facility close to Lake Huron - - one of the five, interconnected Great Lakes providing drinking water and economic livelihoods to tens of millions of people in the US and Canada. 

And here is an update to the troubling Lake Huron situation:
Opposition to the proposed nuclear waste facility by Lake Huron continues to grow. By the end of 2015, at least 182 communities (representing more than 22 million people) on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border have adopted resolutions opposing the plan by Ontario Power Generation to build a deep geological repository (DGR) for storage of low- and intermediate-level radioactive nuclear waste.
A Canadian federal panel approved the nuclear waste dump in May 2015, accepting testimony that Lake Huron would be large enough to dilute any radioactive pollution that might leak from the DGR.
The immediate outcry on both sides of the border prompted the Conservative government of Stephen Harper to postpone any decision until Dec. 1, 2015... The new government of Liberal Justin Trudeau then pushed that decision to March 1, 2016, after a dozen members of Michigan’s congressional delegation urged the new prime minister to deny the construction permits necessary for the storage facility to be built....
...a final decision on the DGR may reside with a small First Nations community.

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