Lake Huron nuclear dump scheme in trouble: Walkom via The Star

Aboriginal communities aren’t happy with Ontario’s plans to store nuclear waste underground. And they say they have a veto.

Ontario’s plan to bury nuclear waste beside Lake Huron is running into heavy weather.

Ontario Power Generation, the Crown corporation behind the proposed dump site for low and intermediate level radioactive waste has publicly acknowledged that its long-term safety plans are based, in part, on new technologies that have not yet been invented.

As the Star’s John Spears reported this week, that explanation hasn’t endeared itself to the small but politically important aboriginal communities near the proposed Kincardine dump site.

In a brief to the federal review panel that will eventually rule on the plan, the Saugeen Ojibway Nation reminds OPG of its assurance that no nuclear waste dump will be built without aboriginal consent.

Will that consent be given? The First Nation doesn’t say. But in its brief, it does express profound unease with what it calls OPG’s vague and open-ended scheme.

Plans for this so-called deep geological repository at Kincardine have been in the works since 2005.

Initially, the proposed dump was supposed to house waste such as the rubber gloves used by nuclear workers — items with relatively low levels of radioactivity.

Right now, nuclear waste from Ontario atomic power generating plants is stored on the surface.

This entry was posted in *English and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply