Feds delay plans to ship toxic waste

PARRY SOUND – A federal decision to permit the shipment of 16 radioactive steam generators across the Great Lakes has been delayed indefinitely.
For reasons unexplained, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) said Monday that it needs more time to deliberate the proposed shipment, which exceeds the federally regulated limit of radioactivity allowed onboard a single vessel.
On November 22, the commission set a deadline of 30-business days before it was obligated to reach a decision.
“While the CNSC strives to render hearing decisions within 30-business days, in some instances more time is needed for deliberations,” the CNSC said in a statement.
Bruce Power, a private nuclear power company about 250-kilometres northwest of Toronto on Lake Huron, wants to transfer the decommissioned generators from Owen Sound, through Georgian Bay, across three of the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic ocean to Sweden for recycling.
Municipalities, First Nations groups and environmental watchdogs in Canada and the U.S. have expressed concerns about the potential dangers associated with the shipment.
The Anishinabek Nation of 42 Ontario native communities has called on the Canadian government to reject all present and future shipments of radioactive waste across the Great Lakes.
“Water is inherent to our lifeline, it’s inherent to life in general. No matter how many regulations, and no matter what they CNSC or Bruce Power says about the shipment, it can never be too safe when it comes to nuclear waste,” said a spokesperson for Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee.
On September 17, 2010, the Township of the Archipelago appealed to the CNSC to ensure that a viable backup plan was in place “in view of the potential environmental impacts should a mishap result,” according to a resolution.
With similar risks in mind, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), a not-for-profit organization, is requesting that the generators be permanently stored at the Bruce Power site to avoid setting future precedents in the transfer of nuclear waste across the Great Lakes.
“I think it goes beyond the steam generators,” said Dr. Gordon Edwards of the CCNR.
“I think it’s more of establishing a precedent that (nuclear power plants) can ship any number components, of any number of descriptions, any time they like, not necessarily over seas but throughout the Great Lakes.”
Edwards, who has prepared several papers as opposition to the shipment, believes the CNSC is delaying their decision for several reasons, but mainly because the transfer has become so controversial.
“I think they do see it as a public relations problem more than anything else,” he said.
“It’s also conceivable that, they think, if they just wait long enough everybody will lose interest.”