Writer urges federal environment minister to stop OPG's nuclear waste dump

Dear Catherine McKenna, federal minister of the environment and climate change:

 

In the mid-1990s, recognizing the problem of nuclear waste, the Liberal government of the time commissioned an independent, apolitical, multi-party Royal Commission to look into the growing issue of nuclear waste and to suggest ways to manage it.

 

During the 10-year independent study to look into the question of nuclear waste management, the Seaborn Commission examined all alternatives including Deep Geologic Repositories (DGRs). Of this alternative, they reported the only structure seismically stable enough for the permanent storage of nuclear waste in DGRs would be within the plutonic rock of the Canadian Shield.

 

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) commissioned a study of the geologic structure underlying its own property at the Bruce Nuclear Power Development. While not the stable plutonic rock of the Canadian Shield, not surprisingly its limestone base was found to be suitable for use as a DGR. Using this convenient finding, OPG began the process of applying to build a nuclear waste dump less than one kilometre from the shore of Lake Huron.

 

In completing the Environmental Impact Statement for the project, OPG omitted an option that has become an accepted international standard in such cases. The company ignored the step of constructing an Underground Research Laboratory (URL) in this rock structure to test the findings of the computer modelling assumptions. France, a country whose experience with nuclear power far exceeds Canada's, fortunately did not ignore that safeguard. It began construction of the URL in an almost identical geologic structure to that proposed by OPG. That structure recently collapsed.

 

We appeal to you Minister McKenna: listen to the findings of the Seaborn Commission and employ your own common sense. Every attempt at burying nuclear waste underground in the world has failed, with often disastrous and irreparable consequences. Do not allow OPG to permanently dump nuclear waste on the shore of the largest body of fresh water in the world.
 

Sincerely,

Joanne Martin and Richard Martin 
Inverhuron