Writer wants federal environment minister, prime minister to stop planned nuclear waste dump in Great Lakes Basin

By: Letter to the Editor  February 14, 2016  1560

The Honourable Catherine McKenna, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Environment and Climate Change
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1A 0A9

RE: Stop OPG's nuclear waste dump

Dear Minister McKenna:

I implore you and the prime minister of Canada to stop the plans for nuclear waste dumps in the Great Lakes Basin.

I'm referring first to the low- and intermediate-level waste 'deep geological repository' (DGR) that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) wants to construct in Kincardine, next to Lake Huron, which the minister of the environment and climate change may rule on by March 1, 2016.

But I am also talking about the spent nuclear fuel DGR that the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is shopping to other small towns around the Great Lakes.

The proponents say their choice of these locations is 'science-based' but nothing could be farther from the truth. Just consider one small fact: These deep geological repositories will contain materials that remain radioactive for 100,000 years in some cases. Given that human civilization is only about 6,000 years old (and the industrial age only a few hundred years old), it is preposterous that OPG and NWMO would claim that their 'scientific' models could show these plans to be 'safe.' Every DGR in the world so far has leaked within a few years or a few decades. 

This is our precious water. Every day, we read about new catastrophes involving public water supply (Flint, Michigan; Walkerton, California drought). Does Canada really want to take hundreds of millions of dollars -- more likely billions - and build a brand new threat to our water? And do the Liberals want to be the government that allowed this?

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Joanne Martin
Inverhuron

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