Last week we posted about the approval granted by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to allow Bruce Power to ship 1,600 tonnes of radioactive waste, in the form of 16 decommissioned nuclear reactors, across the Great Lakes, though the St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic Ocean to Sweden for recycling. Not everyone is happy about it. The Ontario First Nations are pointing out that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is “ignoring the rule of law” by approving a nuclear waste shipment through the Great Lakes.
Ontario First Nation says planned nuke shipment through Great Lakes ignores law
Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee says First Nations have to be accommodated on activities that could have an impact on their traditional territories.
Madahbee, speaking for 39 member communities of the Anishinabek Nation, notes that Anishinabek First Nation communities occupy all of the Great Lakes shoreline and a significant part of its basin.
“When it comes to transporting nuclear wastes through such an important resource as the Great Lakes, there is no such thing as too much consultation,” Madahbee said Tuesday in a release.
“Look at what happened with the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said. “It´s irresponsible to take chances with the transport of hazardous goods.”
Canadian environmentalists are also not pleased:
Shipping waste across lakes nukes old rules
Under a 2006 environmental assessment prepared by Bruce Power and approved by the CNSC, the generators were declared to be radioactive waste that could not be recycled and would therefore be stored at the Bruce station in the Western Waste Management Facility owned and operated by Ontario Power Generation as low-level radioactive waste. They would be stored on the surface until 2043, and underground thereafter.
There was an acceptable plan for managing these wastes approved in 2006. Yet five years later, Bruce Power wants to transport these components halfway across the world.
Accidents can happen. Like the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River are a tremendous resource and an economic engine for North America. We should not support proposals that potentially threaten these precious waterways, the source of drinking water for almost 40 million people, especially when there are alternatives.
As the shipment will take place in part through US waters, the United States government will also have a say.
U.S. could stop planned Great Lakes nuke transport
The agency responsible for oversight of nuclear shipments in the U.S. is DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an agency that has come under criticism recently for its failure to prevent oil and gas pipeline ruptures.
In the final days of his tenure as a U.S. Senator, Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin spearheaded an effort to ensure that the agency doesn’t simply rubber stamp the plan.
Feingold, together with Sens. Robert Casey Jr.(D-PA), Kirsten Gellibrand (D-NY), Carl Levin (D-MI), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Shumer (D-NY), asked PHMSA to explain how it would handle the request to move the nuclear waste through U.S. waters.
In a Nov. 8, 2010 response PHMSA Director Cynthia Quarterman said the agency would begin considering Bruce Power’s application for a “special arrangement” once the shipping plan was approved by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Over the past two decades the agency has made special arrangements for the shipping of approximately 40 large nuclear power plant components, she said, but “almost all of the prior U.S. consignments had a lesser radioactive hazard than the proposed Canadian steam generator transport.”
All but one of the previous nuclear shipments appear to involve ocean shipping rather than transport over the Great Lakes.
Quarterman said that PHMSA would solicit input from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before granting Bruce Power an exemption from safety regulations.
Feingold asked whether PHMSA be complying with the National Environmental Policy Act [which requires formal environmental review of federal actions with significant environmental impact] and how the agency would ensure public participation and transparency.
Quarterman stated that the agency would comply with NEPA, but offered no details on actions to engage the public.
“It should be noted that although Canada may approve the initial certificate, the U.S. is in no way bound by their approval,” she said. “The U.S. could require additional conditions or elect not to validate.”
Thanks to Phil Leon for passing the articles along.
The iron ore and coal shipments on the Great Lakes poses more of an environmental hazard than these used steam generators. In fact a single large coal shipment actually has more radioactivity in it than the proposed shipment does.
Somehow I doubt that that is the case. The internal components of the generators are described as highly radioactive and are the primary cause for concern. The same cannot be said of coal.
You gotta love scientists!! In “Scientific American” December 13, 2007 it was stated that coal ash was effectively radioactive. In “CE Journal” December 31, 2008 it was stated that coal ash was not effectively radioactive. Of course one scientist was working for the coal industry, the other for the nuclear power industry. Coal from different areas of the United States has differing levels of radioactivity and there are handy graphs to show all this. Guess you choose your scientist first an d believe – what. Me I am just a simple retired seafarer!!
Good Watch
Coal ash is really nasty stuff, whether or not it is more radioactive than nuclear waste. And yes, there are studies that say it is more or less hazardous, so you can pick and choose who you believe. Even the Scientific American article with the scary title, “Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste” doesn’t really support that claim. What they say in the article is, “estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities.”
Under any circumstances, coal is hardly comparable to the highly radioactive waste to carried across the Great Lakes.
“Under any circumstances, coal is hardly comparable to the highly radioactive waste to carried across the Great Lakes.”
But that’s the point it isn’t highly radioactive waste. The worst case scenario for this shipment is that one of the steam generators could fall on someone when being hoisted and kill them.
Nuke waste has a shelf life of 10,000 YEARS. Nuke waste is unable to be assimilated and/or ignored by life forms such as humans, mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, plants, etc.
All industrial production and deposit/dispersal of
nuke waste is uncoscionable and immoral. Synthetic chemicals, as well as too much, too much/too fast deposit of fossil fuels such as coal and oil are unmanageable by Nature and therefore life forms.
As a result, we humans are catapulting into our Earth’s 6th Extinction. We are unconsciously, greedily generating molecular waste at industrial volumes and rates faster than Nature can figure out what to do with it.
How do we stop ourselves?
I speak from my knowlege from the Nobel Laureates and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The response I read above show no knowledge connection with these people who ARE knowlegeable.
Go to http://www.naturalstep.org…to Union Of Concerned Scientists.
Your answers are not gained from the banks, the industrialists, the shippers, the utilities the trades and only the hidden few in the DOD.