Canada’s top environmental official is again delaying her decision on whether to move forward with Ontario Power Generation’s proposal to build a nuclear waste deep geologic repository near Lake Huron, amid growing concern from Canadian and American lawmakers and citizens.
On Thursday, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna requested that OPG present alternate locations for the project, provide additional environmental assessment for the current planned site in Kincardine, Ontario, and update its list of mitigation commitments for each identified adverse effect under the 2012 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. McKenna set an April 18 deadline for the company, saying her office will seek a third timeline extension on its decision for the project. The original September deadline was first extended to December and then to March, as public pressure has continued to grow.
About 680 meters below the surface, the repository proposed at the Bruce nuclear facility would house more than 200,000 cubic meters of low- and intermediate-level waste from OPG’s Bruce, Pickering, and Darlington power stations. In May, Canada’s Joint Review Panel backed the controversial proposal, concluding that the isolated rock formation in the project design would protect the lake from any potential contamination.
In January, environmental group Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump launched a petition against the project, garnering more than 93,000 signatures to date.
“This dump puts at risk the fresh water of the GREAT LAKES, relied upon by 40 million people in two countries,” the GoPetition.com petition states. “Any risk of buried nuclear waste entering the largest body of fresh water in the world is too great a risk to take, and need not be taken.”
Members of Michigan’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), Sen. Gary Peters (D), Rep. Dan Kildee (D), and Rep. Candice Miller (R), have all spoken out against the project.
