U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) last week indicated she is continuing her legislative efforts against a Canadian deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste proposed to be built about a mile from Lake Huron in Ontario.
The weapon will be one the lawmaker has used before — an amendment to a separate bill on nuclear waste.
Dingell and other U.S. lawmakers who represent states near the Great Lakes have for years been critical of Ontario Power Generation’s plans for the disposal facility at its Bruce nuclear power plant in the municipality of Kincardine.
In the last Congress, Dingell and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) successfully proposed an amendment to a 2017 bill on management of U.S. radioactive waste that provided a “sense of Congress” that “the governments of the United States and Canada should not allow permanent or long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel or other radioactive waste near the Great Lakes or in the Great Lakes,” Dingell said during a Sept. 26 meeting of the House Energy and Commerce environment and climate change subcommittee.
That bill, Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, was passed out of the House in May 2018 but never got a vote in the Senate. However, the subcommittee last week advanced a similar measure from Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) for consideration by the full Energy and Commerce Committee.
Dingell said during the subcomittee markup she will again propose an amendment on the Great Lakes issue. “We think this was an important provision for protecting the Great Lakes region and we look forward to working with the committee to offer it again during the full committee markup process.”
The amendment will feature the same language that was submitted last time, a Dingell spokesman said by email Wednesday. At press time, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had not scheduled its markup of the McNerney bill. Congress is in recess until Oct. 14.
The Ontario Power Generation facility would be used for permanent disposal of waste from the utility’s three nuclear power plants. That would encompass mop heads, gloves, clothes, and other material designated as low-level waste, along with used filters, resins, and reactor parts classified as intermediate-level waste. The material is now held in an above-ground interim facility on the Bruce plant property.
Ontario Power Generation says multiple studies have determined that its deep geologic approach would be safe, with roughly 200,000 cubic meters of waste buried 680 meters underground and separated from the environment by multiple layers of engineered and rock barriers.
That safety case was reflected in an environmental assessment submitted to the Canadian government in 2015.
Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, Catherine McKenna, has requested additional information regarding the environmental assessment. Most recently, in 2017, she requested an update to the document’s analysis on the project’s impact on the physical and cultural heritage of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), an OPG spokesperson said by email this week. The company expects to complete submit that analysis by the close of 2020, after which it expects a ruling on the environmental asessment before the end of 2021.
The deep geologic repository must also be licensed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. A decision on the site preparation and construction license is anticipated in 2022, the OPG spokesperson said.
Lake Huron borders Michigan. Members of Congress from the state and nearby states have warned of the potential danger posed by placing radioactive waste so close to a major body of water for both the United States and Canada. In a June 2017 letter seeking assistance from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Dingell and 31 other House lawmakers noted that the Great Lakes provide drinking water, employment, and other necessities for 35 million people on both sides of the border.
The planned OPG site would be separate from a deep geologic repository for spent fuel from Canada’s nuclear power plants, The nongovernmental, utility-funded Nuclear Waste Management Organization is continuing site selection for that facility.
