Lake County condemns nuclear-waste storage in Great Lakes basin

[bananas]

Source: Chicago Tribune

The Lake County Board joined the city of Waukegan last week in opposing the proposed construction of a nuclear-waste repository near the Ontario shore of Lake Huron, a public stance taken by a reported 136 communities in the U.S. and Canada to protest the storage of nuclear waste anywhere in the Great Lakes basin.

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Waukegan was the first Illinois community to approve formal opposition to the concept, passing a resolution in February 2014. Both houses of Congress passed their own resolutions in the fall, and Chicago and DuPage County took similar action earlier this year.

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"Placing a permanent nuclear-waste burial facility so close to the Great Lakes is ill-advised," reads the Waukegan resolution. "The potential damage to the Great Lakes from any breach or leak of radioactivity far outweighs any suggested economic benefit that might be derived from burying radioactive nuclear waste at this site."

The Lake County Board measure, brought forward by Board Member Steve Mandel of Highland Park and approved on Feb. 10, states that "Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are hydrologically connected as one continuous water body, and any contamination resulting from a leaking nuclear waste repository located on Lake Huron could affect Lake Michigan's waters, the source of drinking water for almost 7 million residents of 11 northeastern Illinois counties."

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Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/news/ct-lns-nuclear-waste-protest-st-0217-20150216-story.html

[SunSeeker]

1. If it's too dangerous to put anywhere, how about we not make any more of it? nt

[Enthusiast]

2. You win the internet today.

[Octafish]

7. I'll toss in Instagram.

Please.

[Demeter]

3. I thought Canadians were smarter than that

But they have a Lizard Brain PM.

[Scuba]

4. "Placing a permanent nuclear-waste burial facility so close to the Great Lakes is ill-advised" ...

Winner, Greatest Understatement Ever Award.

[DeSwiss]

5. K&R

[onehandle]

6. I believe Japan illustrated 'large bodies of water and nuclear material don't mix' recently. nt

[Thor_MN]

8. I agree that storage in the Great Lakes basin is not acceptable, but Japan had a tsunami...

Not much risk of one on any of the Great Lakes. It would take a hell of a landslide, of terrain that resisted mile high glaciers, or an unknown, unprecedented fault in some of the most stable land on the globe.