Canadian ‘Experts’ Comfy with Radioactive Pollution of Great Lakes
Weekend Edition May 2-4, 2014
A Rhetorical Outburst.
Canadian Experts Comfy with Radioactive Pollution of Great Lakes
by JOHN LAFORGE
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up. Lily Tomlin
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) which owns or leases 20 nuclear reactors across Ontario would save loads of cash by not having to contain, monitor and repackage leaky above-ground radioactive waste storage casks. Last Sept., I testified in Ontario against the companys plan to deeply bury some of this waste next to Lake Huron.
OPG officially plans to let its waste canisters leak their contents, 680 meters underground, risking long-term contamination of the Great Lakes a source of drinking water for 40 million people including 24 million US residents.
The Bruce reactor complex the worlds biggest with 8 reactors is on Hurons Bruce Peninsula and is the storage site for radioactive waste (other than fuel rods) from all of OPGs 20 reactors. Digging its dump right next door would save the firm money and put the hazard out of sight, out of mind.
OPGs public statements make clear that it intends to poison the publics water. First, the near-lake dump would be dug into deep caverns of porous limestone. The underground holes are to become the container OPG testified last fall, because its canisters are projected to be rotted-through by the waste in 5 years. On April 13 the Canadian government was shocked to learn that OPG grossly understated the severe radioactivity of its waste material, some of which, like cesium, is 1,000 times more radioactive than OPG had officially claimed.
Second, OPGs callous poisoning plan was broadcast in a December 2008 handout. Radioactive contamination of the drinking water would not be a problem, OPG says, because The dose is predicted to be negligible initially and will continue to decay over time.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/canadian-experts-comfy-with-radioactive-pollution-of-great-lakes/