More than 100 Great Lakes mayors and elected officials want the Canadian government to say ‘No’ to a plan to bury radioactive waste within one mile of Lake Huron at the Bruce Nuclear station in Kincardine, Ontario.
The officials from both sides of the US-Canadian border slammed Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) plan in a Nov. 30, 2017 letter to Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna. McKenna has twice pushed back against OPG’s proposal, demanding extensive and more detailed answers to questions about the advisability of the near-lake location.
The open letter from mayors said OPG’s proposal to bury the waste so near Lake Huron “threatens the water supply of 40 million people” and notes that 230 resolutions having been passed by local, county and state governments representing over 23 million people opposing the construction of the dump.
Traverse City, Michigan Mayor Jim Carruthers who signed the letter, told Michigan Public Radio, “We know that there are other available sites in Canada that could house this kind of waste that are not so close…. That’s why I speak out for our environment and for our fresh water.”
The letter to McKenna is the latest in a series of efforts to oppose OPG’s plan by citizen groups and more than 200 local governments on both sides of the border in the Great Lakes area. Forty-six of the 104 signers of the letter were Michigan elected officials.
The letter said in part, “We find it irresponsible and deeply troubling that OPG failed and continues to refuse to investigate any other actual sites for its proposed nuclear waste repository despite being required to do so under regulatory guidelines and further as required by you in your Feb. 18, 2016, request.”
—Michigan Public Radio; and “Open Letter,” from 104 mayors to Minister McKenna, Port Huron, MI Times Herald, Nov. 30, 2017
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