Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and other Midwest lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee used a Wednesday markup for legislation on U.S. nuclear waste storage to argue against Canada storing its own waste near Lake Huron.
Ontario Power Generation is waiting on approval from the Canadian government to build a repository 680 meters below ground at its Bruce nuclear power plant site in Kincardine, less than a mile from the Great Lake. The facility would hold 200,000 cubic meters of low- and intermediate-level waste from three OPG nuclear plants, including contaminated reactor parts, used filters, gloves, clothes, and floor sweepings. The waste is now kept above-ground at the utility’s Western Waste Management Facility at the Bruce plant.
The utility says the waste would be isolated from the environment in impenetrable rock, including Lake Huron. But that has not resolved fears on both sides of the border.
“We cannot endanger more than 20 percent of the world’s fresh water,” which is provided by the Great Lakes, Dingell said.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) promptly agreed with his Democratic colleague from Michigan. “We need to find one safe place” for the repository and the area around the Great Lakes is not it, Upton said during the session. Other Midwest representatives at the meeting concurred.
Dingell she had made her opinion known to both U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The committee on Wednesday voted 49-4 to send the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 to the full House for consideration.
