Nuke Waste - 76 trucks - 2000 Kms - Chalk R. to S. Carolina

[Oscar]

High-level nuclear waste to be transported by truck near Lake Ontario this summer

http://canadians.org/blog/?p=19454

By Brent Patterson, Thursday, February 21st, 2013

The Ottawa Citizen reports, “As many as 76 transport truckloads of high-level nuclear waste could journey along the Trans-Canada Highway over the coming four years in an effort to ship decades’ worth of radioactive rubbish from Chalk River to a U.S. reprocessing site (in Aiken, South Carolina). …The shipments would begin moving under armed guard through Eastern Ontario late this summer, pending approvals from Canadian and U.S. nuclear safety regulators, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of the U.S. Department of Energy. …The shipments, says NNSA, are to cross into New York State, presumably over one of five Canada-U.S. bridges or a Quebec-New York land crossing. …The shipments are to halt in winter and presumably resume in the spring of 2014.”

The 2,000 kilometre route between Chalk River, Ontario to Aiken, South Carolina route would most likely take the 76 trucks close to the Ottawa River, the Saint Lawrence River, the eastern tip of Lake Ontario, and other waterways and watersheds.

The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility has called for an environmental assessment in both countries on the risks of transporting this nuclear waste, while Friends of the Earth has made a formal request for a full assessment, including public hearings, to the U.S. Department of Energy. But given the level of public criticism that came with the Bruce Power nuclear plant’s plan to ship radioactive generators on the Great Lakes, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has recommended against a public comment period on these shipments to the Harper government.

The Council of Canadians will also call on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the International Joint Commission - which has a jurisdictional responsibility over the Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence River waters and other waters along the border - to fully assess and hold public hearings on these planned shipments.

Chairperson Maude Barlow has written, “Nuclear waste poses a threat to the Great Lakes. There are more than 30 nuclear reactors along the shores of the Lakes and shipments of medical isotopes and radioactive materials are increasingly being transported through the Basin. The International Institute of Concern for Public Health has noted that radionuclides found in the Great Lakes water, including tritium, carbon-14, caesium and long-lived iodine-129, pose serious health hazards at even low levels.”

To read ‘NEWS: Harper’s nuclear security plan means dangerous shipments, no public consultation’, please see
http://canadians.org/blog/?p=19294.
That blog notes, “The planned shipments follow Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment at last year’s global nuclear security summit to return additional HEU (highly enriched uranium) inventories to the United States by 2018 to lessen the risk of nuclear terrorism.”

Barlow’s paper ‘Our Great Lakes Commons: A People’s Plan to Protect the Great Lakes Forever ‘, can be read at

http://canadians.org/water/issues/Great ... index.html.

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Trans-border nuclear waste shipment meeting increased resistance

< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/
Trans+border+nuclear+waste+shipment+meeting+increased+resistance/8141020/story.html >

By Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen, March 23, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/bsllzg4

Activists are mobilizing on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border to block a proposed plan to secretly transport truckloads of intensely radioactive liquid waste through eastern Ontario to South Carolina.

"Security is important, but we need to have a good discussion about whether or not this is a good idea," said John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada.

- - - SNIP - - -

About 50 large, steel-encased, lead-shielded casks, each weighing about 23,000 kilograms and containing a few hundred litres of the solution, would move in heavily armed convoys along the Hwy. 17 portion of the TransCanada Highway through Renfrew County to one of seven Canada-U.S. border crossings in Ontario and Quebec, according to documents filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

It is believed to be first attempt in Canada or the U.S. to move liquid HEU along public roads.

The chief concern is not that the armed shipments of weapons-grade uranium could be hijacked, because each is to be relatively small, and removing HEU from the solution is a highly sophisticated process.

The real fear is a spill caused by an accident or sabotage.

Canadian authorities say they are prohibited by law from acknowledging the mission, which could begin as early as this summer. As such, they say, public hearings to discuss and debate environmental and safety concerns are out of the question.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has yet to receive an application to transport HEU in liquid form to the U.S.

Meanwhile a swelling chorus of opposition demands that senior Canadian and U.S. officials reconsider before the plan wins final licensing approvals from regulators in either country.

"Moving HEU nearly 2,000 kilometres from Chalk River to the Savannah River Site in the United States puts people and the environment at an unacceptable risk," Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, said in a statement.

"The shipment of HEU would need to pass through eastern Ontario, cross international waters, enter numerous indigenous territories and cut through communities in six U.S. states."