OPP quizzing U.S. witnesses too at Lake Huron nuclear waste

[Oscar]

OPP quizzing U.S. witnesses too at Lake Huron nuclear waste hearing

[ http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/09/22/
opp_quizzing_us_witnesses_too_at_lake_huron_nuclear_waste_hearing_walkom.html ]

The police blitz aimed at witnesses planning to testify at Kincardine radioactive waste hearings has reached across the border to Ohio.

Critics fear that radioactive material from a proposed dump that would store radioactive material from the Bruce Power nuclear generating station in Kincardine, Ont., pictured in 2003, will leak into the Great Lakes.

By: Thomas Walkom, National Affairs, Toronto Star, Sun Sep 22 2013

[ http://tinyurl.com/ktpjfdv ]

The Ontario Provincial Police blitz aimed at witnesses planning to testify at hearings into a proposed Kincardine nuclear waste dump has reached across the border.

Toledo, Ohio resident Michael Leonardi says he received a phone call at home from the OPP’s provincial liaison team asking about his scheduled appearance before the federal review panel looking into plans to bury low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste along Ontario’s Lake Huron shoreline.

In particular, police wanted to know if any protests were planned, he said.

“The officer was very nice,” Leonardi, a member of the Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, told me Sunday. “He said there was some possibility that organizations like Greenpeace might demonstrate and that police didn’t want any fatalities.”

And yes, Leonardi insists that the word used was “fatalities.”

As the Star reported Saturday, local opponents of the scheme — and at least one supporter — have been visited by officers at their homes and asked similar questions.

But until now, it wasn’t clear whether the police operations stretched into the U.S.

Leonardi said he knows of other Americans planning to testify who were also contacted by the OPP.

Many Americans, including a majority of Michigan state senators oppose Ontario Power Generation’s plan to bury nuclear waste beside Lake Huron.

One of those senators, Hoon-Yung Hopgood, is scheduled to testify at the Kincardine hearings next week. I couldn’t reach him Sunday to find out if the OPP had quizzed him about his protest plans.

Critics fear that radioactive material from the dump will leak into the Great Lakes. While OPG insists its scheme is safe, the government utility does acknowledge that some waste will remain radioactive for about 100,000 years.

That there are opposing views over the planned dump is not unusual. Nuclear issues are always contentious. So far no one has come up with a foolproof plan for disposing of radioactive nuclear waste.

What is unusual, however, is the heightened police interest in those planning to merely testify at open, public hearings.

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[Oscar]

Impartiality of federal panel reviewing nuclear-waste plan under scrutiny

[ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... e14459903/ ]

SHAWN McCARTHY OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Sep. 23 2013, 6:00 AM EDT
Last updated Monday, Sep. 23 2013, 6:00 AM EDT

The federal panel that is reviewing a controversial plan to bury nuclear waste on the shores of Lake Huron is facing a challenge to its own impartiality over concerns that Ottawa’s top nuclear regulator essentially endorsed the project at a meeting with its promoters.

In a submission to be presented Monday, a former provincial lawyer says Ontario Power Generation held “illegal and secret meetings” with municipal officials and senior officials from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is running the review.

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[ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... e14459903/ ]