Early in the summer, Ontario Power cleared another milestone to create a nuclear waste site less than a mile away from Lake Huron. A federal panel has given an overall seal of approval to the controversial nuclear waste disposal site proposed for a subterranean crypt below the Bruce nuclear station near Kincardine, Ontario.

The report on the controversial project was release last Wednesday. Overall 152 communities came out against the project. All of the Thumb and Southeast Michigan counties voiced opposition to the construction of the Deep Geologic Repository, which would see nuclear waste buried hundreds of meters underground near the shore of Lake Huron.

Ontario Power proposes to bury 200,000 cubic meters of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from its nuclear power plants in a thick layer of limestone 680 meters below ground, about a kilometer from Lake Huron. The company says the rock is so solid and stable it will contain any possible leakage of harmful radioactivity.

Construction could start in 2018, with the $1-billion facility opening in 2025.

Beverly Fernandez, of Stop the Stop Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, noted that she was “deeply disappointed” by its recommendations. Her site points out; the radioactive nuclear waste must stay isolated in this dump for 100,000 years. The Great Lakes were created by an ice age about 12,000 years ago.

Under the new government, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq was to rule on a proposed nuclear waste site by September, after a federal review panel recommended approval. But it is highly divisive among communities affected, so Aglukkaq merely put the decision off until December, after the vote.

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