Michigan’s senior U.S. Senator wants a top level meeting with Canadian officials to raise objections to a planned nuclear waste dump near Lake Huron.
The election of a new Canadian government is raising hope among opponents of a plan to build the waste dump less than a mile from the shore of Lake Huron.
Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow says she’s working with the U.S. ambassador to Canada to set up a meeting with the new Canadian environment minister.
Stabenow concedes this is a decision for the Canadian government to make, but she says there are other places to build the facility.
“They don’t need to do it right next to Lake Huron or any other part of the Great Lakes,” says Stabenow.
Ontario Power Generation insists its planned waste dump is safe.
The utility wants to bury approximately 200,000 cubic meters of low to medium level nuclear waste 680 meters – just under a half mile – below ground. The utility insists the rock formation in the area, less than a mile from Lake Huron, is geologically stable.
Still Michigan’s congressional delegation and environmentalists are urging Canada’s new prime minister to reject the project’s permits.
