The Canadian Environmental Law Association and Sierra Club Canada have launched legal action against a plan to ship radioactive waste through the Great Lakes.
The two groups want the Federal Court of Canada to hear a judicial review of two approvals issued by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that would allow Bruce Power Inc. to ship and export 16 decommissioned steam generators.
The shipment would take the generators that have radioactive substances through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic Ocean to Sweden to be recycled.
Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said the shipping of the waste is such a large and complex project that an environmental assessment should have been done.
"What they're proposing to do has never been done," Mc-Clenaghan said of the Bruce Power plan.
"We've never had any precedent for sending radioactive waste out of our nuclear facilities out of the country in the first place at all."
If allowed, the shipment could go along the Detroit River. Derek Coronado of the local Citizens Environment Alliance said Tuesday there are concerns about a spill and that this is a precedent-setting case. If allowed, it could increase the risk of the potential for a nuclear accident on the Great Lakes, he said.
Coronado said approvals still need to be sought in the United States and in Europe.
In a coincidence, the parliamentary natural resources committee was holding hearings on this issue Tuesday and Thursday in Ottawa.
Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/technology/Suit+filed+over+waste/4414339/story.html#ixzz1GGzRui3c
