Canadian officials will open a public hearing Tuesday looking at plans for a nuclear waste storage facility very close to Lake Huron.
Ontario Power Generation wants to build the facility in Kincardine, Ontario, less than a mile from the lakeshore. The plan concerns environmentalists, who fear the underground facility could contaminate Lake Huron.
One Michigan congressmanplans to introduce a resolution this week opposing the current site chosen for the facility.
Utility officials insist their plans to build a massive underground storage facility are safe. The facility would descend nearly 700 meters below the surface and eventually store 200,000 cubic meters of low and intermediate nuclear waste from Canadian nuclear stations.
“The geology, the geosphere, the repository design, the depth will protect the environment,” insists Neal Kelly, a spokesman for Ontario Power Generation.
He says 70% of the waste to be stored in the facility would only be low-level nuclear contamination.
This week’s public hearing will focus on technical issues tied to the planned facility.
It will be many years before the utility can build the billion dollar nuclear waste storage facility, even if Canadian regulators grant the utility a license to build it.
The Deep Geologic Repository Joint Review Panel will hold its hearing on Tuesday in Kincardine.
You can find more about the hearing by following this linkfrom the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
