IndianCountryNews.net—A shipment of 16 radioactive steam generators, each as big as a school bus, is scheduled to be transported from a facility on Lake Huron, through the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence River and across the ocean to Sweden for processing.

The convoy is half of 32 that are being refurbished at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Owen Sound, a peninsula that juts out into the lake. The other 16 are expected to make the same trip a few years later.

Opposition is mounting in a petition circulating from the Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes.

"The human community needs to stop the acceptance of deregulation and "recycling" of radioactive contaminated metals that are "free-released" back into the marketplace without the public’s consent or knowledge," said Kay Cumbow, a member of the Education Committee of Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination

In Sweden, the $34 million contract Bruce Power signed with Studsvik AB’s facility in Nyköping, will recycle 90 percent of the nuclear reactors, still containing radioactivity, into scrap metals. The other 10 percent would be shipped back to Bruce Power, following the same route back through the Great Lakes. The plan to move the intermediate-level nuclear waste has not been discussed publicly or with any local, state, provincial or national governments along the way. It was not presented to international agencies such as the International Joint Commission which governs the waters of the Seaway.

The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River system create about 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater and are a source of drinking water for more than 40 million people with an ecosystem that supports a diverse and fragile environment. There are more than 50 nuclear sites around the Great Lakes.

As more and more radioactive contamination creeps unseen into our daily living environment, so too, does the increase in damage to DNA and the health of all living things, Cumbow said.

Dr. Abram Petkau, former head of the Medical Biophysics Branch of the Canadian Atomic Energy research laboratory in Manitoba, documented that cell membranes were destroyed when continuously exposed to small amounts of nuclear radiation. Without a cell membrane, the cell is left wide open to damage and destruction by free radicals. The longer the exposure, the lower the total dose needed to break the membrane.

The Bruce Station has eight facilities on the peninsula. Behind them is a nuclear waste graveyard from 20 Ontario plants. Cumbow said they are in the process now of an Environmental Impact Statement with a plan to put in a deep geological repository for more low and intermediary waste from these plants.

"There are four hydrological sections under this land," she said. "The second connects directly with Lake Huron." With powerful counterclockwise winds and storms moving over the lake, the concern is the dispersal of these wastes.

In the U.S., there are currently no plants where radioactive waste materials are free released into the public market. It appears that Studsvik in Tennessee is planning to do this kind of work in the future, if their license is amended, and that would put radioactive steam generators on our roads to Tennessee.

The Chiefs of Ontario (COO) in partnership with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization collectively held a series of information sharing workshops and discussion sessions around the management of nuclear waste last year.

In a report titled "We are the Land therefore I am the Land," they stated, "The major message being stressed is that the land and people are one. We are the land. The elements, cycles and life force of the land is the law and being the oral society of AMO, the law is legitimized through our languages and culture; we are the carriers of the law and therefore we are the law."

COO is the coordinating organization for 134 First Nation communities representing four cultural/language groups in Ontario. Response to this issue drew concerns because there are many transportation routes on water and highways that travel through First Nations lands.

COO stated, "Receiving information about Nuclear Waste Management and the many years it took to decide on a proposed process has been compacted into two days of information sessions at four locations across Ontario. These are specific to First Nations. Many people who attended the sessions have more questions on the process and require more background information."

Treaty and First Nations rights were raised in all the discussions. Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution was cited several times and Sacred Laws were also raised. "Along with the western science view, this view must be paramount while developing the NWMO proposed site selection process," they said. "These two worldviews must be reconciled or an agreement to work towards their reconciliation must be developed. A recommendation for a workable solution was raised in the information sessions, it suggested that First Nations must take a lead on their own systems of law-making with a view to reconcile or harmonize both sets of laws towards the administration of such laws."

COO also recommended involving youth, "As the initial process will take 30 years to begin construction of a deep geological repository, the children of today will be in leadership/technical roles for these initiatives.

Petition on the Net:

www.nirs.org/radwaste/glresradsteamgen.pdf