More than 100 mayors oppose nuclear waste storage plan

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – More than 100 mayors and other municipal officials have urged Canada’s environment minister not to allow burial of nuclear waste near Lake Huron.

Ontario Power Generation wants to permanently store low- and intermediate-level waste from nuclear plants in a rock chamber 2,230 feet underground. The proposed site is at the Bruce Power Generating Station near Kincardine, Ontario.

The company says there’s virtually no chance of the waste reaching the lake. But many officials and groups in the U.S. and Canada oppose the plan.

In a letter Thursday to Catherine McKenna, minister of the environment and climate change, the mayors said it’s unsafe to bury nuclear waste anywhere in the Great Lakes watershed.

Karen Weaver of Flint, Michigan, said her city’s experience with lead-tainted water shows the danger of putting water resources at risk.