https://ca.news.yahoo.com/waste-selection-process-flawed-petition-162008167.html

If spent nuclear-reactor fuel rods are ever transported to a proposed underground storage site near Ignace, communities along the transportation route will be just as much at risk as those who live closest to the disposal site, opponents to the plan contend. That’s the gist of a petition bearing more than 3,300 signatures that was tabled in the House of Commons on Thursday by a North Bay-area Liberal MP on behalf of environmentalists. They claim the site-selection process conducted by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is flawed because it has “shut out” communities “living downstream and along the (proposed) transportation route.” “The federal government needs to course-correct the (Nuclear Waste Management Organization),” says North Bay-based Northwatch, the group that created the petition. Conmee Mayor Sheila Maxwell said she shares the group’s concerns, given the rate of crashes involving large trucks on Northern routes like highways 11 and 17. “The majority of the logging, wood-chip, wide load and long load trucks go through our municipality, so it’s always a concern,” Maxwell said. “The (Nuclear Waste Management Organization) has assured us of the safety (of its plan), but one always has to look at the increased commercial vehicles that will be passing through,” Maxwell added. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has said the radioactive fuel rods could be moved to a storage site by road or rail, and transported in specialized containers that have been tested to withstand potential crashes, including those involving fire. The petition filed in the House cites a United Nations declaration “which sets out that no storage or disposal of hazardous material shall take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous peoples without their free prior and informed consent.” Opponents to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s storage-site plan, which has yet to be approved, include Grassy Narrows First Nation Chief Rudy Turtle and Anishinabek Nation. The nuclear waste organization has long maintained it won’t locate a storage site where it isn’t wanted by area residents. It’s been estimated that seven million spent fuel rods will be transported from the country’s nuclear reactors to a storage site over a 50-year period. In a statement on Thursday following news of the petition, the nuclear waste organization said “there is a strong international safety record for transporting used nuclear fuel.” “For close to 60 years,” it added, “there have been more than 20,000 shipments worldwide, covering more than five million kilometres, and none have caused harm to people or the environment as a result of the release of radioactive materials.” “Our approach adheres to stringent safety and emergency management regulations set by Transport Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, as well as international standards from the International Atomic Energy Agency, that are designed to help protect the public and the environment,” the nuclear waste group said. An area around South Bruce, a southwestern Ontario community located near an existing nuclear power plant, is the only other candidate site the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is considering for an underground storage facility. Thursday’s petition was tabled by former House speaker Anthony Rota (Nipissing-Timiskaming). The government has to respond in 45 days.