Nuke dump proposal near Lake Huron raises alarm in US, Canada

(RT) Plans for a nuclear waste facility near the US-Canadian border – less than a mile from one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water – has triggered a public outcry among Americans and Canadians. A heated debate is surfacing over Ontario Power Generation’s ambitious plans to burrow 2,200 feet underground near Kincardine, a small town of just over 11,000 in the province of Ontario, Canada, to construct a nuclear waste storage facility.

The radioactive waste has been steadily accumulating from Ontario’s 20 nuclear reactors.

A review panel appointed by the Canadian government will issue a recommendation in coming weeks to Canada’s Cabinet, which will in turn decide whether or not to approve the utility’s plan.

Public opposition to the proposal would probably have remained muted if not for one glaring footnote: The site for the planned nuclear waste dump is situated less than a mile away from the sparkling shores of Lake Huron, which, together with Lakes Superior, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, comprise the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, with 21 percent of the world's total supplies.

While tens of millions of American and Canadian residents depend upon the Great Lakes for their supplies of fresh water, an increasingly threatened global resource, many others look to the business opportunities connected to the 94,250 square-mile (151,000sq km) body of water.

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