Community News

HEED PROPOSALS RE PICKERING NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE

To the editor: Re: 'Ontario Clean Air Alliance, former Scugog mayor, call on OPG for safer nuclear storage solutions.'

Ms. Calis's work was very well researched and written.

Head of the Ontario Clear Air Alliance (OCAA), Jack Gibbons, has criticized the OPG and the Pickering nuclear plant for high-level nuclear waste being improperly stored in lakeside warehouses. Currently there is no surrounding concrete to protect the nuclear waste from an external threat such as a terrorist attack or flooding or erosion. The Pickering nuclear plant management has said that this is not a threat since the waste is continuously "closely tracked, rigorously regulated, and well managed."

OCAA Chair Gibbons has recommended that the waste be encased or hardened in concrete vaults, moved away from Lake Ontario and made impervious to any external threat. Mr. Gibbons has estimated that the cost of this "hardening" process would be approximately $1 billion. According to OPG, there is over $11 billion allocated in budgets to do such work.

I support Mr. Gibbons's proposals for new strategies to contain nuclear waste. There is apparently enough money to cover such work. Also, it is valuable work that would enhance the safety factor for residents of eastern Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax.

I hope too that candidates for the upcoming elections in our area will support this initiative. SCOTT CAWFIELD

AJAX

OPINION

en-ca

2022-09-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-09-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://communitynews.pressreader.com/article/281530819900468

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