A secretive plan to ship weapons-grade nuclear waste to the U.S. from a federal lab northwest of Ottawa is drawing anger in some of the southern Ontario and American communities along the way.
Radioactive waste from the former Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. laboratory in Chalk River, Ont., a major world supplier of medical isotopes that is now run by a private consortium, is set to be transported in liquid form to a site in Savannah River, S.C., for processing and disposal.
The route could take it through Ontario's fruit-rich Niagara Region, or possibly even through the border crossing at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., into Michigan, according to a lawsuit trying to stop the shipments. The lawsuit was filed in a U.S. federal court last month by a coalition of American environmental and nuclear watchdog groups.
U.S. groups fear the shipments could begin as early as this month.
The plan is for about 150 shipments by truck to South Carolina, a minimum distance of nearly 1,700 kilometres from Chalk River, which is 180 km northwest of Ottawa. Each shipment would carry four 58-litre steel containers placed inside a larger steel and lead tube, carrying liquid radioactive waste including isotopes of cesium, iodine, strontium and plutonium, according to the U.S. lawsuit.
The lawsuit says the waste would also contain a modest but dangerous quantity of highly enriched uranium, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb.
The waste is a byproduct of making molybdenum-99, a medical isotope used in diagnostic tests of organs and other body parts.
The Niagara area's regional government passed a motion last year opposing the shipments.
