Title
Resolution opposing the construction of a nuclear waste repository in the Great Lakes Basin.
Staff Summary
* County Board Member Mandel is requesting that the Lake County Board pass a resolution opposing the construction of a nuclear waste repository in the Great Lakes Basin.
* Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is proposing to construct a deep geologic repository (DGR), which is an underground long-term burial facility, at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station site in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada, and to bury and abandon all of Ontario's low and intermediate level radioactive nuclear waste in the DGR, some of which remains highly radioactive and toxic for over 100,000 years.
* The proposed site is approximately one kilometer inland from the shore of Lake Huron and about 400 meters below the lake level, in which no other sites were considered.
* Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are hydrologically connected as one continuous water body and any contamination resulting from a leaking nuclear waste repository located on Lake Huron could affect Lake Michigan's waters, the source of drinking water for almost 7 million residents of 11 northeastern Illinois counties (Boone, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will).
* Lake County, Illinois of the United States of America has approximately 703,000 residents whom a large majority are sustained by the fresh water of the Great Lakes.
* As of October 9, 2014, 136 resolutions have been passed by communities in the States of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Indiana and in the Province of Ontario representing 16 million citizens opposing the proposed nuclear waste repository; resolutions have been introduced in the Michigan State Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senates expressing concern about the DGR.
* The Governments of Canada and of the United States share a responsibility and an obligation to pr...
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