More than 60,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel is
stored on the shores of four of the five Great Lakes — in some cases,
mere yards from the waterline — in still-growing stockpiles.
"It's actually the most dangerous waste produced by any industry in
the history of the Earth," said Gordon Edwards, president of the
nonprofit Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
The spent nuclear fuel is partly from 15 current or former U.S.
nuclear power plants, including four in Michigan, that have generated
it over the past 50 years or more. But most of the volume stored along
the Great Lakes, more than 50,000 tons, comes from Canadian nuclear
facilities, where nuclear power is far more prevalent.
It remains on the shorelines because there's still nowhere else to put
it. The U.S. government broke a promise to provide the nuclear power
industry with a central, underground repository for the material by
1998. Canada, while farther along than the U.S. in the process of
trying to find a place for the waste, also doesn't have one yet.
Read more from source:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/10/19/nuclear-waste-great-lakes/1417767002/
