Tag: waste dump

Study Questions Nerve Gas Waste Dump in River

Plans to dump a chemical weapon by-product into a river have been put on hold. Brad Linder reports a group of lawmakers is calling for further study of those plans:

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Plans to dump a chemical weapon byproduct into a river have been put on hold. Brad Linder reports a group of lawmakers is calling for further study of those plans:


Under international law, the United States is obligated to neutralize its stockpile of VX Nerve agent. The Army has been destroying VX at a plant in Indiana. Then the plan was to ship the remains of the material to a facility in New Jersey for further treatment before dumping the waste into the Delaware River.


But New Jersey’s congressional delegation pushed for a complete study of the project. Representative Rob Andrews says the region relies on the Delaware River for commerce and drinking water.


“A quantity of VX that could fit on the head of a pin would kill you if it touched your skin. Any possibility that any residue of that VX would be put into the river is unacceptable, because the health consequences would be catastrophic.”


The Army says the VX would be completely neutralized before being dumped in the river, but Andrews isn’t convinced.


A government study should be complete early next year.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Radioactive Waste Dump Near Great Lakes?

A member of Congress is trying to get the US to investigate a Canadian plan to build a radioactive waste dump. Lester Graham reports the radioactive materials would be put in an underground site less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes:

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A member of Congress is trying to get the U.S. to investigate a Canadian plan to build a radioactive waste dump. Lester Graham reports the radioactive materials would be put in an underground site less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes:


Ontario Power Generation wants to construct a Deep Geologic Repository, basically an underground dump, for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Ontario’s nuclear power plants. Bart Stupak is a member of Congress from Michigan. He says the proposed site would be built near Lake Huron at the Bruce Nuclear Site, where there have been reports of problems with radioactive contamination of water in the past.


“It’s gonna be within a mile of the Great Lakes. I think that’s not appropriate. You know, you’re lying within the watershed and we know no matter what great efforts we may make to keep pollution at a minimum, it does occur. And, unfortunately in this case we’ve seen at that site some radioactive contamination already.”


Stupak has called on the U.S. EPA and other agencies to look into what risks the Canadian radioactive waste dump might pose to the U.S. cities and the ecology of the Great Lakes.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Nuclear Waste Site Harming Lake Ontario?

A Canadian environmental group is claiming that nuclear waste is leaking from a dump on the shores of Lake Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

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A Canadian environmental group is claiming that nuclear waste is leaking from a dump on the shores of Lake Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports.


The Port Granby nuclear waste site sits on a bluff overlooking Lake Ontario just east of Toronto. The environmental group Lake Ontario Keeper collected samples of treated wastewater from the site as well as untreated runoff. They say an independent lab found illegal levels of uranium, arsenic and other chemicals in both samples.


Norm Rubin, the group’s director of nuclear research, says it’s time the government stepped in.


“This stuff is leaking today, it’s toxic today, it’s violating the law today and we’ve waited enough decades already to see something done.”


The Cameco Corporation, which owns the dump, denies the group’s findings.
Officials at Environment Canada say they will review the report. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.