Part I: Stuck With Old Nuke Plants

  • Ray and Irene Zukley of Zion, Illinois were forced to sell this Lake Michigan beach cottage to make way for Zion Nuclear Station back in the late 60s. The Zukley's and other Zion residents hoped the plant would last for at least forty years, but after fits and starts, it closed fifteen years early. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

America has a new flirtation with
nuclear power. Utility companies are fanning
out across the nation to set up shop. And
they’ve given the government more applications
for new nuclear plants than they have for
decades. Many towns fell under the spell of
nuclear power in the past, but some power plants
stopped running decades earlier than planned,
and towns are stuck with what’s left behind.
Shawn Allee profiles one town’s tarnished
relationship with nuclear power:

Transcript

America has a new flirtation with
nuclear power. Utility companies are fanning
out across the nation to set up shop. And
they’ve given the government more applications
for new nuclear plants than they have for
decades. Many towns fell under the spell of
nuclear power in the past, but some power plants
stopped running decades earlier than planned,
and towns are stuck with what’s left behind.
Shawn Allee profiles one town’s tarnished
relationship with nuclear power:

Irene and Ray Zukley have been together so long, they finish each others sentences.

Especially when I ask how things were in Zion, Illinois back in the 60s.

Zuckley: “The factories were getting downgraded.”

Allee: “What were those?”

Zuckley: “It was the curtain factory, the cookie factory, chocolates and Zion fig
bars.”

But just then, the power company said it would spend hundreds of millions on a nuclear
power plant.

Irene Zukley says most people welcomed it.

“Ray and I never worried about it, you know we just wanted progress is what we
wanted. When you think of having taxes lowered for everybody in Zion, that made
you feel, what else would come in and do that?”

Irene and Ray Zukley were forced to sell their family’s beach cottage to make room for
Zion reactor number one.

Beachfront neighbors did the same.

But, like the Zukleys predicted, taxes and jobs rolled into Zion.

It was supposed to be a forty year windfall.

But it didn’t last.

When you visit the power plant, it’s nearly empty.

“What we’ve got here is what used to be a full-fledged control room.”

Ron Schuster runs what’s left of the Zion nuclear power plant.

Once, it had more than eight hundred employees.

Now, Schuster and about fifty workers help manage the regional power grid.

They also monitor radioactive spent fuel waste.

The generators have been offline since 1997.

“There were large pieces of equipment essential to making electricity that would
have needed total replacement going forward. We’re talking significant dollars so
the economic decision by the board of directors that Zion station would go into safe-
store mode.”

That means the power plant and Zion have been in limbo for ten years.

The radioactive fuel is still on site, but the plant provides no power, few jobs and a
fraction of the property taxes.

Delaine Rogers is Zion’s economic development director. She says the town didn’t plan
on this.

“You’re in a community that has welcomed you. We haven’t had an antagonistic
relationship. They’re not going to close. But they did. And it took 17 million dollars
of our local revenues. We were facing losing all our arts and music and sports in our
schools. How do you fund police the police department. How do you fix potholes? It
was a very scary time.”

Lately, the power company’s gone back and forth about when it will decommission, or
dismantle, the power plant.

It could be done ten years from now or it could take decades more.

But even when most of the buildings are gone, there’s still the radioactive spent fuel.

“They’re just going to leave it. They’re going to put a football-sized concrete pad
filled with 80-90 casks of stored fuel on site, above ground. Tell me how you get a
private developer to think residential or retail. I’m not buying the first condo.”

Dozens of towns are stuck in relationships with dormant nuclear power plants.

Delaine Rogers says the town of Zion is in the same position.

She won’t call it a bad relationship, but says it sure would be nice to know exactly where
it’s going, or when it will be over.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Part Ii: Stuck With Old Nuke Plants

  • Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings, one of which is depicted in this photo that dates from the time of Zion, Illinois' founding. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:

Transcript

The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:

Illinois’ Zion nuclear power plant hasn’t produced electricity for eleven years.

It’s so close to Lake Michigan you can smell the beach. But other than that, the empty
parking lots and office space make the place seem dead.

The plant manager says that’s not the case.

“I think a lot of people have a vision of us playing cards or swinging our golf clubs
on the beach. I would say we’ve been extremely busy the entire time.”

Ron Schuster says he and other workers remove hazards from the station, like diesel fuel
and electrical equipment.

But one hazard is still here: the spent nuclear fuel.

And when the power plant is dismantled, that radioactive waste will be put in new
containers.

They’re concrete casks.

Schuster: “A cask is approximately fifteen feet tall. It looks like a small silo and
there is no radiation exposure on the outside of these things.”

Allee: “So from this office window, can we see where the casks might go?”

Schuster: “We’ve got four spots on this site that have been at least looked at. When
it comes time to actually put the fuel in dry-cask storage it will be a huge structure,
about as big as a football field.”

Schuster’s confident this will be a simple and safe solution.

Not everyone in Zion so convinced.

“This cask issue, just sitting on the site was never appealing to me.”

Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings close to the power plant.

In other towns with spent-fuel casks, nuclear power plants sometimes get turned into non-
nuclear power plants or into parks.

But Delisle and the city of Zion are hoping to do more – maybe build new commercial
buildings or even homes.

Delisle says having concrete containers full of radioactive waste left on-site could make
their work harder.

“So, I hope the casks are relocated somewhere else. Having them next to a
population of about 23,000 people is probably not a great place for it to be.”

Other communities are in the same position – they’ll be left with spent fuel casks even if
their dead nuclear plants get torn down.

There’s a simple reason.

“We don’t really have a final resting spot for these casks at the moment.”

Dave Lochbaum is with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

“The federal government is way behind schedule providing a repository for high-
level waste.”

Lochbaum says the government has one storage place in mind.

It’s inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but that’s still just being studied.

Power companies can sometimes move spent fuel to other plants or facilities.

But Lochbaum says politically, that just won’t fly.

“There’s no revenue from electricity being generated, so it’s a hard sell to go to a
community and say we’d like to have you store spent fuel for decades into the
future. The easiest way out is to leave it where it is, because those communities have
already accepted that fate.”

Well, cities like Zion say they didn’t accept this exact fate.

They bought into nuclear power for jobs and property taxes – they didn’t count on
babysitting spent fuel waste.

But that’s likely to happen, because the government won’t take it. The power companies
won’t dare move it, and the towns can’t move themselves away.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Turning Nuke Waste Sites Into Playgrounds

  • Grassland prairie flowers from Weldon Spring, part of the Department of Energy's restoration effort to control erosion and add aesthetic beauty to the area. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)

Across the U.S., there are more than 100 sites contaminated by radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear weapons programs.
The government is trying to return these Cold War relics to safe and useful purposes. Some of these once toxic zones are being treated much like public parks. The GLRC’s Kevin Lavery visited one that was recently opened to the public:

Transcript

Across the US, there are more than 100 sites contaminated by radioactive waste from the
nation’s nuclear weapons programs. The government is trying to return these Cold War
relics to safe and useful purposes. Some of these once toxic zones are being treated much
like public parks. The GLRC’s Kevin Lavery recently visited one that was recently
opened to the public…


A thick grove of trees opens up to a clearing that reveals a white mound of limestone
rock. It rises like a tomb from some long-forgotten civilization, were it not for the water
towers and golf courses on the horizon.


Mike Leahy and his 9-year-old son Cameron came to this rock dome to catch the view
atop its 75 foot summit. But the real attraction was what they did not see:


“We read the sign and saw what was buried and how they did it, and – it’s kind of
disturbing, what’s in there.”


Beneath their feet lay more than a million cubic yards of spent uranium, asbestos and
PCB’s. The 45 acre mound is a disposal cell, where the government buried thousands of
barrels and tons of debris. That history didn’t bother young Cameron:


“It’s really cool. They keep all that nuclear waste under all that and it can’t harm
anybody.”


The Weldon Spring site, 30 miles west of St. Louis, Missouri began during World War
Two as an Army TNT factory. In the 1950’s, the plant refined yellow cake uranium for
later use in nuclear weapons. All that stopped in 1966 and all the radioactive waste just
sat there. Weldon Spring became an EPA Superfund site in 1987. After a 900 million
dollar cleanup, the site was opened to tourists in 2002.


(Sound of frogs)


Today, frogs sing in a native prairie at the foot of the cell. In April, officials opened a
hiking trail adjacent to a once-radioactive landfill. The route connects to a state park.


Weldon Spring is not a park per se, but project manager Yvonne Deyo says urban sprawl
prompted them to think like one:


“There’s subdivisions and lots of infrastructure going in…and that just kind of hits home
how important green space is, and that’s kind of what we’re trying to do a little bit of
here at the site.”


Weldon Spring is one of about 100 such sites the Department of Energy is converting to
what it calls “beneficial re-use.” Many are becoming recreational venues. Another
closed uranium plant near Cincinnati is adding horseback riding trails. In Wayne, New
Jersey, a former thorium processing facility is becoming a baseball field. And a national
wildlife preserve is in the works at Rocky Flats, the site outside Denver that made the
plutonium cores of nuclear warheads.


The Department of Energy says Weldon Spring is safe for visitors – though some residual
contamination remains.


(Sound of Burgermeister Spring)


Burgermeister Spring runs through a 7-thousand acre state reserve adjacent to the site.
This is where uranium-laced groundwater from Weldon Spring rises to the surface.
Though the spring exceeds the EPA’s drinking water quality standard, there’s no warning
sign here. Officials say the contamination is so low that it poses no immediate public
hazard. The spring feeds into one of the most popular fishing lakes on the property.
Most visitors are surprised to hear that:


“Huh.”


Jeff Boeving fishes for bass four or five times a month:


“(Does that concern you to hear that?) Yeah – absolutely…I mean, they’ve got a great
area out here and they’re kind of messing it up if they’re going to have contaminants, you know, going into it.”


The government’s vision of post-nuclear playgrounds is not without its critics. Arjun
Makhijani heads the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park,
Maryland. He says recreational sites near urban development zones risk losing their
original purpose:


“Institutional memory tends to be very short; after 30, 40, 50 years people forget, they
begin to develop the land, and pretty soon you could have houses, farms and schools in
the area. So it’s not necessary that it will stay recreational forever.”


Recreation is only one option the Department of Energy is considering for all of its sites.
In the last two years, the agency’s budget has doubled with the addition of nearly a dozen
radioactive properties. Officials say Congress has so far supported its fiscal requests.
And with the future of a proposed permanent nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain still
in doubt, even more tax dollars will likely be spent converting the nuclear dumps in
America’s backyards to a place where families play.


For the GLRC, I’m Kevin Lavery.

Related Links

Nuke Plant Leaks Revealed

The nuclear industry is dealing with criticism over spills of a chemical called tritium. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

The nuclear industry is dealing with criticism over spills of a chemical
called tritium. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee reports:


Federal regulators don’t require nuclear power plants to report what’s
considered minor tritium spills to the public. That’s despite the fact
tritium can make water radioactive, but some residents in Arizona,
Illinois and New York are furious. They’ve learned about tritium
spills… sometimes years later. Now, power plants want to change
course.


The Nuclear Energy Institute’s Ralph Andersen says the industry will
report even minor tritium leaks to the public.


“It’s appreciating the common sense issue that of course, neighbors
around a nuclear power plant want to be aware of emissions from the
plant, not just hear about it later or read about it in the paper.”


Federal regulators insist the public’s safe. Nuclear watchdog groups
remain worried, though. The agreement covers only nuclear plant
operators, not places that store tritium outside power stations.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Radioactive Dump Site Close to the Great Lakes?

  • In the United States, low-level nuclear waste is stored in landfills. An Ontario town is proposing to put Canada's low-level nuclear waste in an underground chamber a mile from Lake Huron. (Photo courtesy of the NRC)

In Canada, just across Lake Huron from
Michigan, a small town is offering to be the home of
Canada’s first permanent dump site for radioactive
material. The proposed site is a mile from Lake
Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann
Colihan reports on the town’s work to
get the site and the concerns about putting it close
to one of the Great Lakes:

Transcript

In Canada, just across Lake Huron from Michigan, a small town is offering to be the home of Canada’s first permanent dump site for radioactive material. The proposed site is a mile from Lake Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan reports on the town’s work to get the site and the concerns about putting it close to one of the Great Lakes:


Right now, Canada has nowhere to permanently store its low-level and intermediate-level nuclear waste. This waste is not spent nuclear fuel from power plants. It’s contaminated material that’s been exposed to radioactive substances. It could be anything from the protective clothing workers wear at nuclear power plants to parts from reactors, anything that’s been exposed to radioactivity.


The Ontario town of Kincardine – located about 250 miles north of Detroit – has proposed that it be the site of a nuclear waste dump.


So why would a beach town want a nuclear dump?


Kincardine is also a company town. It’s home to the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant. Eighty-percent of the folks who live there work in the nuclear industry. Larry Kraemer is the former mayor. He explains why the permanent dump is essential for the local economy.


“The Bruce nuclear power plant, which is the biggest nuclear power development in North America as well as the largest local employer and one of the largest Canadian investment in any industry that there is.”


Because Kincardine knows the nuclear industry, the residents aren’t afraid to take on these jobs.


But no one ever asked the question if burying nuclear waste a mile from Lake Huron was the best location in Ontario to put the waste site. Frank King is the Director of Nuclear Waste Management and Engineering Technology for Ontario Power Generation, also known as OPG. He says Kincardine does not have to be the best site for the dump.


“It’s not an issue of whether it’s the best. Nobody has to say it’s best. It just has to be shown that it’s safe; that it’s a good site. There is no requirement to show that it’s the best site.”


OPG already stores low and intermediate-level waste from all twenty Ontario reactors at the Bruce Power plant in Kincardine. But above ground storage is getting tight. OPG began looking at its options and with Kincardine’s “bring it on” attitude it seemed like a good place to start.


OPG paid for members of the Kincardine city council to visit nuclear waste storage sites around the world. Councillors came back especially impressed with how the Swedes do it. They bury their nuclear waste in solid granite.


But the stone below Kincardine is not granite. It’s limestone – and no place in the world uses limestone to contain nuclear waste. William Fyfe is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. He has spent decades studying geology and nuclear waste around the globe.


“Limestone can be much more porous than granite. It has no ability to absorb nasty elements, like you get with some clay minerals and things, to absorb all the dirty chemical species like uranium, for example.”


He does not like the idea of a man-made cavern full of nuclear waste near the Great Lakes.


“Just because you made the waste doesn’t mean you should put it in your backyard. There may be a better place.”


Local environmentalists agree. Given OPG’s record, they don’t trust that the waste dump will be safe. Jennifer Heisz is a founder of the public interest group, Woman’s Legacy, which is focused on the impact of the Bruce nuclear plant on Lake Huron. She says when she requested environmental records from Ontario, she found evidence that the regulators haven’t done a good job of stopping pollution at the plant.


“I received approximately 10 or 15 reports regarding leaking waste sites and the levels coming from the plant were very high – sometimes at 45 times the provincial level for chromium. Vanadium was also one of the chemicals that was contaminating the groundwater and it’s found to be mutagenic to animals.”


Heisz says if OPG is polluting at its existing dump sites, what’s to keep the agency from doing a poor job of storing nuclear waste underground? Ontario regulators say they plan to conduct an environmental assessment. Heisz and her environmental group are raising money for an independent review of deep nuclear storage. The geologist, Professor Fyfe, thinks Kincardine should hold an open house to get the opinions of experts.


“Before we start putting stuff away, let’s invite the bosses of the Swedish group to come and take a look. They are using hundreds of scientists, technicians, and engineers which we are not doing in Canada.”


Few outside the Kincardine area are aware of their nuclear waste dump plans… and fewer still know the site is planned for so close to Lake Huron.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Ann Colihan.

Related Links

New Uranium Enrichment Plant to Be Built?

  • The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is reviewing a plan for building a uranium enrichment plant in Ohio. Supporters of the plant welcome the jobs, but many others are worried about radioactive waste. (Photo courtesy of the NRC)

Nuclear power plants need enriched uranium to produce power. Today, there’s only one uranium enrichment facility operating in the U.S. Now, there’s a proposal to build a new one in southern Ohio. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight reports, there’s debate over how safe the proposed plant will be:

Transcript

Nuclear power plants need enriched uranium to produce power.
Today, there’s only one uranium enrichment facility operating in the
U.S. Now, there’s a proposal to build a new one in southern Ohio.
And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight reports, there’s
debate over how safe the proposed plant will be:


The one-point-five billion dollar project is planned by USEC, Incorporated, the world’s largest producer of enriched uranium. Company officials say it would generate 500 jobs and be built at the site of an old, off-line uranium enrichment plant. Charles Wiltshire is still employed there and he’s all for building the new facility.


“I would like to see future job opportunities for my children and grandchildren who will be finishing college about the time the centrifuge plant is due to go online.”


But environmentalists and concerned citizens are worried about the radioactive waste. They’re also fearful of water pollution and health hazards for plant workers. The State of Ohio has promised more than 100 million dollars in financial incentives and is confident that the new plant will not put anyone in danger. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the company’s application and is supposed to make a decision by early 2007.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Fred Kight.

Related Links

Not Quite Ready for Bioterrorist Attack

  • Mock evidence of radiological material to make a dirty bomb gives trainees an idea of the kind of materials they might find in a terrorist operation. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Since 9/11, emergency responders have been practicing for new kinds of emergencies. In addition to fires and hazardous materials spills, emergency personnel have been training to deal with terrorist attacks. Recently, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham was allowed behind the scenes in a terrorism attack training exercise:

Transcript

Since 9/11, emergency responders have been practicing for new kinds of emergencies. In
addition to fires and hazardous materials spills, emergency personnel have been training
to deal with terrorist attacks. Recently, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham was allowed behind the scenes in a terrorism attack training exercise:


(coughing)


These two men are the victims of some kind of biological toxin. They were investigating
an abandoned rental truck and now they’re writhing on the ground after a package
spewed some kind of liquid.


(chatter between mock victims) “You alright, man?” “What was that?” “I don’t know
what that was. It hurts.”


These guys are acting. They’re part of a huge training exercise put on by the
Environmental Protection Agency. Dozens of firefighters, emergency medical personnel,
EPA investigators, the FBI and people in t-shirts identifying themselves with acronyms
for agencies most of us have never heard of. They’re all working through a couple of
scenarios. So far today, they’ve discovered radioactive material to make dirty bombs and
some kind of lab set up to make a chemical like sarin nerve gas… and then there’s the
rental truck which is loaded with nasty chemicals.


Mark Durno is the U.S. EPA’s On-Scene Coordinator…


“We have some very distinct objectives with this exercise. One is to practice responding
to unusual situations that might involve weapons of mass destruction. In this particular
exercise, we’re practicing chemical agent and radiological agent response.”


There are lots of new things to learn. Coordination between agencies… and new
techniques. In this exercise, Detroit city departments are learning to work with federal
agencies. Melvin Green is with the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services. He
says this exercise is good. He’d rather see his medical technicians make mistakes here
than during a real emergency… where his worst fears might be realized.


“I would have to say that, you know, them become casualties, that’s probably my biggest
fear. This is why we want to educate them on—and this is why the exercise is so
important. We want to educate them on the possibilities. Keeping our people safe
reduces casualties.”


That’s because if the emergency medical personnel are hurt… fewer people will be
treated.


The idea of a terrorist attack with radiological or biological agents is the kind of
nightmarish scenario that no one really wants to think about… but it’s something
emergency responders HAVE to think about.


During this day-long exercise… these trainees are upbeat, they’re confident in their
response. They feel they’ve come a long way in the nearly three years since 9/11.


But other emergency service experts are not quite as upbeat. Just 40 miles from this
training exercise… at the University of Michigan Hospital’s Department of Emergency
Medicine, Administrator Peter Forster says there are weaknesses in preparedness for
terrorist attacks.


“We’ve made a lot of progress from where we were, but we’ve got a long ways to go.”


Forster says when victims start showing up at the hospital emergency rooms…. there will
be bottle-necks…


“Most emergency preparedness activities have been geared toward local events with
relatively small numbers of victims. When we start talking about hundreds of people or
thousands of people injured or hurt, or exposed to some toxic or contagious substance,
then I think the health system would have a significantly difficult time expanding to meet
that requirement, regardless of how much, uh, how well we’re trained or how prepared
we are. We don’t really have the capacity on the health care side to manage a significant
influx of patients.”


Forster says plans to set up emergency medical facilities in auditoriums, school gyms,
and maybe even hotel rooms need to be completed… arrangements made… and supplies
stockpiled.


(sound up of training exercise, generators, etc.)


Meanwhile, back in Detroit… investigators are putting on bulky chemical protection
suits—the ones that look like big space suits…blue, yellow, olive, with teal-colored
gloves and orange boots… you’d think of circus colors if the subject matter weren’t so
serious. After examining the mock lab, spending about an hour in the sweltering suits,
they come out for decontamination before their air tanks run out. The local agencies help
with decontamination… spraying and scrubbing the suits down.


(sound: beeping, scrubbing)


The training site has all the sights and sounds of a real emergency. Lots of emergency
vehicles… the noise of generators and the smell of diesel. But it’s fairly relaxed. There’s
none of the tension, none of the urgency of a real emergency.


The U.S. EPA’s On-Scene Coordinator, Mark Durno, says there are some things you
can’t bring to a drill…


“You can never simulate the adrenaline and the potential panic that’s associated with a
real event, especially when you hear the words ‘chemical’ and ‘radiological’ agent.
However, we can practice those little tools that we’re going to need to be absolutely
proficient at to ensure that when the panic hits, we’re ready to roll without any
hesitation.”


The days’ training has turned up a few glitches. Communication between agencies is
still a problem. Emergency radio frequencies need to be sorted out and coordinated. And
there are still some major gaps in preparedness that are not part of this training… such as
the emergency room capacity problem. But one of the bigger issues is money. Federal
money has been promised to local governments… but it’s been very slow in coming.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Stocking Up on Nuke Accident Pills

The federal government is offering to buy special anti-cancer pills for people who live near nuclear power plants. There are 24 nuclear power plants in the Great Lakes states… and state officials are now pondering whether to accept the offer. In Ohio, the debate reflects the pro and con arguments across the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has details:

D.O.E. To Melt Down Spent Fuel

The U-S Department of Energy will dispose of spent nuclear fuel instead of reprocessing it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… some environmentalists and anti-nuke groups are applauding the decision:

Commentary – Floating Nukes

Russia has recently begun construction on a floating nuclear power
plant, designed to bring electricity to remote northern regions of that
country. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston
wonders
what could happen if we brought these floating plants to the Great
Lakes:

Transcript

Okay, so on the surface it sounds like a really bad idea. Build
floating nuclear power plants, with dependable Russian nuclear
technology, and dot them along the shore of the Arctic Ocean. Sort of
like a little fleet of mini-Chernobyls-to-go. Critics are saying that
these barges will be sitting ducks, waiting for terrorists to tow
them away. And then there’s that ever-present threat to the
environment.


But I say, let’s not be hasty here. I think there’s a potential for
using these barges in the Great Lakes. First of all, they could help
us get rid of our nuclear waste problem. What Russia plans to do
with the spent fuel is tow the barges into shore every dozen years
and unload it. But I say flip it around. Take all the waste from our
land-locked plants and stick it on the barge.


This would solve no end of problems. No more worrying about burying
it in a mountain somewhere. Problem solved at a fraction of the cost.
We actually could float the stuff in the water around the barge,
which would solve another major environmental problem. There’s been
so much concern about invading species in the Great Lakes. A good
dose of radiation should render even the hardiest invader sterile.
Another problem solved.


And that’s just the beginning. The glow from all this spent fuel
would light up the water around the reactor. This would make it a lot
easier for sports fishermen to see what they’re doing. After all,
nobody’s supposed to eat the fish they catch from the Great Lakes,
anyway. If we keep the barges nice and close to the shoreline, they’d
light up those dark and dangerous beaches. We’d save on energy and we
wouldn’t have to worry about lighting bonfires. That would put an end
to all those rowdy beach parties. The glow would also help boaters
find their docks at night. No more search and rescue. Another bonus.


The more I think about it, the more I have to admit, this is one hot
idea. You gotta hand it to those Russians. I wonder what they’ll
think of next.


Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario. She comes to us by way of the

Great Lakes Radio Consortium.