Industry and regulatory agencies insist there’s no cause for public alarm about a plan to ship 1,760 tonnes of radiation-laced steel through Lake Ontario.

The precedent-setting project, which requires approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, would see 16 radioactive steam generators, each the size of a school bus, shipped out of the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Huron to Sweden, where 90 per cent of the metals inside the generators are to be recycled.

Though the shipment would travel through Canada and the United States, the commission, which generally holds public consultations before granting licences, has appointed one person — the director of the commission’s Transport Licensing and Strategic Support Division — to determine whether the shipment, due to set sail in September, will proceed.

So far there’s been no opportunity for people to voice their opposition, although millions of Canadian and U.S. residents live along the Great Lakes basin, which serves as their source of drinking water.

This lack of consultation and transparency has environmental groups and politicians on both sides of the border justifiably worried.

“Nuclear waste and radioactive waste and shipping on the Great Lakes is a very, very tricky business,” said Mark Mattson, a lawyer who’s president of the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, which regularly makes presentations during commission hearings.

“And if you’re taking radioactive waste across the top of our well water, we want to make sure it doesn’t get into our water.”

Murray Elston, vice-president of corporate affairs at Bruce Power, which runs the nuclear plant, said critics have exaggerated the potential dangers. Even if there was a maritime disaster such as a sinking, the decommissioned generators have such a low level of radiation “nothing much would come of it.”

But the public is understandably skittish in the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, When it comes to environmental safety we should not settle for the word of industry or government.

Given its size and content, the project warrants a public airing. Otherwise, Bruce Power should find other ways of moving the generators.

via Potential threat.