With OPG's proposed DGR, the positives far outweigh any negatives, says reader

To the Editor:
RE: “W5 draws small crowd to town hall meeting about OPG's proposed DGR in Kincardine”

I have noticed that all the people arguing against OPG's proposed DGR don't actually understand what it will be storing and where that waste already is stored.

For one thing, this isn't the high-level nuclear waste, i.e. spent nuclear fuel – that, alone, is a whole different federal kettle of fish - but mention nuclear to opponents of the project or the uninformed, and they have visions of Homer Simpson with rods of uranium down his shirt. I'm amazed we don't have a panic attack at the hospital with the nuclear medicine department.

When it comes to location, the science that the opponent in your article doesn't understand would be the local geology. Simply put, we have the right rocks in the right arrangement beneath our feet to make this possible.

It's like the difference between the salt mine in Goderich and those down in Windsor and Detroit. The layers of rock up here are flat, supporting each other. Down there, the rocks are at an angle up and down, making poor support.

I have no idea what rock formations are present elsewhere, but the further you go from the site, the more expensive it gets, and you pick up a whole new set of people who don't understand and don't want the DGR because they don't understand. I would much rather it be thousands of feet beneath us safely stored than in temporary storage on the surface near to the lake.

Plus, add in the jobs that the project will create, granted many will be contractors, but they will still be bringing vast amounts of income to the local community. So, the positives far outweigh any negatives, especially those based on fears of the word nuclear.

Ben Clark
Kincardine