The Times Herald—Kudos to Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, state Rep. Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor, chairwoman of the House Great Lakes and Environment Committee, and Rep. Sarah Roberts, D-St. Clair Shores, a member of that committee. They all want Bruce Power to put the brakes on a plan to ship radioactive equipment from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station to Sweden.

This fall, Bruce Power plans to truck 16 100-ton radioactive steam generators from Bruce units 1 and 2 near Kincardine, Ontario, to Owen Sound on Georgian Bay. From there, they plan to ship them through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway to Studsvik, a company located on the Baltic Sea in Sweden. Studsvik would process them in its melter, releasing 90% of the metals (with what is considered "allowable" radioactive contamination) to global markets for unrestricted use.

Groups here and in Europe are calling attention to these shipments and the critical policy questions they pose. They are urging authorities to stop these and future shipments, to protect our watersheds and communities for the long-term.

The Baltic Sea reportedly is the most radioactive body of water in the world. Studsvik is one of its major polluters. Baltic Sea citizens groups don't want other countries sending their radioactive wastes for Studsvik to pollute their waters.

Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility said:

"We are sounding the alarm bell so citizens and decision makers along the transportation route and around the world can sit up and take notice -- and act on two important policy issues:

"Should the nuclear industry be allowed to ship radioactively contaminated equipment and other types of radioactive waste products through important fresh-water and marine ecosystems just so that they can save money on the management of nuclear waste materials?

"Should the nuclear industry be allowed to dump their radioactively contaminated waste metals in with other scrap metals and call it 'recycling?' Can the addition of long-lived man-made radioactive poisons such as plutonium, americium, and curium to existing stocks of metals be countenanced as 'recycling?'

"We strongly believe that the answer to all of these questions should be no. These practices must be nipped in the bud now, to prevent an ever-increasing traffic in radioactive waste shipments and an ever-escalating market in radioactive materials that are released for unrestricted use to an unaware and unconsenting public."

Surely, the recommended level of plutonium in consumer goods is zero, and the same goes for other man-made radioactive poisons. What is the "benefit" of mixing radioactive contaminants in our scrap metal for recycling, except to help the nuclear industry get rid of its wastes while saving them money in the process?

If this metal is suitable for recycling, why not send it to a local scrap yard in Ontario? The reason is the metal is too radioactively contaminated and too dangerous. Incidentally, "recycling" metal from radioactive steam generator tubing is not legal in the United States -- but unrestricted, unlabeled metal sold in global markets might end up in our products, too.

In the United States, the precautionary principle arose to control toxics in the Great Lakes. Do we really want radioactive metal in our kitchenware or our babies' cribs? Does not the precautionary principle apply here?

Adding radioactive metal derived from nuclear steam generators to our metal supply is not recycling -- it is dumping radioactive waste by-products in the form of contaminated goods onto the open market.

Kay Cumbow of Lynn Township is a member of Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination.