TIVERTON, Ont. - Bruce Power says it's delaying plans to ship 16 radioactive steam generators through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River.
Bruce Power president Duncan Hawthorne says the delay will allow further discussion with First Nations, Metis and others seeking additional information about the shipment.
The company wants to ship the generators -- giant steel cylinders the size of a school bus -- from an Ontario nuclear plant to Sweden for recycling.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission issued a transport licence and certificate to Bruce Power last month, determining the risk to the health and safety of the public and the environment is negligible.
The move is strongly opposed by aboriginal groups, the Bloc Quebecois, the NDP and a number of community organizations.
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says shipping radioactive waste through the Great Lakes is not the right thing to do and welcomed the delay.
"We think it's an unnecessary environmental and health risk to transport them, so we've been saying for over a year keep them where they are," Horwath said.
And Horwath said Bruce Power should stick to its original plan and store the generators at its site in Ontario.
But Hawthorne said "recycling this material is the right thing to do, and our regulator has given us a licence to proceed."
"We recognize there is a level of concern among some groups that we want to address before proceeding," Hawthorne said Monday.
"We've successfully met our regulatory obligations, but have not yet met our own standard of providing information to some of those legitimate groups, particularly the First Nations and Metis," he said.
"For that reason, we have chosen to delay the shipments to allow that information flow to take place," Hawthorne said.
Bruce Power has said about 90 per cent of the metal in the steam generators can be decontaminated, melted down and sold back into the scrap metal market.
The rest will be returned to the Bruce Power site for long-term storage. Each steam generator contains 100 tonnes of steel but less than four grams of radioactive substances.
