- (Narrator) On this addition of Great Lakes Now, one mere city was poisoned when officials failed to safeguard the water supply.

- This was done to us at the hand of government.

It was done to us at the hand of people that were elected to protect and serve us.

- (Narrator) Another wants to host a nuclear waste storage site, trusting officials to maintain safety.

- And it's being stored above ground.

Is that the most realistic way of handling the waste?

- I don't think it is.

- This program is brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. ERB Family Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott foundation, Laurie and Tim Wadhams.

- (Narrator) The Consumer's Energy Foundation is committed to serving Michigan from preserving our state's natural resources and sustaining our future, to continuing business growth, academic achievement, and community involvement.

Learn more at consumersenergy.com/foundation.

- The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at DPTV, the Polk Family Fund, Eve and Jerry Jung, the Americana Foundation.

The Brookby Foundation, Founders Brewing Company, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hi, I'm Ward Detwiler.

Welcome back to Great Lakes Now.

Today we're doing something different.

We're presenting an episode of the Canadian TV show called Political Blind Date.

The idea is to bring together people on opposite sides of an issue to hear what they had to say to each other.

In 2015, the tap water in Flint, Michigan was found to have high levels of lead after state officials switched the city's water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River and remove corrosion inhibitors to save money.

More than 100,000 Flint residents were exposed to lead triggering a federal emergency.

The number of dead and sick and residents is still being calculated.

- I, Mayor Karen W. Weaver declare state of emergency in the city of Flint.

- Karen Weaver was mayor of Flint from 2015 to 2019.

Mitch Twolon is the mayor of Huron-Kinloss, a small community on Lake Huron in southwestern Ontario.

He favored the construction of two deep geologic repositories near the lake to permanently store contaminated materials and spent nuclear fuel from facilities around Canada.

Can politicians on both sides of the border, listen to each other about their concerns for the future of Great Lakes water?

In 2019 political blind date brought Mitch and Karen together to find out.

- My family moved to the Bruce area back in about '68, '69, when my dad was offered a job up at the old Bruce Nuclear Power Development.

My mom said I used to spend a lot of time riding my bike around and she'd send me downtown for a bag of milk.

And I might be an hour and a half, two hours getting back because I would stop and talk to everybody.

Really unfortunate thing happened.

Our mayor at the, at the time, he was in office for 10 months was actually killed in a farming accident, he had a corn header come down on him and crushed him.

And counsel had enough faith in me to ask me to be the mayor.

So from there I I've ran in four other elections and have been successful at all of them.

Water safety is the most paramount service that we as elected officials provide to our constituents.

So the process that we are going through, this is a learning exercise about doing something with an issue that we have right now and that's nuclear waste.

And it's being stored above ground.

Is that the most realistic way of handling the waste for now and in the foreseeable future?

I don't, I don't think it is.

- I was born and raised in Flint.

I grew up on the north side of town.

My dad was a pediatrician and he was the first African-American elected to the Flint board of education.

And my mother was the first African-American classroom teacher in Flint.

They taught me that you can make a difference and your voice is important.

And that's one thing no one can ever take from you.

I actually never went to bed as a young person thinking when I grow up, I want to be involved in politics, let alone be mayor.

I just volunteered on someone's campaign that was running for mayor.

That was where I got a firsthand look at really what was going on in the city of Flint.

I remember we were home.

It was a Sunday night and we got a call to not use our water.

That our home, had tested high for lead and that we needed to switch to bottled water and we needed to use it even for brushing our teeth.

That was in October, November, I got into office and I said, I'm going to declare an emergency.

What made Flint different than everybody else was this was done to us at the hand of government.

It was done to us at the hand of people that were elected to protect and serve us.

And for 18 months it was covered up.

I think that's what other people are concerned about is what can happen when you store nuclear waste?

And what does that going to do to the water?

- (Narrator) Karen and Mitch are spending the day together, rare for cross-border politicians.

Will they butt heads or might they find common ground?

- (Mitch) I'm really looking forward to hearing her story about Flint and the trials and tribulations that have happened here.

- (Karen) I am on my first blind date.

And it's what the Canadian politician of all people.

- (Mitch) Obviously Mary Weaver has some concerns with proposed deep geological repositories in Bruce county.

- We get our water from lake Huron.

So of course that's a concern.

- And it's about getting the message out and talking to people.

- Good morning.

- How are you this morning?

- I'd like to talk and I'd like to ask questions and I can't wait to hear what the Mayor has to say.

- So I hope you know today is my wife's birthday.

So here I am on a blind date.

- With me?

On a blind date?

So how'd you pull that off?

- Let's just say, it's going to cost me.

- She's going to have a very nice gift.

- She is - Well good.

- This is actually my third time to Flint.

- It is?

- So what are the big issues right now?

- You know, we're still working on the water and it's sad.

You know, you ought to be able to take water quality stamp for granted.

You gotta be able to turn on your tap and your water is good.

But we can't.

- We need regulations that are throughout the Great Lakes Basin.

- You know, that's our water source.

- We all have the same common goal.

Not our number one priority has always been the protection of the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence.

- You know, I think people are really looking to us to be a larger voice.

This has been nice, but I know you've been to Flint before, but I have some people that I want you to meet.

I'm going to take you to a few places that you probably haven't been.

How's that sound?

- Well.

I'm looking forward to that.

Let's get going.

- Let's get going.

Let's go.

- (Narrator) Karen wants Mitch to see the scale of the work that has had to happen to replace the lead line pipes across her city.

- There was a protective coating that was on the pipes and that protective coating had been stripped as a result because corrosion control hadn't been put in the water.

So we were drinking corrosive lead, poisoned water.

- So what kind of problems have you ran into?

- Oh.

When do I start?

Well, first of all, the one thing you have to do, obviously, as you get the buy-in from the residents because of the crisis and everything that has happened, obviously everyone was nervous about what was going on.

So you had to get them to understand exactly what you were doing in terms of replacing.

So you go and you knock on doors and you explain to them exactly what's going on.

And they're still a little skeptical because obviously they feel like, you know, their lives have been ruined and, and they're, they're really nervous.

They don't really know.

Some people let you in, some people do not, you know, you're on the outside looking in, you would say, well, why wouldn't you want this done?

And then obviously the homeowner's probably thinking, well, why would I want you in, because who's to say that you're not going to make it worse for me.

So, those are some of the questions and issues that we ran across.

This is our community.

This has been our home and we take pride in it.

And so we really wanted to get out here and not only do the work, but empower our people, that's from our community to learn about this scope of work.

Because as you well know, worldwide is this situation is happening.

And so, you empower people and employing them and they're able to take their skills elsewhere as well.

- I give the city of Flint and the contractors, a lot of credit for where they are and how far they've come in my mind.

In a pretty short time.

If you think about it, - When this started the records at the city were they were, they weren't kept really.

They were on index cards and some of them had been ruined and so we started off at a disadvantage.

And so now we've got some great records.

We've got some great records, but it did it, it made it difficult at first.

It made it difficult at first.

Yeah.

And so that's why we have talked about, I mean, just the need to, you know, make sure people are maintaining and investing in infrastructure.

I think because it's underground, we forget about it.

You know, it's like out of sight, out of mind.

- Yes.

- We don't want to tell people to drink up until we complete the list service line replacement.

We want to make sure we have every lead and galvanized pipe out of the ground, in the city of Flint.

And so until that's done, we are putting, you know, the health and wellbeing of the people first, that's our priority.

And so that's why we continue to stay on bottled and filtered water.

How are you?

Hi, how are you?

- (Narrator) Karen wants Mitch to see the human cost of what happens when people are poisoned by their water supply.

- When we think about the water crisis, the first thing people say is when are the pipes going to be replaced?

How much does it cost?

How many bottles of water?

But we don't consider trauma in this aspect.

I have a daughter who says, mom, is it okay to drink the water?

No matter where we are to be that age and have to be aware of that, that's a traumatic thing, right there?

- Yes, it is.

- That's something that we've taken for granted for so long.

So we definitely have to put people over pipes because we have to consider that people are affected more than anything.

- Right.

- My daughter had diabetes.

She was diagnosed with Legionnaires disease.

And with that, it contribute to her medical, her health.

When I say that it contribute to her health, it made it worse.

It made it worse.

The, the water with the Legionnaires and everything, I guess this last time you wouldn't even thought anything was wrong with her, but this time she didn't come back.

It really hurt it.

It, it hurt her but you know, she, she just suffered.

She, she suffered.

She suffered for a long time, but I thank God for her.

But this, with this water, it's a mess.

I, I cannot drink this water whatsoever.

I don't care if they say that the water has been tested, clean, is drinkable.

I can't do it because I personally seen, what it did to my daughter.

- That really hit home.

You're looking into someone's eyes that, you know, these folks have been impacted with the death of a child.

You're not supposed to be burying your child, children.

- We had a crisis and it was more than just a water crisis.

We had a public health crisis.

- You have students who are six years old, and then they're going to school and teaching them saying, I've never seen first graders behave this way.

- Our special education rates have just, - They have.

They're skyrocketed.

And you know, you you're, you tell it to teachers, you're right.

You haven't seen kids at six with these behavior concerns because you've never taught kids who had been had lead in their water or their mothers were pregnant.

- And their mothers were pregnant.

- Their bottles were made with it, you know, and then people, you know, they have low patience for them because people don't consider that it is a public health crisis.

So they just think, oh little Johnny is bad.

No little Johnny is poisoned.

- We've had to educate parents around developmental milestones.

And you know, is your child, there are certain developmental milestones.

You should be reaching at certain stages.

And if they're not there, that's cause for concern.

We know our juvenile justice system is going to be impacted as a result of this.

We know our foster care and adoption rates are going to go up as a result of this.

All of those kinds of things that when we talk about the human cost?

- You can't put a price.

- You can't put a price or a time frame.

- The psychological thing it's going to be there forever.

Obviously within the families.

What suggestion would you make for, you know, moving forward?

- I think what sets us apart is our government did this to us.

- Exactly.

And that's why you can be a legislator and say, I'm not going to let this happen because had one person or two people stood up, we might not be having this conversation now.

So be up, hear our stories and say, I'm going to be a tireless advocate to ensure that it may happen somewhere else, but it won't be government induced, not on my watch.

- We could be the next Flint for whatever reason.

And so to hear the stories, it was, it was very impactful.

Today is a really, you know, I don't know, it hits home.

It's you put a face to some people that have gone through this and the resiliency that's there.

- Did you see it?

- I did, yeah.

- Good, because you know what?

It's not until people come here that they actually see, - Well.

- Flint don't let us go through a crisis and not learn from us because that would be another tragedy.

And, and, and let me just say, I'm glad people are paying attention.

They're there.

They're, they're, making demands about water quality standards.

People are investing in infrastructure.

They're recognizing the importance.

- (Narrator) Now it's Mitch's turn.

- I'm excited about the day.

- (Narrator) He wants to take Karen to the above ground facility that houses all spent nuclear fuel and other contaminated materials from Bruce power.

- So of course our number one priority is safety for the public and people, our staff, and the environment.

And that's why everything is paved here.

We collect all of the rainwater, the stormwater precipitation, and all of that is monitored before it's released again to the environment.

And there are also air monitors to monitor air quality.

And they go well beyond the site to beyond the security perimeter of the nuclear site and out into the, the general public areas.

So this is the yard where we store intermediate level nuclear waste in in-ground containers.

We are doing things on an interim basis until we find permanent disposal solutions, which for intermediate level waste around the world, the best practice is a deep geologic repository, a DGR.

It's a way of using the geosphere to protect the biosphere.

- Okay.

- So then for our community Mayor Weaver, this is what we're looking at is possibly being a willing host for, for all of Canada's spent nuclear fuel.

The magnitude of the project is approximately $21 billion.

I might be out by a billion or two.

With this type of project, obviously comes a lot of jobs, but with it also comes a lot of social issues.

It's why we're here today, having this tour, because I know you and some of your folks in Michigan has some concerns about the possibility of the DGRs moving forward.

And so that that's, that's why we're here today.

- Okay, good.

Because I want to hear about it because we do have concerns.

You know, we have concerns in Michigan.

- Yeah.

So water is very important.

- Right, because that's what I want to hear about.

- 40 million people get their drinking water from the Great Lakes.

- And that's where we get our, our drinking water.

Lake Heron.

- And so one of the beautiful things about this proposed deep geologic repository is that this region sits on some of the most ideal rock in the world for this kind of a facility, because it's, it's impermeable rock, it's half a mile down.

And it's so isolated from the lakes and from groundwater that really the, the material, once it's down there is safely isolated forever.

- And so what assurances do you have in place to re- I mean.

How do I know that?

- First of all, this will be monitored carefully.

We've been monitoring this waste for as long as it's been here.

We know how the waste interacts.

We know what its properties are and the rock has been studied.

And the rock, you know, its properties are known.

It's been studied scientifically for more than a decade.

And we know that that rock has stayed the way it is for hundreds of millions of years.

And that is in a way, the guarantee, is that rock is a permanent vault.

- Easiest thing to do for society and for politicians today is just to kick, kick this whole nuclear waste issue down the road.

And we feel that it's not the right thing to do.

So doing this is doing something rather than doing nothing.

- Have you talked to any, any of the, the regulatory agencies in Michigan?

- Yeah.

So when our DGR for low and intermediate level waste, was undergoing public hearings, the department of environmental quality, so named at that time, participated in the hearings, looked at all the evidence.

- When was this?

- In 2013 and 14.

- Okay.

So now, you know, we, we don't trust them.

You know, that's who told us the water was good for 18 months and to drink up?

- Yes.

I mean, - And DEQ, who is now called Equals.

So how do you get past that trust factor when we say those are the very people that did not protect us.

- Trust is central to all of this.

And so you build that kind of trust through a relationship, getting to know you, and talking, answering questions, being open and transparent.

That's really how you build trust.

It's easy to lose trust with bad behavior, but it's very hard to build trust.

- It's hard to build trust.

- It takes time and it takes honesty and it takes openness.

- You're not going to change everybody's minds or some folks' minds but I think it's incumbent on all of us to learn as much as we can.

- Oh wow.

This is it.

- This is it.

It's a, it's 80 tons of concrete and steel.

And it has a dry storage container for used fuel rods.

So the uranium fuel that comes out of the reactor is stored in a pool and then transferred after 10 years to this dry storage container.

- So, because that's in there.

I don't have to wear anything?

- That's right.

That is to two feet of concrete.

That's all the shielding that we need.

We're protected from the radiation on the inside.

- Okay.

How many of these do you have?

- We're licensed to have up to 2000 of these containers and we currently have just a little over 1500 in storage.

- Are you ever nervous?

- Not at all.

I know how safety is our top priority here.

I've been working here for years and others have my total dose is zero because things are so well shielded.

And so well-managed.

- You know, to see what they've done and how it's stored and how it's sealed, you know, it's reassuring, but I'm still scared about it because you never know what can happen.

- Do you have a different view after being in this facility today?

- I'm surprised it, wasn't what I expected and it's good to get more education around clean energy and what we can be doing that it's, it's a tough one, but it's a conversation that we have to have, but I want it safe.

I want it safe.

- We all do.

- I guess what I would have to say is I'm, I'm glad it hasn't happened yet.

I'm glad they're putting this much thought and effort and energy and time into it.

I'm glad they're putting years into this.

- (Narrator) Although Ontario still faces challenges to achieve clean drinking water everywhere, especially in indigenous communities, Mitch wants to show Karen what happens when one community and government come together to build a legacy after a water disaster.

- This center was created because of a crisis.

We had like Flint.

- Okay.

- So we had seven die here and thousands hospitalized in May of 2000, from an E. Coli outbreak caused by a combination of human error and loose regulations.

The provincial government at the time said, flatly, we need to tighten regulations for drinking water, with source protection, for example, and we need to fix the human problem of human error and the government put $10 million into this building and the center to ensure that the Walkerton legacy, which at the time was a bad legacy, would no longer be a bad legacy and would become a legacy for the province and made sure that something like Walkerton in 2000 never ever happens again anywhere.

Right now, we can only prevent it in Ontario, right?

We'd love to go broader.

So if you want, I'll take you through and show you what we do.

And, and if you have any questions, either one of you ask away, Mary Weaver has, always has lots of questions.

- It brought tears to my eyes when I walked in there because Flint needs to have this.

And it showed me what we have talked about is how you take a tragedy, how you take a crisis and make something great happen as a result.

And there it was.

And I was standing there and I was just like, wow, this is beautiful.

It just, it, it gives you hope.

- What this facility is, is mimicking, if I can use that term, virtually every legal drinking water plant system in the province of Ontario.

These facilities are miniature replicas, active replicas, working models of major systems.

And every plant is different because every source water everywhere is different.

- Right.

- We go out, check all of the source water of our clients, which are the cities, the towns, and municipalities, the first nations, the Indian bands.

We go out and find out exactly what their source water issues are.

Do they have iron?

Do they have manganese?

Do they have lead?

Do they have arsenic?

And then we custom design for them, specific water treatment solutions.

We get visitors here from all over the world too.

- I bet you do.

- We have them coming in from Asia and Africa and probably in the last year, we've had China, Malaysia, Senegal, and they all come in and are quite stunned.

- It's an issue world-wide.

- The legacy that those folks that have passed away will never be forgotten.

And you see that in that building.

It truly is an opportunity for Flint.

- Right?

- I think maybe Karen saw it today over the Walkerton clean water center, the government did something about it.

They did take some ownership.

Whereas I feel that for her, that's maybe not happening in Flint.

- Mayor, mayor, mayor.

This has been something really.

This has been absolutely wonderful.

And I really liked the way we ended today.

And I'm glad you took me to the nuclear plant.

I learned a lot.

He's human, and he has a heart and he cares and he wants to make the right decision.

- She's a very strong-willed person.

And I know we'll be back in touch and I just wish her all the best in her future because I know she has a bright future ahead of her.

- Thank you.

Same here.

It's important to talk to people with opposing ideas.

And, and while we're saying, we might be saying, no, no, no, don't do this.

You have to talk to each other.

You have to work together because I know he's going to be a voice.

And he's going to ask the questions that we're asking in Flint and, and I appreciate that.

- Karen Weaver is no longer mayor of Flint, but the replacement of lead service lines continues a $641 million settlement agreement has been proposed and in January of 2021, 9 state officials, including former Michigan, governor Rick Snyder were indicted in connection with the Flint water crisis.

Charges range from willful neglect of duty to involuntary manslaughter.

Mitch Toulon is still mayor up here in Kinloss, but in January of 2020, the Seguin-a-Jib Wayne nation rejected the proposal for the first DGR designed to store low to intermediate level radioactive waste.

Plans for the second DGR, for the storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel are moving forward.

One possible site is in south Bruce Ontario, which borders here on Kinloss.

The proposed site is about 30 kilometers or 19 miles from lake Huron.

For more on these stories and the Great Lakes in general, visit greatlakesnow.org.

When you get there and you can follow us on social media or subscribe to our newsletter to get updates about our work.

See you out on the Lakes.

- (Narrator) This program is brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. ERB family foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott foundation, Laurie and Tim Wadhams.

- The Consumer's Energy Foundation is committed to serving Michigan from preserving our state's natural resources and sustaining our future, to continuing business growth, academic achievement, and community involvement.

Learn more at consumersenergy.com/foundation.

- The Richard C. Devereaux foundation for energy and environmental programs at DPTV, the Polk Family Fund, Eve and Jerry Jung, the Americana Foundation, the Brookby Foundation, Founders Brewing Company and viewers like you.

Thank you.