A proposal under consideration by the Bush Administration to ship nuclear waste across one of the Great Lakes, is getting a cool response north of the border. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Dan Karpenchuk reports -- Canadian officials say they know nothing of the plan:

According to reports from Washington, the U.S. wants to ship thousands of tons of radioactive waste by barge across Lake Michigan. Since Lake Michigan lies entirely within U.S. territory, Washington is not forced to tell Ottawa about the planned shipments. But since the shipments would cross one of the Great Lakes, there are concerns. One Canadian politician in Windsor, Ontario, says there are plans for thousands of shipments and that could result in dozens of accidents to a region that supplies drinking water to 30 million people on both sides of the border.

Many politicians and environmentalists in the U.S. and Canada say the plan is too dangerous. And the International Joint Commission, an agency run jointly by the U.S. and Canadian governments to oversee the Great Lakes, says Lake Michigan is part of a single ecosystem common to both countries. If Congress approves the plan this summer, the first barge loaded with nuclear waste will cast off in 2010.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I'm Dan Karpenchuk.