Canada’s environmental regulators are delaying until December a decision on whether to allow plans for an underground storage facility for nuclear waste near the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario.

The three-month delay, announced last week by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, accommodates a 90-day comment period and bumps back the decision from Minister of Environment Leona Aglukkaq until after Canada’s federal elections.

Aglukkaq had been expected to issue her decision by Sept. 3.

A panel last month advised that Aglukkaq approve plans by Canada’s Ontario Power Generation, which has worked for 14 years to secure approval for a deep geologic repository near Kincardine.

It would store 200,000 cubic meters of low- to intermediate-level nuclear waste about 2,230 feet underground inside limestone caverns near its Bruce nuclear plant.

Many local and national officials have raised concerns about storing the waste long term so close to the Great Lakes. U.S. Reps. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, and Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, said moving the decision until after the Canadian elections indicates how controversial the project is.

Miller said the delay, “hopefully, will give Canadian authorities time to reconsider moving forward with this proposed site.”

She is among the members of Michigan’s delegation in Congress who has called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to get involved in the controversy and to encourage the Canadian government to reassess the plans.

Kildee highlighted the resolutions passed by 150 municipalities from Toronto to Chicago in opposition to the Canadian plan.

“I hope that Canada considers a different location for a site,” he said in a statement.

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, said she would continue to work to stop the waste site from being built and endangering Michigan families.