Two communities in the running for storage of nuclear waste 

By Jacqueline St. Pierre

 Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is slated to close negotiations on its deep geological repository (DGR) in late 2024. The NWMO has been in discussion concerning Canada’s 175-year-long plan to bury its nuclear waste since 2008, and the process of developing the repository has been over 20 years in the making. Canada’s nuclear electricity producers established the organization under the Nuclear Fuels Waste Act (NFWA) in 2002. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) was established in 2002 and is funded by Canada’s nuclear electricity producers like Ontario Power Generation and Hydro-Quebec.

The organization has whittled down prospective sites to two communities: Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation in Northwestern Ontario and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation in the South Bruce Area in southern Ontario.

The NWMO intends to bury millions of bundles of used nuclear fuel in a network of chambers connected by massive tunnels, reaching a vertical extent below the earth’s surface, matching the height of the CN Tower. If both communities reject the project, it would be a significant stumbling block for the $26-billion project.

“Ultimately, if both areas say no, then we have to start over_and by we, I mean Canada,” said Lise Morton, the vice president of site selection. “We as a country would then be pushing this issue’s resolution to the next generation.”

“In this location, we’ve kind of been left out of the major boom that Ontario has been seeing so far,” Mark Goetz said. “We’ve seen it to the west of us, to the Great Lakes, and we’ve seen it sprawling from Toronto to the east of us, but we haven’t really benefitted here a whole lot yet.”

“South Bruce already has deep nuclear roots, with the Bruce Power plant nearby. A refurbishment project there is set to wind down around when the repository project would start up, providing opportunities for tradespeople,” Mr. Goetz said.

South Bruce is already home to the largest nuclear reactor in Canada and the third largest in the world. The power plant comprises eight CANDU pressurized heavy-water reactors arranged into two plants (A and B) with four reactors each.

A significant portion of the community remains dubious of the project. Approximately 20 percent of the residents are working with Protect Our Waterways, a grassroots organization that is of the opinion that the technology is “untested, unsustainable and based on independent research, unwanted in our community,” according to their website.

Protect Our Waterways also argues that aside from one confirmed site near a nuclear power plant in Finland, there needs to be an established best practice for a high-level nuclear waste DGR.

South Bruce has still not recovered from the Walkerton incident in 2000, where thousands were affected by contaminated drinking water, leading to seven fatalities. “Fears about drinking water have lingered there long after the tragedy,” said Bill Noll, vice chair of Protect Our Waterways.

“There is a big concern relative to water,” Mr. Noll said.

“Once you pollute the water, there’s not much you can do about it.”

While the First Nations Water Bill is in its infancy, legislative changes are still needed to hold corporations responsible for the cleanup of their operations.

Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation is concerned about the health of their watershed, as they have witnessed the generations-long detriment after a chlor-alkali plant in Dryden released around 10 metric tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon River in the `60s and `70s. This affected both the English and Wabigoon Rivers. In 1970, Dryden Chemical, a Reed International subsidiary, reduced mercury levels in wastewater. The plant was decommissioned in 1975.

“That’s the evidence right now of how an industry went astray or how government oversight wasn’t there,” said Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation Chief Clayton Wetelainen.

Within the planned repository, the radioactive materials would be under multiple layers of protection, and for contamination to happen, “everything has to fail,” said NWMO senior transportation engineer Ulf Stahmer. He doesn’t project a scenario where that would occur.

The proposed sites are desirable for their geological properties, with the outermost layer of protection being the rock itself, selected for its low permeability, along with blocks of bentonite clay to form a seal. The properties of bentonite naturally attract radioactive materials and would be a natural failsafe, according to Mr. Stahmer.

He asserts that bentonite clay expands, exerting pressure that hampers microbial corrosion. Encased within this clay are containers crafted from carbon steel and coated in copper to stave off corrosion. These containers have undergone rigorous crush tests, simulating the weight of 500 to 700 metres of rock combined with two kilometers of ice, simulating conditions akin to a future ice age, as outlined by Mr. Stahmer.

“This container is built to endure the repository for an exceptionally extended period_practically indefinitely.” Contained within these nuclear fuel containers are the fuel bundles or rods composed of corrosion-resistant Zircaloy. These bundles encompass the actual fuel pellets resembling thick watch batteries. Crafted from uranium dioxide powder and baked into a ceramic form, these pellets demonstrate a high resistance to water dissolution.

However, all the tests, planning and scientific speak do not allay the misgivings of the project’s critics, southern Ontario-based Protect Our Waterways or We the Nuclear Free North.

“The whole thing is a grand experiment,” said Brennain Lloyd, with the northern group. “There’s not a deep geological repository operating anywhere in the world. The NWMO likes to say, `Well, this is best international practice,’ but practice implies that it’s been done before. And there is no practice. Nobody has done this before.”

The NWMO sent officials and community members from South Bruce and Ignace municipalities on an all-expense paid trip to view the facility being developed in Finland. The Expositor has yet to determine if any Indigenous delegations participated in the trip.

Jodie Defeo and an Ignace councillor were a part of the group that ventured down into the formidable nuclear crypt, and she said she was impressed by the scale of the project.

“I can definitely talk to the footprint that they carved out of the land, (which) was only exactly what they needed,” she said.

“I can speak to the fact that there was economic stability in their community and in surrounding communities. And I can speak to the fact  we wouldn’t be the first, that it will have been done before us.”

Jacqueline St. Pierre/ Local Journalism Initiative Reporter/THE MANITOULIN EXPOSITOR/LJI is a federally funded program