By Wayne Barber
Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna this week again requested more information from Ontario Power Generation on its proposed deep geologic repository for low-and-intermediate-level radioactive waste in Kincardine, Ontario.
This comes almost two months after Canada’s Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) seemed ready to move ahead with a draft report that would inform McKenna’s decision on whether to approve the environmental assessment for the repository. OPG had already submitted a 144-page document to the CEAA in May on the proposed storage site near Lake Huron.
No date has been set yet for OPG to submit the additional information. The update “must include a clear description of the potential cumulative effects of the Project on Saugeen Ojibway Nation’s cultural heritage, including a description of the potential effects of the Project on the Nation’s spiritual and cultural connection to the land,” McKenna said in a letter to the utility.
Documents recently posted online by the minister’s office stress that consultation with members of affected indigenous tribes will occur throughout the process. The Saugeen Ojibway Nation’is located in Ontario near Lake Huron.
OPG did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
The utility intends to build the facility 680 meters below ground at its Bruce nuclear power plant site, less than a mile from Lake Huron. It would hold 200,000 cubic meters of waste from three OPG nuclear plants, which is now kept above-ground at the company’s Western Waste Management Facility at the Bruce plant. The utility is awaiting approval from the Canadian government.
McKenna’s latest data request came after she received a July 24 letter from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. the utility has informed the nation it would not move forward on the waste project without support from indigenous groups in the region.
Ontario Power Generation has previously responded to requests for additional data from CEAA in December 2016 and May 2017. The climate and environment minister now wants the Ontario utility to update its analysis on potential cumulative impact of the project on “physical and cultural heritage,” according to an Aug. 21 statement from McKenna.
“I agree that the outcomes of your community-driven process will be an important consideration in my decisions under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012,” McKenna said in her reply to the indigenous leaders.
Ultimately, the CEAA would forward a “decision package” on the proposal to the minister, but again no date has been set.
While OPG officials say in online videos that the facility will safely and securely hold radioactive waste for “basically forever,”critics on both sides of the border have warned against burying the material so close to the Great Lakes.
In late June, a bipartisan group of 32 members of the House of Representatives asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for help opposing the waste disposal site.
“We never want to see nuclear waste in our Great Lakes,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said in a statement Thursday. “These waters account for more than 20 percent of the world’s freshwater supply and are a critical source of drinking water for millions of Americans, as well as Canadians. A spill in this area would be catastrophic, and I am hopeful that after further consideration, the Canadian government will agree with Representatives of the U.S. Congress on both sides of the aisle and the 186 local, county, and state governments who oppose OPG’s proposal that we cannot put the Great Lakes at risk to this unacceptable danger.”
Separately, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 11 to consider a request from OPG for acceptance of the proposed revised financial guarantee for the future decommissioning of various nuclear facilities. The facilities include the Darlington, Pickering and Bruce A and B Nuclear Generating Stations; the Darlington, Pickering and Western Waste Management Facilities; and the Radioactive Waste Operations Site 1, located on the Bruce site.
Members of the public are invited to comment, in writing, on OPG’s request. Requests to intervene must be filed with the Commission Secretariat by Sept. 11, 2017.
