Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation on Friday terminated its plan to build a nuclear waste disposal facility near Lake Huron after a First Nation group voted against the project.
Members of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) on Friday voted 1,058 to 170 not to support the deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. Ontario Power Generation had pledged in 2013 that support from SON would be required for the project to advance.
“OPG will explore other options and will engage with key stakeholders to develop an alternate site-selection process,” OPG CEO and President Ken Hartwick said in a press release Friday.
Engagement with indigenous and other communities would be part of that effort as well, OPG said.
The Saugeen Ojibway Nation represents more than 4,500 members of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation and the Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation. Their traditional territory covers a large portion of the Saugeen Peninsula, including the previously intended location of the repository.
“We will continue to work with OPG and others in the nuclear industry on developing new solutions for nuclear waste in our Territory,” Chief Greg Nadjiwon, of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, said in a SON press release. “We know that the waste currently held in above-ground storage at the Bruce site will not go away. SON is committed to developing these solutions with our Communities and ensuring Mother Earth is protected for future generations.”
In 2005, OPG had proposed to build the 680-meter deep repository on the site of its Bruce power plant in Kincardine. It would hold 200,000 cubic meters of waste from the Bruce, Darlington, and Pickering nuclear power plants. The Canadian government had not yet approved of the selected site.
While OPG said the “strong, dry and impermeable rock,” among other measures, would prevent any radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment, lawmakers in Michigan and others had strenuously opposed placing the disposal site near the Great Lakes.