Nuclear wasteDebate over Ontario, Canada underground nuclear waste facility intensifies

Ontario's Bruce nuclear power plant // Source: wikipedia.org

Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) proposal to construct an underground nuclear waste disposal facility near the company’s Bruce Nuclear plant and on the edge of the Great Lakes is facing growing opposition from local municipalities and environmentalists. The facility would store “low and intermediate” nuclear waste from OPG’s Bruce, Pickering, and Darlington nuclear facilities. According to theWindsor Star, environmentalists are concerned that a leak in the underground facility would be devastating for communities which depend on water from the Great Lakes.

“This location is very close to Lake Huron,” said Derek Coronado of Windsor’s Citizens Environment Alliance. “They are proposing the majority of nuclear waste from all OPG locations in Ontario be brought to this site and buried at this facility.”

OPG already operates several above-ground nuclear waste storage sites near the Great Lakes, so Coronado considers the new facility to be an unnecessary risk. “The concern is they have never attempted anything like this in terms of storage of this material…. If a leak occurs, you can’t get to it without difficulty. You don’t want our drinking water downstream from somebody’s else’s waste.”

Sarnia, Ontario mayor Mike Bradley, a critic of the underground waste facility, is concerned that should a leak spill into Lake Huron, there would be no alternative for Sarnia’s water supply. “Leaks do happen. We are very concerned because there is no alternative for our water supply. If something goes wrong it would be a huge disaster for the Great Lakes,” Bradley said.

A Canadian federal government-appointed joint review board will approve or deny OPG’s request for a permit to begin construction. The February 2014 underground radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, in which seventeen workers at the plant became exposed to radiation, has led the review board to delay its decision on OPG’s proposal. OPG admits that WIPP was a template for the proposed storage site, but says its ownfacility will be safe and secure. “We have been studying this issue for more than a decade,” said Neal Kelly, OPG’s corporate relations director. “Scientists know what that rock has done for 450 million years and they can safely predict what it will do over the next 450 million. They will tell you that you can safely store low and medium nuclear waste at that level deep in the rock and the waste will not move anywhere.”

If the panel approves the facility by the expected 2015 date, the project will take up to seven years to build, then OPG would need another environmental assessment issued before applying for an operating license. The roughly $1 billion facility will take ten to fifteen years before it stores any nuclear waste. OPG is marketing the facility as a permanent solution to storing nuclear waste in Ontario. About half of the waste currently stored at the Bruce site would be relocated to the new facility, then, after thirty years of operation, the site would be decommissioned.

“The biggest problem I have is they want to eventually abandon the stuff there,” said Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. “The first phase is construct, then operation, then closure and abandonment.” Edwards is also worried about the transportation of nuclear waste to the proposed facility. “The problem is you have the wrong people in charge of the nuclear waste,” he said. “It’s not that they are bad, but there is a conflict of interest. We need people in charge of this who are independent of the nuclear industry, so their only interest is protecting the public and safety. These decisions will affect future generations.”