With research and input from Ann Pohl and Brennain Lloyd
By the end of this year, Canada will decide where to permanently store its most radioactive nuclear waste.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) – which was founded as a non-profit in 2002 in accordance with the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act and is funded and backed by industry – is now in the final stages of a decades-long process to select a “willing host” for over six million bundles of used nuclear fuel. This is the highest-level radioactive waste generated from nuclear reactors across Canada.
The NWMO proposes to transport, process, bury, and then abandon the spent fuel rods very deep in the bedrocks in a Deep Geological Repository (DGR). The last two communities remaining on its list as possible hosts are Teeswater (South Bruce) in southwestern Ontario and the Revell site in the heart of Treaty 3 territory (about 45 km northwest of Ignace, ON, and 290 km northwest of Thunder Bay).
The NWMO has said it will only proceed if there is an “informed and willing host community,” but the process that has unfolded in the last decade has not inspired confidence in how the most dangerous waste materials are being managed. Instead, the site selection process has been a stark reminder of how the nuclear industry operates without oversight, accountability, and regard for community input and Indigenous rights.
NWMO proposal comes with tremendous long-term risks
For decades, the nuclear industry has been creating vast amounts of inconceivably dangerous radioactive waste from nuclear reactors that will remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of years. Currently, there are 3.3 million spent fuel bundles in wet or dry storage at nuclear power plants in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Manitoba waiting for permanent disposal. The lack of oversight and accountability over the nuclear industry means the waste was generated with no waste solution in sight. The waste is expected to double in volume in the coming decades while the long-term management option is still a set of concepts under development.
Nuclear waste remains harmful for unimaginably long periods of time. Until the waste can be eliminated, it must be managed on a multigenerational basis. The Canadian Environmental Law Association called on Canada to “adopt a principle of ‘no abandonment’ of nuclear waste, and instead ensure that it is properly stored, overseen, stewarded, including periodic re-packaging or housing as required for safety, with knowledge transferred to future generations and adequate resources provided for its oversight and management over an indefinite and on-going time horizon.” The DGR proposal, however, is a plan to bury and abandon the waste in vaults deep inside the bedrock and forget about it.
Local organizations at the two final candidate sites, We the Nuclear Free North and Protect our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste, have raised serious concerns about the short- and long-term safety of the DGR. The NWMO has offered no valid system for monitoring the waste after the underground vaults are filled. There is also insufficient evidence that the underground vaults will stay intact and keep the radiation contained for hundreds of thousands of years, the timespan during which these materials remain radioactive. Meanwhile, the construction of the DGR and storage of nuclear waste will alter the geology of the bedrock and surrounding area. The group We the Nuclear Free North has also documented the risks of groundwater contamination, surface water contamination during repackaging at the surface, the uncertainty of storing nuclear waste in the bedrocks, and health damage from radiation exposure during transportation and repackaging, among other risks.
Is “informed and willing host” the same as consent?
While masking as a not-for-profit, the NWMO is in reality the unified voice of the transnational Canadian nuclear industry, seeking to dispose of the toxic waste that they themselves generated.
It was founded by three provincial utilities that operate nuclear power stations (Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power Corporation, and Hydro-Quebec), and the former crown corporation, Atomic Energy Canada Limited. The NWMO has repeatedly claimed that it will only proceed if there’s an “informed and willing host community,” but armed with the deep pockets of the nuclear industry (funded by utility ratepayers), the organization has been trying to actively manufacture that consent by pouring cash into small communities to engage and seek their support. An investigation from Briarpatch revealed that “from 2010 to 2013, the NWMO pumped over $471,000 into the Village of Pinehouse” in northern Saskatchewan to convince residents to explore the idea of hosting the DGR in their community. The fund was dedicated to paying salaries of local agents who were “sowing deep divisions among the local residents, who were torn between genuine, long-term environmental concerns and the promises of short-term, boom-town economic growth offered by the nuclear industry.” In 2018, NWMO invested over $300,000 in the town of Hornepayne, Ontario, a community of 980 people 400 km northwest of Sault Ste. Marie. The fund was only available to local businesses and organizations willing to entertain the proposal to host the nuclear waste storage.
We are seeing the same pattern of offering short-term funding in exchange for support for nuclear projects repeated in the last two candidate sites in South Bruce and Ignace. In 2023 alone, Ignace received $1.7 million from the NWMO for local projects and infrastructure as part of their funding agreement. Sources estimate that the NWMO has handed $10 million to the Township of Ignace to date, with millions more promised with the signing of a ‘hosting agreement”. As of March 2021, the Municipality of South Bruce had received more than $3.2 million in total from the NWMO, and in 2023 the council amended their multi-year funding agreement to receive an additional $2.8 million, more than half of the annual municipal budget. This influx of cash was framed as “goodwill money” aimed at “building a positive legacy,” but local residents are concerned about its long-term impact on the community and its role in swaying elected officials’ support for the project.
Impacted communities are excluded from the conversation
With its laser focus on finding a DGR site, the NWMO has been picking and choosing who it approaches for consultation and consent. It only engages and seeks consent from the few municipalities and First Nations immediately adjacent to the candidate sites, not those impacted by the waste downstream or along the transport route. The Revell site in Treaty 3 territory in northwestern Ontario spans the headwaters of two watersheds: the English/Wabigoon watershed and the Rainy River/Lake of the Woods watershed. Combined, these watersheds connect with Kenora’s water supply, Winnipeg’s water supply, many northern Ontario First Nations communities, and eventually Hudson Bay – and every precious lake and waterway in between. In South Bruce, the Teeswater River is a tributary of Lake Huron. The DGR would expose the entire Great Lake Basin, along with 40 million people relying on the Great Lakes for drinking water, to the threat of radiation contamination. Countless communities downstream from both candidate sites have been excluded from the NWMO’s engagement or consultation and have not been made aware of the risk.
One example of cherry-picking by the NWMO around who gets to give consent is Grassy Narrows First Nation. If the DGR is placed at the Ignace site, Grassy Narrows and other downstream communities would be directly impacted by any radiation contamination. But the NWMO did not consult the community because it did not consider them the host First Nation. Grassy Narrows members are still dealing with the health impacts of industrial mercury dumping into the English-Wabigoon River system.
Earlier this year, as part of the First Nations Land Alliance, leadership of five First Nations representing Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, Grassy Narrows, Wapekeka, Neskantaga, and Onigaming First Nations sent a letter to the NWMO saying no to the DGR. “Our Nations have not been consulted, we have not given our consent, and we stand together in saying ‘no’ to the proposed nuclear waste storage site near Ignace,” their letter said. Moving ahead without their consent violates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Article 29(2) of UNDRIP states that “no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous peoples without their free, prior, and informed consent.”
Transportation of waste is beyond risky
Both We the Nuclear Free North and Protect our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste recognize that the threat of radiation exposure isn’t limited to their own community. The radioactive waste packages will be shipped from 18 reactors in Ontario and one in New Brunswick, as well as from decommissioned reactors in Quebec and Manitoba. The deadly nature of the waste greatly complicates the logistics of transporting it over thousands of kilometres from current storage to the final disposal site.
According to the latest Transportation Plan from the NWMO, each of these daily shipments will be made in conventional tractor-trailers, escorted through some of the most densely populated areas: the 905 area east and north of Toronto and communities all along the accident-prone Trans-Canada Highway. The current waste volume will require 2-3 transport truckloads per day for 50 years. Any accidents would be catastrophic, but even routine transportation exposes residents along the transport route, workers, and other vehicle occupants to deadly gamma radiation. Residents along these routes have also not been part of NWMO’s engagement, made aware of the risks, or given a say in the process. The NWMO has also flagged the possibility of rail shipments but has provided little information about that option.
We need to raise a million voices to oppose the DGR
We are months away from a critical decision that will impact the land, water, health, and well-being of millions of residents and future generations. In South Bruce, residents will be voting in an electronic referendum to determine if they will be a willing host, a process that Protect our Waterways-No Nuclear Waste worked hard to push for. The result will only be binding if over 50% of residents in South Bruce vote in the referendum, otherwise it will be up to the South Bruce council. Residents in Ignace are also voting in a few weeks following a “willingness study,” both run by a consulting group, Chéla Inc. The firm will then write a report with the result of the vote and submit it to Ignace Township’s Willingness Ad Hoc Committee in June, which in turn will make a recommendation to Council.
The industry, hiding behind the NWMO, is charging ahead with its efforts to win social license for burying nuclear waste regardless of the tremendous risks and community opposition. Indigenous Peoples and Canadians in impacted communities must have the right to say NO to a proposal through a fair and impartial referendum.
To date, NWMO’s process has been fundamentally unfair and exceedingly partial to what the industry wants. Given the long-term health and environmental risks associated with nuclear waste, broader, more inclusive consultation must take place, one that respects the principles of free, prior, and informed consent for Indigenous communities and includes all potentially impacted communities.
With the site selection decision looming before the end of the year, Council of Canadians chapter activists and allies are coming together in solidarity with local groups and First Nations opposing the NWMO’s current plan. You can support this effort by:
- Signing this parliamentary petition: Demand that the federal government requires the NWMO to seek consent from all impacted communities before selecting its final nuclear storage site. Petition deadline is May 5, 2024. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Sign/e-4852
- If you are near the proposed site or along the transportation route, support and get involved with the two local organizations, Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste in southwestern Ontario and We the Nuclear Free North in northwestern Ontario.
- Join our solidarity network by contacting ontario-quebec@canadians.org
Vi Bui
Vi Bui is the Ontario, Quebec, Nunavut Regional Organizer at the Council of Canadians.
