Public ‘stepped up’ on nuclear waste plan
By Carl Clutchey, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: The Chronicle-Journal
Citizens groups opposed to a proposed underground storage site for spent nuclear-fuel rods near Ignace say they’re heartened by the level of push-back against the project.
A federal agency reviewing the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposal received more than 600 comments when the project’s initial project description was put out for feedback over a 30-day period that ended on Feb. 4.
“The public stepped up and did their job and did it very well,” Northwatch co-ordinator Brennain Lloyd commented in a news release this week.
Most of the comments to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada were negative, but a few were supportive, including a letter from Ontario Power Generation, which operates nuclear power plants in the province.
A spokesman for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) said “the number of submissions and comments shows that the (review) process is working as intended.”
“We look forward to receiving and responding to the summary of issues when we receive it later this month.”
Lloyd said the assessment agency has “a mountain of work to do” ensuring its summary of issues “actually reflects what they have heard.”
Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Treaty 3 were among the Indigenous groups expressing concerns about the underground storage site project.
A long-standing sticking point has been how the nuclear fuel rods — which remain radioactive after use — will be transported to the proposed storage site, formally called a deep geological repository (DGR).
Used fuel rods are currently stored at nuclear power plants; environmental groups say that practice should continue.
Opponents of the deep geological repository project were dismayed when the transportation issue wasn’t included in the NWMO’s initial project description, but the impact assessment agency later said transportation could still be part of the review process at some point.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has said fuel rods could be railed or trucked in specialized containers designed to withstand hard impacts and fiery crashes.
Some Indigenous and municipal leaders in the Thunder Bay district have also expressed concerns over how the rods may be transported, given the high number of serious road crashes in the region involving heavy trucks.
