Chalk River proposes waste plan

Radioactive waste has been in temporary storage at Chalk River since the mid-1900s, and now there’s a proposal to bury it in a huge mound similar to a garbage dump.

The Near Surface Disposal Facility would operate from 2020 until about 2070. It would be a mound 18 metres high, covering 16 hectares and designed to last 500 years.

It would contain up to a million cubic metres — mostly low-level radioactive waste such as building rubble from demolition, and soil, as well as used protective clothing, mop heads and air filters. But about one per cent of the total could be medium-level waste.

The site would be between one and two kilometres from the river, near the boundary where Chalk River meets Garrison Petawawa. The design calls for a watertight “cap” on top and liners to prevent water from washing through the waste into the ground. Water leaching out would be treated.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, formerly the Chalk River Labs, has set out details in a lengthy environmental impact statement. The public can comment until May 17.

“Some of this is stored (now) and it is safe,” CNL spokesman Pat Quinn said. “But a lot of the material we’re talking about ... is demolition debris” from buildings to be decommissioned and knocked down. “So that really isn’t stored; it’s standing there. If you leave it to the elements, that really isn’t a responsible thing to do.”

Some of the neighbours are organizing opposition.

Johanna Echlin of the Old Fort William Cottagers’ Association says some of the waste will stay radioactive far longer than the life of the dump.

Sooner or later, she says, radioactive contamination is going to escape into the environment.

Meredith Brown, the Ottawa Riverkeeper, says she is “painfully aware” that keeping waste forever in temporary storage is the worst solution. But she has some criticism of the proposed dump.

She opposes the plan to import about 10 per cent of the waste from other nuclear facilities, including the Whiteshell lab in Manitoba, which is being decommissioned.

“I really believe in treating your waste locally as much as possible,” she said.

Her group has hired experts to review the 900-page environmental impact statement. Her early impression: “This is going to be an engineered dump. The problem is this is kind of unknown territory.”

The technology has been used for “maybe 40 or 50 years. We don’t know how those are going to stand the test of time for thousands of years.”

The site has fractured rock that will allow any spillage to run underground to the Ottawa River, she said, “so that’s a concern . ... What’s going to get in there, and what’s going to be the effect on aquatic health, on human health?”

CNL’s website says it is using a reliable technology: “Near surface disposal technology has been in use for decades, applied in both the nuclear industry and elsewhere, such as municipal landfills. The technology is mature and well understood. Performance for this engineered solution is sound.”

It says close neighbours of the plant would be exposed to less than 0.01 per cent of the radiation set as the acceptable limit in federal rules governing Chalk River.

A lot of the material we’re talking about ... is demolition debris. ... If you leave it to the elements, that really isn’t a responsible thing to do.