Time to clean up OPG’s flawed nuclear waste plan
Corporation’s recommendations for alternate burial sites follow questionable methodology
“We do believe we have met the minister’s expectations,” an Ontario Power Generation spokesperson told the Star in January. And . . . no. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency respectfully — and rightfully — disagrees that OPG did its job to the fullest when it tabled, in December, its report on alternate locations for the burial of low and intermediate nuclear waste.
Those who have followed the trail of the so-called deep geologic repository (DGR) thus far know that OPG has been firm in its insistence that the burial site would be best placed at Bruce Nuclear in the municipality of Kincardine, Ont.
Readers may recall the simple stats: A shaft will be sunk 680 metres deep. The storage vault will house a range of waste, from cleaning mops on the low end, by which I mean a short radioactive life, to ion exchange resins on the high end.
We’re talking steam generators, pressure tubes, end fittings.
The quantum of waste: potentially 200,000 cubic metres from the Bruce, Darlington and Pickering sites. The crypt will be dug 1.2 kilometres from the shore of Lake Huron.
The questions for OPG in its advocacy for the Bruce site have always been these: Is it the right rock? And is it the right place?
The proximity to the Great Lakes has drawn loud protest from both sides of the border in defiance of OPG’s own claim that the issue has not generated “large volumes of curiosity.”
On Thursday, Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee again made his opposition to the project known, tweeting that “there is a growing opposition to Canada burying nuclear waste so close to the #GreatLakes, Your voices are being heard.”
Kildee represents Michigan’s Flint Township, where the water crisis has kept tainted drinking water top of mind.
OPG has repeatedly argued that the opposition to the Bruce DGR has no technical merit, that the host rock is virtually impermeable, that the science is sound.
Currently, the waste is stored on surface at the Bruce. One could argue there’s no crushing rush here, but OPG makes the credible assertion that it would be irresponsible to keep kicking the issue down the road to be dealt with by future generations.
Yet the mega-company’s approach has always had the taint of weknow-best, even arrogance, an attitude that came through again in its December report. That report was supposed to be a study, requested by the federal minister of environment and climate change, detailing the “environmental effects of technically and economically feasible alternate locations for the Project.”
OPG came up with two alternate locations, which strained any reasonable person’s understanding as to how a “location” might be best defined. Plotting the GPS co-ordinates of the “crystalline” location, by example, creates a roughly 730,000square-kilometre land mass covering three-quarters of the province.
In its response, issued Wednesday, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency concludes that OPG has taken a “regional approach” in evaluating potential alternates, an approach that encompasses a “range of environmental conditions.” The agency is at pains to understand the methodology. Without that understanding, how can it possibly validate OPG’s conclusions?
Here’s a statement that jumped out: “The Agency notes that OPG does not use consistent terminology when characterizing potential adverse environmental effects or a consistent approach when determining if a potential residual adverse environmental effect is likely to be significant.”
What does it say about OPG when the federal government has to tell the company to use a systematic approach in its work?
OPG’s report emphasized radiological risk from transporting waste to a different, more northern site. Yet, the Agency points out, this was adapted from a U.S. survey. How, the Agency asks, have those doses been scaled to waste shipments for the DGR? The request for additional information runs to 15 pages.
Some of those clarifications could result in an even less favourable assessment of potential non-Bruce sites. Air quality impacts from excavation in a crystalline location, for example.
In a significant way, this is a mess of the environmental assessment agency’s own making. When Environment Minister Catherine Mc- Kenna initially requested a study on alternative sites to the Bruce, she asked for “specific reference to actual locations.” Bending to the OPG’s preference for a more generalized approach, the agency allowed that a “narrative assessment” of alternate locations would be good enough. That was a mistake. So now what? Each time I write about this topic I hear the reader’s rustle of newsprint, or the click of a mouse. But this is a multigenerational problem. We have to get it right. And we’re not even talking about the disposal of the spent nuclear fuel. What will be the accepted long-term plan for that?
In December, a 243-day decision statement extension was granted. In rendering her decision, the environment minister will have to convince us that there was no other site in the province better than Bruce. As it stands, a decade after this environmental process started, she won’t be able to state that with any degree of certainty. jenwells@thestar.ca