An Ontario farm town will vote in October on whether to become Canada's largest nuclear dump
A bucolic Ontario farm community will go to the polls in October in an his‐ toric online vote that will decide whether their quiet rural town will be trans‐ formed by a multibilliondollar project that will give Canada a permanent tomb for millions of bundles of used highly radioactive nu‐ clear fuel.
The search for a place to put them stretches back decades - one that has now zeroed-in on just two Ontario communities: Ignace (246 kilometres northwest of Thunderbay) and the farming town of Teeswater (170 kilo‐ metres north of London), part of the Municipality of South Bruce.
On Wednesday, town offi‐ cials in South Bruce pub‐ lished the terms of the deal for voters in the town to de‐ cide in an online referendum that will take place Oct. 28.
If voters say "yes" to bury‐ ing tens of thousands of tonnes of used CANDU reac‐ tor fuel deep below their community of 5,880, the town will get hundreds of high-paying jobs and $418 million in subsidies from Canada's nuclear industry over the course of the 138year project.
If voters say "no," the town still walks away with $8 million.
Debate has deep ruptures
For the town, the October vote is the culmination of a 12-year debate that has left deep ruptures in the commu‐ nity between those who see welcoming radioactive waste as a new kind of prosperity and those who see it as noth‐ ing but a potential danger.
Except, when it comes to storing nuclear waste, there's a broad scientific consensus. The kind of nuclear dump of‐ ficials have proposed in South Bruce is the best possi‐ ble solution to the tricky problem of what to do with radioactive waste.
The Nuclear Waste Man‐ agement Organization (NWMO) has proposed build‐ ing a deep geologic reposi‐ tory - a 600-metre deep tomb - that would see highly ra‐ dioactive material contained behind multiple barriers, in‐ cluding copper casks, ben‐ tonite clay, layers of concrete and finally the geology itself to keep the waste sealed away for eternity.
"We know that system of protection does work and the created challenges are not likely to ever occur that deep under‐ ground," said John Luxat, an engineering professor at Mc‐ Master University, who holds the senior industrial research chair in nuclear safety analysis.
"If you want to keep the fuel safe and these these canisters from corroding be‐ cause of environmental im‐ pact, the best way is to put it somewhere where you are below the water table."
The 600-metre deep vault is nearly three times the 229metre depth of nearby Lake Huron, far away from water. If penetrated, the layers of concrete and clay surround‐ ing the waste can cause the copper casks that contain it to rust.
"You need to keep it away from air and water," Luxat said, adding the vault is "for all intents and purposes meant to store the waste for‐ ever."
Once construction of the facility is completed, the NWMO has said some 30,000 shipments of nuclear waste would begin moving from eight interim storage facilities from Manitoba to New Brunswick to the Ontario dump site through some of Canada's most densely-popu‐ lated areas.
Even then, Luxat said, the risk is minimal, noting the transportation of spent nu‐ clear fuel already happens regularly.
Once nuclear fuel is spent, the rods are moved to cooling ponds where the rest for approximately 10 years. After that, they are taken to temporary holding facilities where they are in either shal‐ low pits or above-ground in dense concrete bunkers.
Luxat noted that when nuclear waste is moved any‐ where, it's packaged and sealed inside a specially-de‐ signed container that can withstand collisions from large vehicles, such as trains or being dropped from great heights.
"They've been doing this transporting the spent fuel to temporary sites for decades now and there's never been a dangerous event."
Luxat said Canada's nucle‐ ar waste, in some cases, has been sitting in temporary storage for 80 years and the risk of finding a permanent place to entomb it is far greater than leaving it where it is.
"It would be a significant increase in risk because they would be potentially exposed to much higher levels of moisture," he said, noting both Teeswater and Ignace were chosen because of the "low probability of seismic damage to the rocks."
Now that the terms have been made public and a date has been set for a referen‐ dum, all that's left is the vote.
In order to make the nu‐ clear dump a reality, the nu‐ clear industry still needs buyin from the nearby Saugeen First Nation, which has yet to make decision on the project.
When reached by CBC News Wednesday, Chief Con‐ rad Ritchie said he wouldn't comment until Saugeen's band council had a chance to meet with representatives from nearby Ojibway of the Nawash First Nation on the Bruce Peninsula later this week.