Nipigon Withdraws from Nuclear Waste Burial Study
The municipal council passed a resolution at its meeting Monday, June 16, 2014, stating that “the Township of Nipigon believes it has sufficient information to make an informed decision about continued involvement in the site selection process as a potential host community” and requesting that it “that it no longer be considered in the site selection process as a potential host community”.
Nipigon Mayor Richard Harvey had requested an interim report from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization last month, part way through the first stage of a preliminary study which the NWMO conducts in Step 3 of its nine step study of communities who have agreed to be studied as possible “hosts” for a series of underground caverns in which all of Canada’s high level nuclear fuel waste would be stored and eventually abandoned.
The interim reports, one focussed on geology and the other on social considerations, identified uncertainties about Nipigon’s ability to meet siting criteria. [FROM ONN EDITOR: CLICK HERE to view PDF of letter to Mayor Richard Harvey regarding interim reports from NWMO website] In addition to “substantial geological uncertainties in the Nipigon area that reduce the likelihood of identifying sites that will satisfy the NWMO’s geoscientific site evaluation factors” the reports also points to “vocal concern and opposition by some individuals and more formal opposition by some organizations” and notes the establishment of the group “Citizens Against Nuclear Waste in Nipigon” earlier this year.
“We’re very pleased with the decision of Council”, said Rob Swainson, a spokesperson for Citizens Against Nuclear Waste in Nipigon. The people of Nipigon made it very clear to Council that they were overwhelmingly opposed to continuing in the process.”
“It’s time for Nipigon to focus on positive initiatives that align with the aspirations of the community. ”
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is an association of the three provincial utilities who generate high level nuclear waste through the use of nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Ontario Power Generation has majority control, and owns more than 90% of the waste. Internationally, there is no precedent for deep burial of high level nuclear waste, although several countries have explored the idea, including the U.S.A., where the controversial Yucca Mountain project was cancelled by President Obama during his first term of office.
“This notion of placing a hundred thousand tonnes of high level nuclear waste deep below the surface is technically unproven and scientifically unsound”, said Brennain Lloyd, project coordinator with Northwatch.
“Not even the nuclear industry claims that the containers will remain intact for the hundreds of thousands of years – even millions in some cases – that these wastes will remain radioactive. It’s not the future we want for northern Ontario.”
Northwatch is a Northern Ontario based environmental coalition that has been working on the issue of safe management of nuclear waste for more than 25 years.
The Northern Ontario municipalities of Ignace, Schreiber, Manitouwadge, Hornepayne, White River, Blind River, Township of the North Shore, Spanish and Elliot Lake remain in the NWMO siting process, along with three communities near the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in southwestern Ontario and one community in Northern Saskatchewan. Nipigon is the eighth municipality to be removed from the NWMO process.
