While techno-optimists dream of a nuclear-powered future, Ontarians are faced with the grim reality of storing and transporting the radioactive waste industry has already created.
In 2010, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a group created by the nuclear industry in 2002 under the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, started looking for a site for a “Deep Geological Repository” (DGR) – a permanent home for Canada’s 3.3 million used nuclear fuel bundles, with room for an estimated 2.3 million more by the end of the planned operation of Canada’s existing nuclear reactors.
Knowing that Quebec and Manitoba have banned nuclear fuel waste on their territories, NWMO has been looking for a community somewhere else that would be willing to host such a facility. By 2020, the seach had been narrowed down to two sites: the Revell Site in Treaty 3 territory northwestern Ontario, 43 km from Ignace township and 21 km from the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation; and the South Bruce Site in southwestern Ontario, 5 km northwest of Teeswater in the municipality of South Bruce.
On October 28, 2024, residents of the municipality of South Bruce voted in favour of “declaring South Bruce to be a willing host” for the NWMO’s DGR, by a margin of 51.8% to 48.8%.
“Willingness” in the case of the Ignace site is on even shakier ground. On July 10, 2024, Ignace Council passed a resolution addressed to NWMO that indicates that the town is a willing host community for the DGR, following a “multi-phased community engagement programme led by a third-party engagement consultant.”
However, First Nations close to the Revell site have been clear and consistent about their opposition from the start. Treaty 3, Robinson-Superior, and Nishnawbe Aski Nation territories have declared blanket opposition to nuclear waste burial in northwestern Ontario, dating back to 2009. Former Grand Chief Diane Kelly, of the Grand Council of Treaty 3, wrote to NWMO in 2010: “The Elders had met regarding Manito Aki Inakoniaawin, our Great Earth Law for the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3 over the past 12 months and at every occasion they are clear – there will be no way to authorize the long term storage of Canada’s nuclear waste in the land that sustains us.” Despite this strong “no,” NWMO has continued test drilling at the Revell Lake site.
Every Labour Day weekend for the past five years, Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies have walked together along Highway 17 to peacefully protest the DGR proposal. In October 2022, the Grand Council Treaty 3 signed a $5.8-million “learn more” agreement with NWMO to become informed; however, the council stated in 2022 that it “does not consent or imply any consent… the Chiefs in Assembly continue to support the Elders Declaration of 2011, opposing the storage of nuclear waste in Treaty 3.” In September 2024, nine northern Ontario First Nations signed a joint letter to the head of the NWMO stating: “Our Nations have not been consulted, we have not given our consent, and we stand together in saying ‘no’ to the proposed nuclear waste storage site near Ignace.”
As We the Nuclear Free North stated in their March 2024 report to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, “No such facility has ever been operated in the world. In fact, no repository for nuclear fuel waste has ever been issued an operating license. There is a record of failed or withdrawn proposals; there is no record of operating success.”
Shallow burial
In January, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced its decision to authorize a near surface disposal facility (NSDF) on the property of Chalk River Laboratories in Deep River, Ontario, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg peoples.
The Chalk River lab is run by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), a subsidiary of the Crown corporation Atomic Energy Canada. It contributed to research that led to the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in 1952, North America’s first nuclear reactor meltdown occurred there. The lab is now used for creating medical isotopes. The facility was built on the Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River) to provide water for reactor cooling.
In early 2024, the Kebaowek First Nation launched a judicial review of CNSC’s decision to authorize the NDSF and transform 37 hectares of old forest into a facility for one million cubic tons of low-level nuclear waste, one kilometre away from the Kichi Sibi. It would operate for 50 years, but exclusion from the site would last 300 to 500 years (which, as noted by the Kebaowek in their arguments, is longer than European contact with Indigenous Nations).
RAVEN Trust notes that the case is “about much more than the NSDF … These questions will have ripple effects throughout Canadian law when answered.”
Nuclear crossing zone
Meanwhile, those in northern Ontario are keeping an eye on the nuclear waste traversing their land and communities.
In an October public hearing, Indigenous and public interest interveners presented their concerns to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is considering Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ application to renew their decommissioning license for the Whiteshell Nuclear Laboratories in Manitoba.
If the licence renewal is approved, shipments of high-level radioactive waste through northern Ontario to the Chalk River site could begin in mid-2025 (shipments of low and intermediate level radioactive waste are already ongoing). The NWMO’s Used Fuel Transportation Package has not been subject to full-scale testing, and is not yet in use anywhere else.
“We’re requesting that the Commission convene additional hearings on the transportation package, the security plans, and the emergency response. That information is either not yet available or has been withheld from the public,” commented Brennain Lloyd, project coordinator with Northwatch. “These decisions should not be downgraded to staff level within the CNSC. They should be made by the Commission, with public and Indigenous involvement.”
While the industry-financed NWMO favours burying nuclear waste deep underground, several environmental watchdogs have expressed support for “rolling stewardship” as a less-irresponsible approach. This would mean nuclear wastes are constantly monitored and retrievable, and each new generation receives the resources and information that would allow them to intervene if need be. Still – when considering new nuclear projects, we can’t lose sight of the reality that there simply is no safe option for “disposal” of wastes that will remain radioactive for millennia.
For an excellent resource on nuclear waste in Canada, see the graphic booklet “100 Thousand Years and Counting,” by Miguel Tremblay and Julien Castanié.
To learn about the history of uranium mining in Canada, see our in-depth series “On the Yellowcake Trail” by Anna Tilman.
Claire Gilmore is Watershed Sentinel‘s deputy editor.
