PHOENIX, Ariz. – Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation hopes the government will in 2021 approve its plans for a deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from three nuclear power plants in the province.
Approval from the Canadian minister of environment and climate change, though, would first be predicated on support for the project from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), on whose traditional territory the facility would be built. Ontario Power Generation is now conducting an extended engagement with the SON that includes 20 local meetings, Lise Morton, vice president for nuclear waste management, said during a panel discussion at the 2019 Waste Management Symposia.
“That really is meeting with members of the community, trying to provide answers to their questions, give them as much information as we can so that they can each make an informed decision,” Morton said. While OPG hopes for a decision from SON this year, “there’s a bit of variability in that and we are very much taking the direction from the community.”
Assuming government approval, it would still be 10 to 15 years before ground is broken on the project, Morton said. Speaking to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, she acknowledged Ontario Power Generation at the beginning of the process had hoped the project would be officially underway by last year.
Ontario Power Generation plans to build a repository 680 meters underground at its Bruce power plant near Lake Huron in Kincardine for permanent disposal of 200,000 cubic meters of waste from that facility and the Darlington and Picking sites. The regulatory process for licensing began in 2005. After a Joint Review Panel in 2015 issued a report supporting OPG’s plan, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna has twice asked for more information before ruling on the matter.
The second request, submitted in 2017, called for an “analysis of potential cumulative effects of the DGR Project on physical and cultural heritage” in the region through the continuing engagement with the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.
The OPG approach has proven controversial given the proximity of the planned repository to one of the Great Lake.
