PHOENIX, Ariz. – Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG) hopes the government will in 2021 approve construction of a deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from three nuclear power plants in the province.
Approval for the controversial project would first be predicated on support 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 SON that includes 20 local meetings, Lise Morton, OPG 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.”
Speaking to RadWaste Monitor, 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 less than 1 mile from Lake Huron in the municipality of Kincardine for permanent disposal of 200,000 cubic meters of waste from that facility and the Darlington and Picking sites.
That waste – contaminated materials such as clothing, protective gear, and cleaning supplies – is now held above-ground at OPG’s Western Waste Management Facility at Bruce. Spent reactor fuel from the plants would not go into the facility, but rather a separate repository being planned by Canada’s utility-owned Nuclear Waste Management Organization.
The regulatory process for licensing began in 2005. After a federally established Joint Review Panel in 2015 issued a report supporting OPG’s plan, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna has twice asked for further study.
The first request directed OPG to evaluate alternative locations for the repository. The utility said in 2017 it found that other options would add up to $3.5 billion (CAN) to the projected $2.4 billion price tag and decades to the timeline.
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.
A community vote by SON is anticipated this year, an Ontario Power Generation spokesperson said Thursday. If it is affirmative, the utility would expect to submit the analysis to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) in mid-2020.
“The CEAA would then draft a report to the Minister, with a recommendation on the Environmental Assessment and any conditions,” the spokesperson said by email. “Following a public review of the CEAA report, a final report would go to the Minister, who would then make a determination on the EA and set the conditions. It is reasonable to expect this would occur … by 2021.”
Morton noted that the minister at that point might be someone other than McKenna, depending on the outcome of Canada’s federal elections in October. But that does not change the approval process, she said.
With assent from the environment and climate change minister, OPG would go to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for a site preparation and construction license. This process, including public hearings, generally would wrap up within 90 days of approval of the environmental assessment, the spokesperson said.
Final design and construction of the repository would take five to seven years. Once the facility was built, OPG would need an operations license from the Nuclear Safety Commission.
The OPG approach has raised alarms on both sides of the border given the proximity of the planned repository to one of the Great Lakes – sources of water for millions of Americans. In the United States, members of Congress from Michigan have been particularly vocal.
While they have no direct influence over the process, U.S. lawmakers have tried several means to pressure the Canadian government to reject the plan. In 2017, a bipartisan group of 32 lawmakers signed a letter asking then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to use his office to persuade Ottawa to reject the Bruce location.
Morton emphasized what she called the “safety case” for the repository, which would be 1,400 feet below the bottom of Lake Huron.
“Our DGR is often described as being next to Lake Huron, even sometimes as being in Lake Huron, and very often characterized as being too close to Lake Huron,” she said. “What separates the repository from the lake is 34 layers of some of the best rock n the world.”
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article cited an incorrect figure for the estimated cost of a proposed deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level waste in Ontario, Canada. Ontario Power Generation’s projected life-cycle cost for the facility is $2.4 billion (CAN).
