The Township of Ignace last week formally told the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization that it is a willing host community for a nuclear waste repository for which the agency planned to select a site this year.
The township in Ontario, the province where Canada is considering building the repository, announced the decision in a July 10 press release, which followed unanimous passage by the seven-member town council of a resolution designating Ignace as a willing host site.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has not yet selected a host community.
Ignace is roughly 280 miles East by road from Winnipeg, in the neighboring province of Manitoba, some 440 miles north by road from Duluth, Minn., and about 135 miles miles as the loon flies from the northern shores of Lake Superior.
Ignace is one of two potential Ontario host communities for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s planned deep geologic repository for intermediate-level and non-fuel, high-level radioactive waste. The other is South Bruce, near the shores of Lake Huron, about 110 miles from Toronto.
South Bruce has not yet given consent to be a host community. The municipality has put the issue to its residents, who during a by-election on Oct. 28 will vote on a ballot question that would, if approved, give consent.
Ignace employed a consultant to gather community feedback about whether to give consent. The consultant sought opinions from residents over four days and distilled its findings into a study that was later presented to the Ignace council.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden (D) last week signed legislation that would, among many other things, increase official U.S. scrutiny of nuclear-waste disposal in the Great Lakes region.