Law confirming Canadian municipality’s candidacy for geologic repository goes into effect

Forgoing a recount, a Canadian municipality on Tuesday formally acknowledged its citizens’ vote to become a potential host site for a permanent radioactive waste repository.

The governing council of South Bruce, Ontario, Canada, accepted the results in a special meeting, according to a municipal news release. In late October, 51% of South Bruce voters approved the municipality’s candidacy to be the host of a deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel planned by Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

Sixty-nine percent of eligible voters turned out for the referendum, handlily eclipsing the 50% margin needed under Canadian law for the vote to become binding. The Canadian news site windsortoday.com reported that a recount, demanded by some South Bruce voters because of the 78-vote margin, was possible but unlikely.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization will now pay South Bruce C$4 million, or about $2.87 million, for confirming its candidacy, the municipality said in its Tuesday release.

Lise Morton, vice president of site selection for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, was on hand for the South Bruce council’s Tuesday evening meeting, the organization wrote in its own press release.

South Bruce is a little more than 100 miles from Toronto, near Lake Huron. The municipality is one of two potential host sites for a deep geologic repository to be built by Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization. The other is the Township of Ignace, roughly 135 miles as the goose flies from the northwestern shore of Lake Superior.

Nations of indigenous people that neighbor South Bruce and Ignace must also consent to construction of a repository, under the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s site selection process.

In the U.S., the ADVANCE Act, signed into law in July, increases official U.S. scrutiny of any nuclear-waste disposal in the Great Lakes region.

Meanwhile, an environmental group in Canada said the result in South Bruce should be scrutinized.

“Such a closely divided vote clearly indicates substantial differences within our community,” Bill Noll of the South Bruce-based Protect Our Waterways group, wrote in a press release. “We are disappointed that local leaders did not take the time to develop their plan on how to generate unity within the community with an open dialogue before making this forever decision.”

Noll said the decision to be a willing host “needs to be challenged.”

Protect Our Waterways is “a concerned group of South Bruce citizens,” according to its website.