Wawa-news.com You can't hear the 'big picture'!
Plans by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to truck nuclear waste across Northern Ontario are outlined in postcards from We the Nuclear Free North that are landing in the mailboxes of residents from Wabigoon to Temagami this week. The postcards alert residents to the potential routes and the hazards of transporting an estimated 100,000 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste using highways that would traverse Northern Ontario for a period of 45 years or more.
The plan for transport and burial is being promoted by the NWMO, a consortium of companies that operate nuclear power reactors in Canada. One of two potential sites is between Ignace and Dryden, in the heart of Treaty 3 territory, where the industry proposes to bury the radioactive wastes in a series of chambers to be constructed approximately 500 metres below the surface. The plan and design of the surface and sub-surface facilities and the transportation containers are all still under development, but the NWMO has said it intends to choose the site in 2023.
The NWMO has studied several potential locations over the last decade, but in 2021 announced that it was shortlisting to just two potential sites, one in Teeswater within the municipality of South Bruce in Southwestern Ontario, and the other in an area between Ignace and Dryden in Northwestern Ontario.
The NWMO asserts that it will only proceed with an ‘informed and willing host” but in the case of the candidate site in Northwestern Ontario, the NWMO identifies the Township of Ignace as the “host” community, despite the potential site being more than 40 kilometres outside the Ignace municipal boundaries.
“Not only is Ignace a long way away from the site – there are several small communities that are much closer – but Ignace’s council has decided that the Council itself will make the decision on whether to proceed, on whether Ignace is ‘willing’. There will not be a vote or plebiscite, even for residents of Ignace,” explained Wendy O’Connor, a volunteer with We the Nuclear Free North.
“This is not an issue for one community and certainly not for one corporation – it is an issue for the entire region, including those downstream and those along the transportation route”, commented Dodie LeGassick, a spokesperson for Environment North.
“We’re very concerned about the exposure of residents along the transportation route, particularly if there was an accident. Ignace should not get to decide whether 22,000 trucks hauling radioactive waste are driven through Nipigon, and through Shuniah Township (just east of Thunder Bay), and all of the many other communities along the route. It is thousands of kilometres from the reactor sites to the DGR candidate site between Ignace and Dryden, and the residents and communities along the way will bear the transportation risks.”
Brennain Lloyd, with the Northeastern Ontario-based coalition Northwatch, points out that the NWMO’s plans are still in the “concept” stage, with three different transportation containers included in the plan, none of which have been subject to actual testing and one still in the concept stage.
“The NWMO and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission like to describe the different tests and standards that transportation containers are subject to, but they gloss over that these particular containers have not been subjected to full-scale actual real-world testing. We have asked for the documentation to support their generalized claims, and the CNSC replied that it would take eight months to find the reports. We’re still waiting.”
We the Nuclear Free North will be hosting a webinar on transportation risks on Tuesday, June 7th at 7 pm Eastern.
The Revell Lake area is being studied as the potential site for a deep geological repository for all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste, which is the irradiated fuel waste from reactors in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. The irradiated fuel waste is one million times more radioactive than the original uranium used as fuel, and some of the hundreds of different radioactive isotopes contained in the fuel will remain radioactive for millions of years. Even a low level of exposure to radioactive materials can be harmful to human health.
The group points out on their website (WeTheNuclearFreeNorth.ca) that there is no other operating deep geological repository for high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world. The web site provides information about technical and scientific uncertainties surrounding the controversial concept, including transportation risks related to low levels of gamma radiation that the transport containers will emit, and the risks of transportation accidents.
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The selection of a site for the deep geologic disposal of used nuclear fuel is a significant issue and it is important that people are made aware of the Nuclear Waste Management Organizations (NWMO) program. Indeed, the NWMO has been working very hard on developing that awareness. The Canadian Nuclear Society (CNS) wishes to share some additional information with your readers so that they are not misled by omissions in this media release by a collaboration of groups who are opposed to the project.
It is true that used nuclear fuel, when removed from the reactor is highly radioactive. It is also true that it contains materials that remain radioactive for a long time. But it is the short-lived materials that give rise to the high levels of radioactivity, and they disappear relatively quickly leaving materials that are not very radioactive. The rock in which the repository will be built contains similar long-lived radioactive materials. But, shielding of the used fuel will prevent anyone being subject to the radiation, so the radioactivity level is not relevant anyway. A more relevant point is that in decades of experience no one in the civil nuclear industry has been harmed by the radiation from used nuclear fuel.
It is also true that you can describe used fuel as “waste” but it is not what you or I would picture as waste. Instead, it is sealed metal rods neatly assembled into a hexagonal bundle. That bundle is itself neatly stacked into a package custom designed for transportation. An appropriate picture would be one of a delivery of a high quality very valuable product than the moving of trash. These solid rods of used fuel will not “spill’ out of a container like the waste we might have in our imagination, even in an accident where a package is seriously damaged.
The article points to the fact that “The NWMO and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) like to describe the different tests and standards that transportation containers are subject to, but they gloss over that these particular containers have not been subjected to full-scale actual real-world testing”. However, the press release itself “glosses over” the important fact that the CNSC, when it independently reviews the safety of the packages, will use data from the real world tests that have taken place on similar containers, including one that famously saw a locomotive crashing into a package at full speed as well as decades of experience that has been developed elsewhere in the world with actual routine shipments by rail, road and sea of similar used fuel in similar packages.
Finally, while there is no long-term operating experience of a nuclear repository as yet, they are internationally accepted as best practice, have been built in a number of countries with still more planning to build them and are already in operation.
In taking a view on this subject people should also consider the fact that this used fuel has been used to avoid the production of vast quantities of Green House Gas and has prevented many thousands of deaths from air pollution. Some of it was even used to produce the medical isotopes that are used in millions of procedures every year to identify and cure disease. Disposing of used fuel deep underground will entirely remove it from that part of the planet where life exists so that in addition to all the good it has done it will make no noticeable impact on our environment.
We encourage readers to investigate this situation further before coming to their own conclusions.
The Canadian Nuclear Society is an independent Not-for-Profit organization of scientists, engineers and researchers with a mandate to provide factual information on nuclear issues. Further information on nuclear issues can be found on our website Canadian Nuclear Society – CNS – (cns-snc.ca).
Neil Alexander
Communications Director, Canadian Nuclear Society