The appointment of an independent review panel into a proposed underground storage site for spent nuclear-fuel rods is likely several months away, but those following the project say they’re relieved a panel hearing will be part of the process.
“We would have been surprised if it wasn’t,” We the Nuclear Free North member Brennain Lloyd said on Friday.
“For a project of this size, it would have been unthinkable not to go for a full hearing,” Lloyd added.
“But we are very pleased to see it (go to a hearing).”
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada confirmed last week that the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed deep geological repository (DGR) near Ignace would be subject to a panel hearing.
In making the announcement, the agency said it’s “satisfied that the carrying out of the designated project may cause adverse effects within federal jurisdiction or direct or incidental adverse effects, including effects on the environment or to health, social or economic conditions.”
Exactly when the hearing will take place isn’t yet clear, but the process for appointing panel members can begin after the project’s 180-day planning stage, which began on Jan. 5.
“Once the planning phase is complete, the process will move into the impact statement phase (when) the review panel’s terms of reference will be established, and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (will appoint the review panel members,” an agency spokeswoman said in an email.
Once it’s been appointed, the panel has to receive a terms of reference document. The assessment agency, as well as the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, then have to confirm “that all the required information and studies have been received from the (deep geological repository) proponent.”
After that, the panel can set dates for a hearing.
An independent panel could recommend the deep geological repository project go forward with several conditions attached, as a previous panel did when recommending a palladium-copper mine project near Marathon.
Currently, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has been responding to comments by the public and First Nations that were made on the deep geological repository’s initial project description document for the proposed storage site.
If the deep geological repository is approved, it would bury in a controlled environment nearly six million spent nuclear-fuel rod bundles from the country’s nuclear power plants over several decades.
“The project is expected to span approximately 160 years, encompassing site preparation, construction, operation and closure monitoring,” the impact assessment agency says in a backgrounder.
The site is expected to take 20 years to build before it would be ready to receive and store fuel rods.
Fuel rods, which would remain radioactive during transport, could be trucked or railed to the storage site in specialized containers designed to withstand hard impacts and fire in the event of a crash, the NWMO has said.
