IGNACE — The transportation of nuclear waste hundreds and thousands of kilometres to a proposed burial site is not covered in the project’s first formal public description.
Environmental advocates and those opposed to the deep geological repository, or DGR, being planned in the Ignace area say they want to see that changed.
“Transportation is a necessary component of the project, because without making that a component, the DGR cannot function,” said Dodie LeGassick, the nuclear lead for Environment North. The non-governmental organization is a member of We the Nuclear Free North — an alliance of people and organizations opposed to storing spent nuclear fuel at a site between Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation.
“It is a part of the project.”
On Monday, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada publicly released the initial project description for the deep geological repository submitted by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). It officially kicked off the years-long process to determine whether the planned multi-billion-dollar facility gets the go-ahead from federal regulators.
The public has until 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 4 to submit comments to the federal assessment agency. Those comments will form a summary of issues that will be sent back to the NWMO about 10 days after the close of the comment period, the impact assessment agency told Newswatch.
That summary will “help shape how the overall integrated assessment will be carried out,” it added in a media release.
“That is something that members of our group and members of the public are free to comment on,” Wendy O’Connor, a volunteer and spokesperson with We the Nuclear Free North, said of criticizing the project’s scope as it has been presented for assessment.
“And say, if this is how they feel, that yes, transportation should be included in (the impact assessment).”
The NWMO told Newswatch transportation of the estimated 5.9 million bundles of used fuel by road and rail over a projected half-century period is already covered by existing rules, and isn’t required to be in the initial project description.
In the project description documents, the nuclear waste organization says “transportation of nuclear and non-nuclear materials within existing highways and railways is independently regulated and ongoing, does not require changes to current infrastructure or regulations and would continue regardless of the project’s implementation.”
Fort William First Nation Chief Michele Solomon told Newswatch she “firmly” disagrees with excluding transportation from impact assessment, and the First Nation’s submissions to the assessment agency will reflect that.
LeGassick said there needs to be more study around broader transportation corridor issues and the hauling of the expected amount of waste, like the proximity of highways and rail lines to high-density populations, existing highway intersections, the impact of increasing transport truck traffic (and larger trains) — and what even more of them containing the radioactive cargo will mean for existing infrastructure over the long term, and emergency preparedness along the corridors.
Closer to the Lakehead, LeGassick said rail lines run near sensitive areas like Thunder Bay’s marina park and nearby marshlands and that, overall, there’s too high a risk for a major catastrophe.
“The risk, the consequences of an accident get greater and greater,” she said of the projected increased nuclear load on highways and rail lines, should the project go through.
“The main thing is to include transportation within the scope of the project,” she added.
“Activities related to the project within broader transportation networks remain outside the project’s scope,” the NWMO’s project description says.
In its filed documentation with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the waste management organization says containers that will hold the nuclear materials are “robust” and designed to withstand expected accident conditions without containment breaches or dangerous radiation levels, and that there’s a lot of existing technical data and history internationally of transporting used nuclear fuel.
Overall, the NWMO has consistently said the project is safe.
LeGassick and those opposed to the project aren’t convinced.
The anti-nuclear waste advocates are also calling on the City of Thunder Bay to participate in the comment period.
“In particular, we would expect our city council and administration to support our position that the scope of the regulatory review must encompass the risks associated with transportation along the whole transportation route,” Environment North board member Mary Veltri was quoted saying in a media release.
