DRYDEN — The organization responsible for managing Canada’s spent nuclear fuel says it has no plans to co-locate two different types of waste at the deep geological repository near Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation.
But the door may not be permanently closed on the idea.
The NWMO presented an update to Dryden city council earlier in September on the ongoing regulatory process it hopes will grant the necessary approvals to start construction of the underground storage and management facility in the Revell Lake area between Ignace and Wabigoon Lake. Should federal regulators greenlight the project, the industry-funded and government-mandated not-for-profit said it expects work on the site to begin in 2030.
The DGR is slated to accept nuclear waste deemed “high level” — spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
While taking questions from Dryden city councillors and administration, Joe Heil, the NWMO’s vice-president of Indigenous and municipal relations and transportation, was asked by Roger Nesbitt, the city’s chief administrative officer, whether the site near Revell Lake would also accept intermediate-level waste, or whether the NWMO has “ruled that out.”
Waste deemed “intermediate level” generally includes some radioactive materials from refurbishments, such as old components, some resins and radioactive sources used in radiation therapy.
“For now, it’s ruled out, I would say, at this point in time,” Heil said in response to Nesbitt’s question.
“Co-location is not part of what we’re thinking about at this point in time, given the desires of our host communities.”
“That doesn’t sound like a definitive ‘no never,’ it sounds a little open-ended,” Nesbitt responded.
“I’m not going to disagree with you,” Heil said.
Laurie Swami, the president of the waste management organization, told reporters in Thunder Bay, when asked whether the NWMO eventually wants to co-locate intermediate and high-level waste at Revell Lake, that “we have no decisions on that.”
Swami pointed to another project the organization is undertaking — a second proposed deep geological repository that would be designed to store intermediate and some high-level waste that doesn’t come from power plants’ spent fuel.
“What we’ve taken on is an additional mandate for the disposal of high-level waste from non-fuel sources as well as intermediate-level waste, and so we’re in the process of establishing a siting process that we’re working with Canadians and Indigenous peoples to develop,” she said.
“In the next number of years — three to five years — we’ll be launching that process and we’ll see what communities come forward and what the outcome of that will look like,” Swami continued.
It’s “very too early to say” whether intermediate and high-level waste would co-exist at the Ignace-area DGR “at any time,” she concluded.
At Dryden city hall, Heil told councillors he expects the site selection process to follow a similar path to the one that landed the Ignace-Wabigoon Lake site.
“I suspect it’s going to be similar to what we did with this process, where it is a willing host concept where we’re looking for communities — and I’ll put an ‘s’ on that — communities, to put their hand up,” he said.
“One thing, even the lessons learned now, is that we probably would want both a municipal and a district community to put their hand up at the end of the day,” Heil continued.
“But we haven’t determined that fully, but that’s one of the things that may be a criteria going forward with respect to the process.”
-With files from Clint Fleury
