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Environment and Climate ChangeNukes in the Bruce
Will SW Ontario be the nuclear dumpsite for Canada?
At the beginning of everything, the Navajo were shown two yellow powders. One they could use—it was maize pollen. The other they were told to leave in the ground. That was oxidized uranium.
No one talks of “clean” nuclear energy anymore, not when you consider the whole fuel cycle.
Early mining in the NWT rendered Deline a “village of widows” because of the high mortality rate of Dene men who worked, unwarned and unprotected in the uranium mines.
The same thing happened to Navajo in the southwest US. Their ancient lands have been devastated by uranium mines, turning their creation story into apocalyptic prophecy.
Contamination during the operation of a nuclear plant is a constant concern. And the spent fuel from the core of a nuclear reactor is high level nuclear waste. It takes a million years (give or take a few millennia) before it’s safe to stand beside.
So why do four municipalities in southwestern Ontario want to be the nuclear waste capital of Canada?
18 communities are being considered by NWMO to host an underground repository for high-level nuclear waste (used fuel) from all the reactors in Canada.
Fourteen other communities—11 in northern Ontario and 3 in Saskatchewan are also in the running. But Brockton (Walkerton), Saugeen Shores, Huron-Kinloss and Central Huron are all inside a 4-hour drive from London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, Toronto and the US border. One community in the same area, Kincardine, has already agreed to take Canada’s low and intermediate level waste.
Brockton, Saugeen Shores, Huron-Kinloss and Central Huron are vying for high level waste bill themselves as tourist destinations, none more so than Saugeen Shores.
For Larry Allison, the CAO of Saugeen Shores, the answer is pretty simple—economic development: jobs and the spin-off that comes from jobs.
Besides, he says, the region is already home to the largest nuclear generator in Canada—Bruce Power, where 40% of the high level waste in Canada is stored now.
That’s true. Nuclear power plants are obliged to store their used fuel bundles on site—in pools for ten years, and then in dry storage containers. They will stay there until the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (the NWMO) finds a community willing to take nearly a million bundles stored at Bruce Power, plus over a million bundles from the other plants in the country.
Both Mr Allison and David Inglis, the Mayor of Brockton, speak mainly of the economic benefits: roughly 600 jobs during the construction phase, plus another 400 jobs at the site itself, the spin-off effect of those jobs, the development of a research centre, and the fact that NWMO will pay for all the infrastructure improvements required to service the transport of high level waste along the region’s roads. The whole area will benefit, not just the host community.
That doesn’t mean the proposal to bury high level nuclear waste half a kilometre underground is without its opponents.
Cheryl Grace is the chair of Save Our Saugeen, a citizens’ group opposed to any storage of high level nuclear waste near the Great Lakes, especially in Southampton. She’s suspicious of the process that will be used to determine who is a “willing host” for the stuff.
“Look at the process that was used to put a DGR [deep geological repository] for low and intermediate level waste in Kincardine. Communities have to guarantee continued public acceptance if they want a share of the hosting fees.”
But the process for the high level DGR is different than it was for the Kincardine DGR says Michael Krizanc, spokesman for the NWMO. The site selection process is long and careful and geared to ensure the geology of an area meets their engineering criteria and that the population is willing and prepared to accept high level nuclear waste.
Chris Peabody, a Brockton municipal councillor, has raised concerns about putting the DGR below the town’s aquifers. You might remember that Walkerton residents went through a terrible time when E-coli infected their water supply. Ever since, they have been vigilant about anything that might affect the groundwater in the area.
Nevertheless, they’re willing to consider sitting atop some 144 metric tons (when the DGR is full) of something that will be highly toxic to life for about 800,000 years longer than man has been homo sapiens. Such is the slow state of economic growth in rural Ontario.
When you switch on your lights in Ontario, almost 50% of what you see has been generated by nuclear power. Perhaps we should have listened to the Navajo creation story. Now that the nuclear genie is out of his bottle, it’s proving very difficult to stuff him back in.
So what do we do with our nuclear waste? No one seems to have a better answer than what the NWMO is trying to do. Putting the highly poisonous end product of our genius back into the earth might be the best way to deal with it. But somehow it seems like a perversion.
All four municipalities fall within the traditional territories of the Saugeen Ojibway Nations. Neither chief could be contacted before deadline to confirm whether they will support or oppose the project, although the prevailing feeling is that they will.
You could burn much spent fuel in a fast neutron reactor, should such a route be taken in the future.
So, while some waste, of various types, will have to be buried, no matter what, burying all the waste in deep repositories is not the only option.
#1. Posted by crf on June 22nd 2012 at 4:53pm