Non-binding nuclear waste agreement signed in South Bruce

If Canada’s used nuclear fuel ends up in southern Bruce County, there’s now a document outlining how the relationship between the hosting community and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) would work.

“This is a very important step in the process, because this multi billion dollar project will have a dramatic affect on our community, if the public decides to host it,” said Municipality of South Bruce Mayor, Robert Buckle.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) — signed this month — between South Bruce and the NWMO, lays the groundwork for how the two would interact, if all of Canada’s most radioactive waste is buried under 1,500 acres of farmer’s fields north of Teeswater, Ont.

Michelle Stein would live right beside the proposed project.

“Will the community actually have a say? Really what is printed in this MOU, it looks like once an agreement is made, the community has very little say in what the final Deep Geological Repository will look like and what it will contain,” said Stein, who helped found a citizen’s group opposing the underground project.

Buckle said the NWMO has committed that no international waste will be buried near Teeswater, and only Canada’s used nuclear fuel will end up in the underground facility if the community chooses to host the project.

“I encourage people to study it, to understand this document, because there will be a referendum next year, if I have anything to say about it,” added Buckle.

The NWMO said it will decide next year whether to move forward with Ignace or South Bruce as the hosting community for the $23 billion project.

In the meantime, the NWMO said preliminary results from recent borehole drilling, suggest “a deep geological repository could be constructed at the South Bruce site, in a manner that would provide safe, long-term management for Canada’s used nuclear fuel.”

Those are the findings of the just released confidence in safety NWMO report, which reinforced what the nuclear waste group thought they’d find once they started drilling into South Bruce’s soil last year.

“If the rock there looks like it does regionally, it would be good, and the boreholes are basically saying that,” said Dr. Paul Gierszewski, NWMO director of safety and technical research.

The NWMO is looking for a home for 5.5 million used fuel bundles that once powered Canada’s nuclear plants. The NWMO said that while 99 per cent of the waste’s radioactivity “decays” in the first 10 years of removal from the reactor, it remains dangerously radioactive indefinitely.

The planned project will not move forward in South Bruce without the blessing of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, whose territory the project falls within.