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Following up: NWMO site selection process

The project has sparked interest not only from Ignace and Wabigoon Lake First Nation, but other communities including Dryden and Thunder Bay.

IGNACE – The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has released a five-year implementation plan regarding their planned nuclear waste repository and so far they have narrowed down their options to two communities to house the site, including the nearby township of Ignace.

“In terms of the selection process right now, we are very much on track with selecting a site towards the end of 2023 and that’s between the area in Southern Ontario, near South Bruce Ontario and the area up here near Ignace,” said Lise Morton, vice president of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

The chosen location would have a site that would store nearly 5.5-million spent nuclear fuel bundles from across Canada.

It has been a project in the work for nearly two decades, with a preferred location planned to be decided late in 2023.

With Ignace being a possible site it has sparked lengthy discussions surrounding the safety of storing nuclear bundles and Morton says that the safety standards required for this project are significant.

 “We need to demonstrate to a regulator, in this case, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, that the site has a strong safety case, so, in other words, we're going to have to be able to demonstrate various parameters about the geology, the geoscience that that rock can safely contain the fuel,” said Morton.

“So there’s a whole safety case perspective that we will have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of a regulator through a very open and transparent public process.”

Another portion of the NWMO's implementation plan focused on the importance of consultation which has been a massive talking point for the Ignace site, as the project would affect the township as well as the nearby Wabigoon Lake First Nation and Morton says that the final decision ultimately belongs to the communities.

"We're confident that we're engaging with the community, trying to answer their questions and we certainly welcome all the diversity of views on the project and try to provide the information and answer those questions so that the community members can make their own decision as to whether the project is a good fit for the community," said Morton.

The project has sparked interest not only from Ignace and Wabigoon Lake First Nation, but other communities including Dryden and Thunder Bay, as the transportation of the nuclear fuel bundles to the site would happen across Northwestern Ontario.

While Morton was confident that the NWMO is on track to select a site, she made it clear that the project would not proceed without informed and willing host communities including the nearby municipalities and First Nations communities.

“If for some reason that didn’t come to be and neither of the communities wanted to proceed, then we would go back to talking to Canadians about what the next step would be to address the long-term management of the used nuclear fuel,” said Morton.

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