Saugeen Ojibway Nations (SON) community won’t agree to Ontario nuclear waste dump in any hurry

Securing approval for nuclear waste site won’t be ‘quick or easy process’: First Nations “If things go south in a hurry, where do our people go? We do not have the luxury of picking up and leaving.” The Star, By: John Spears Business reporter, on Mon Sep 16 2013 KINCARDINE—First Nations communities near Ontario Power Generation’s proposed nuclear waste disposal facility won’t be rushed into supporting the project, a federal hearing has been told.

The company has pledged not to proceed with the massive underground storage facility “until the Saugeen Ojibway Nations (SON) community is supportive of the project.”

But SON leaders told the opening day of hearings into the facility that they’ll insist on what could be a lengthy process. About 150 people showed up Monday for the opening of the hearings.

“The DGR (deep geologic repository) is a forever project,” Chief Randall Kahgee of the SON told the panel.

“If things go south in a hurry, where do our people go? We do not have the luxury of picking up and leaving.”

The SON’s traditional territory includes the Bruce nuclear site. Its people live in two principal communities, one near Southampton, the other near Wiarton.

“Who we are as a people is deeply linked with our homeland,” Kahgee said.

OPG wants to entomb low and intermediate level radioactive waste from all its nuclear stations in storage chambers carved into a limestone formation 680 metres deep. It will be on the site of the Bruce nuclear power station, with the main access shaft 1.2 kilometres from the shore of the lake.

OPG has promised not to proceed “until the SON community is supportive of the project.” Kahgee told the three-member panel that the SON was never consulted when the huge Bruce nuclear power station was constructed, or when OPG first began storing waste on the site……..

Laurie Swami, vice president of OPG, noted that low and intermediate waste from all the company’s reactors is currently stored in surface facilities on the Bruce property.

She said surface storage is not a long-term approach, however. The company needs to find a permanent solution for the waste to avoid passing responsibility to future generations, she said.

OPG wants to build a “deep geologic repository” or DGR to hold the waste. The facility will cover about 40 hectares, encompassing 31 storage rooms, each 250 metres long. They’ll be able to handle 200,000 cubic metres of waste – the amount to be generated by the operation of OPG’s current fleet of reactors for their lifetimes.

But if more reactors are built, Swami said, “we are confident that safe expansion of the DGR is possible.”

Swami said that the environmental and health effects of the site are “essentially zero.”……The federal panel must approve OPG’s proposal before it can proceed. The panel has commissioned a critique of OPG’s application, which says its analysis is “not credible,” “not defensible,” and “not reliable.” http://www.thestar.com/business/economy/2013/09/16/securing_approval_for_nuclear_waste_site_wont_be_quick_or_easy_process_first_nations.html