The Municipality of South Bruce brought residents and municipal staff to tour Ontario Power Generation (OPG) facilities ahead of potentially hosting a deep geological repository (DGR).
South Bruce Acting Community Engagement Manager Steve Travale says the tour to learn about current storage and waste management processes for nuclear waste was held on Oct. 27.
“The tour was a full day up to the OPG and Bruce Power site north of Kincardine. We started off site at their new Western Clean Energy Sorting and Recycling Facility,” says Travale. “What they are doing there is they are taking low level nuclear waste and they are finding ways to reduce, sort and recycle it, so the volume of waste is minimized.”
Following, the tour visited the Nuclear Sustainability Services’ Western facility, where intermediate and high level nuclear waste is managed.
This tour was held as South Bruce is one of two communities in Ontario under consideration by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for a DGR to store Canada’s spent nuclear fuel.
Travale says the tour served as an opportunity for community members to learn more about nuclear waste.
“In particular the high level waste or used nuclear fuel which of course is part of the proposal for the DGR project,” says Travale. “It was a good visual experience and a learning experience and the community members got to ask a number of questions to the staff on site.”
Currently the municipality is working on a hosting agreement with the NWMO, should it choose to host the DGR.
The municipality has chosen to hold a referendum to measure the willingness of the community to host the project, which will take place next year.