“We are putting public safety in private hands”

(Morrison Island, Quebec) From her rustic cottage, Lynn Jones has a breathtaking view of the Ottawa River. Across the river, the retiree can almost see the site of a future nuclear dump. “They couldn’t have picked a worse place,” she sighs.

The site of the future dump is located one kilometre from the Ottawa River watershed, a source of drinking water for millions of people downstream, including residents of the Montreal region.

The Near Surface Waste Management Facility (NSWM) will be Canada’s first permanent nuclear waste disposal site. The project will allow Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), a private nuclear research company, to dispose of one million tonnes of low-level nuclear waste on the same land as its facilities in Chalk River, Ontario.

The facility could be “a nightmare for future generations,” warns Lynn Jones, who believes the proximity of the dump to the river risks contaminating the water. Jones, who has campaigned against the project for seven years as part of a citizens’ group, fears that tornadoes, floods or heavy rainfall could weaken the mound and cause radioactive materials to leak into the environment.

And Jones isn’t the only one concerned about the project. Nearly 140 municipalities, including Montreal, Gatineau and Ottawa, have expressed their concerns about the dump to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Canada’s nuclear regulator, and 10 Algonquin First Nations have opposed the facility. In February, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party called on Ottawa to halt the project, which they say poses a threat to the environment and Indigenous rights.

Rather than being buried deep underground, the dump will be built on the ground surface, in a mound protected by a synthetic membrane and layers of clay. To build it, LNC will have to clear the forest that covers the site and evacuate the wildlife that lives there.

The CNSC gave the project its green light last January, concluding in its final report that the facility will not have a significant impact on biodiversity, human health or water quality. The start date of work is not yet known.

“A critical mass of people are aware of what’s going on, but it remains to be seen whether the government is capable of doing the right thing,” says Lynn Jones, a weary smile on his face.

Fears of contamination

The waste to be stored at the dump includes contaminated linens, tools and equipment, mostly from the Chalk River site, according to CNL. The facility will also house waste from other Canadian nuclear sites, as well as universities and hospitals.

The dump will be operated for 50 years by CNL, which will have to monitor the site for the next 500 years. After that period, the radioactivity of the materials stored in the dump will have decreased enough to not pose a danger, according to the company.

According to physicist Gordon Edwards, who campaigns against the dump on behalf of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), these precautions are insufficient.

Low-level waste should be buried underground, according to the physicist, who says that “storing it on the surface near the river just seems irresponsible.”

However, according to Guy Marleau, a physicist specializing in nuclear safety at Polytechnique Montréal, the IGDPS project is “relatively well put together” and the risks of it contaminating the Ottawa River are minimal.

Building the IGDPS on the LNC site is the most economical and practical choice, according to Guy Marleau, who adds, however, that “if Chalk River had been 200 kilometres from the river, it probably would have been better.”

“CNL has an excellent record of environmental protection,” the company said in an email. The landfill was designed to withstand extreme weather events, and “drinking water at all downstream locations is not at risk,” it added.

The majority of the waste that will go to the landfill is already in temporary facilities at Chalk River. So building the IGDPS on the lab site “limits the need to transport waste on public roads,” according to CNL.

A governance issue

During consultations on the project, the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) opposed the installation “taking into account in particular its potential impact on drinking water supply sources.”

Furthermore, the project “puts public safety in the hands of the private sector,” according to Lachine Mayor Maja Vodanovic. The mayor who presented the CMM’s brief during the consultations doubts the ability of the LNC to monitor the Chalk River site for 500 years.

Behind LNC are three multinationals: AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin) and two Texan firms, Jacobs Solutions and Fluor Federal Services.

One of Jacobs Solutions’ nuclear facilities is currently under investigation by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) in connection with the release of 10 million gallons of wastewater into a river. In 2011, a subsidiary of Fluor Federal Services paid $4 million to the U.S. Attorney General to settle an investigation into alleged embezzlement related to a radioactive waste management contract in Washington state.

On June 26, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission announced the appointment of its new president, Pierre Tremblay, former president and CEO of AECOM, which designed the Chalk River nuclear dump. “You could say he knows what he’s doing, and that’s a good thing,” suggests Maja Vodanovic. “But in fact, we’re letting the private sector regulate the private sector.”