Anything that even remotely touches on the nuclear industry requires a risky leap of faith. Neighbors and residents living near these plants must take their word for it that the improbable will not happen this time. The storage of nuclear waste is no exception, and the fears raised are just as difficult to allay. All the more so when these radioactive residues must be buried near the banks of a river that supplies drinking water to millions of citizens downstream. The laboratories of the Chalk River plant may seem far away, but the cloud of concern surrounding the fate of their radioactive debris extends all the way to the St. Lawrence River.
Near the landfill site that will be built in Deep River, first of all, residents are anxious about the idea of welcoming a million cubic metres of nuclear waste under their neighbouring land, just one kilometre from the Ottawa River. The fact that these residues are of low radioactive intensity does not reassure them. Nor do the guarantees put forward by the consortium managing the plant, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, or by the municipality. The local residents, for their part, fear that they will be welcoming nothing but a “leaking dump”, they anxiously confided this summer to the journalist from Duty Francois Carabin.
And they are not the only ones to worry about the fate of this river, which flows between Ontario and Quebec to the St. Lawrence River. The cities of Ottawa and Gatineau, which it crosses, as well as Montreal, where it flows into, have also denounced, like a hundred other municipalities, the approval of the landfill project.
The Quebec government, while refraining from doing the same, did not hide its own concerns—shared by its advisor on protection against radioactivity—by calling on the federal government to “respond” to the public’s fears. And by opining this summer that Ottawa had “still not fulfilled this obligation.”
The Anishinaabe community of Kebaowek is contesting before the Federal Court the green light from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for the burial of this nuclear waste near the surface, believing that it was consulted too late.
The verdict was delivered last January. The CNSC said it was of the opinion that the project “is not likely to cause significant environmental effects” or “significant adverse effects on the Ottawa River.”
The landfill will be located in a seismic zone, but one that is low to moderate, the Commission wrote in its decision. The risk posed by forest fires is mitigated because the project will be at a sufficient distance from the forest edge. Management of torrential rains has been taken into account and the site, located 50 metres above the level of the Ottawa River, is above potential flood plains. The facility takes into account “the potential effects of climate change,” the CNSC ruled.
However, these radioactive residues will have to remain buried there for 500 years… It would be very clever to be able to predict today the evolution of the climate and the natural disasters that it will cause for the next centenarians.
Past nuclear accidents, however rare, have sown apprehension and skepticism. The citizens of Deep River, whose nearby Chalk River plant suffered two incidents in the 1950s, are not immune to it. The fact that former employees have doubts about the classification of nuclear liabilities over the years — and that they are all indeed “low intensity” — does nothing to reassure them.
History now demands an excess of transparency, because it is up to the promoters and approvers of such projects to restore confidence, and not for the population to overcome its legitimate fears on its own. Other terrible deceptions, such as that of the Horne Foundry, which was wrongly claimed to be “safe” for years, have also instilled a nagging doubt.
Mistrust has its source in past excesses that are too real. However, we must not be blinded to the point of rejecting any solution to get rid of these radioactive residues that must nevertheless be disposed of.
The spontaneous reaction will always be to not want it in your yard, or in your river. “But once this cry from the heart has been expressed, the question of the best choice, or the least worst choice, remains,” wrote our late colleague Jean-Robert Sansfaçon on this subject in 2009. Fifteen years later, and while a possible return to nuclear power is being considered in Quebec, a permanent and adequate solution to the management of this waste is still being sought. It is becoming urgent to find it.