You have got to hand it to the Canadian Nuclear Industry. It doesn't give up easily. Having failed to gain access to a site for a permanent underground nuclear waste dump in the late 1970's and early 80's, it is taking another kick at the can using its NWMO (Nuclear Waste Management Organization), as its agent. In its draft final report, Choosing the Way Forward, the NWMO concluded that the growing stockpiles of irradiated nuclear fuel from Canada's reactors should ultimately wind up in a deep rock underground tomb. What a surprise!

Here's a little background on the NWMO:

And so it came to past. But not in the way I had hoped. Under federal legislation (Bill C-27-Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, assented to 13th June, 2002), the nuclear industry corporations established their Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO).

The main function of the NWMO was to propose to the Government of Canada approaches to the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste and thence to implement the selected approach(s). Every nuclear energy corporation became members and/or shareholders in the NWMO (i.e., Ontario Power Generation Inc., Hydro-Québec, New Brunswick Power Corporation, and Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd.) The NWMO Board of Directors became a “Who’s Who” of the Canadian nuclear establishment. 

The biggest fatal flaw in the Act was its failure to establish a completely independent, arms-length-from-industry-organization. With the nuclear industry holding the reins of power, the NWMO can rightly be viewed as no more than a tool of that industry. Thus, nothing much has changed since the late 1970's when Ontario Hydro and AECL banded together to launch its now legendary assault on unwary communities throughout the Canadian Shield in Ontario and eastern Manitoba.

The Act required that within three years of its coming into force, the NWMO submit a study to the Minister of Natural Resources, Canada, with a recommendation as to which of three proposed approaches should be adopted, i.e., deep geological "disposal" in the Canadian Shield, based on the AECL underground burial concept, storage at nuclear reactor sites and centralized storage, either above or below ground. The NWMO was required to provide a detailed technical description of each proposed approach and specify an "economic region" for it's implementation.

Another fatal flaw is the lack of provision for either parliamentary or public input at the critical point in the process; i.e., immediately subsequent to the NWMO final recommendation to the Minister.

There is no provision for full scale federal environmental assessments (EA) of the various options specified in the legislation. One option, the AECL underground burial option, has been subjected to a comprehensive process-indeed, over many years.

The other options have not been so assessed, nor could they be during a short three year time frame. Furthermore, the owners of the nuclear waste have recently suggested modifications to the AECL concept in their reports which rightly should evoke an additional EA for the underground burial option.

In the absence of such EA's there can be no balance, no fairness, no equity in this process which means that the final NWMO recommendation would lack credibility.

The various background and other papers solicited by the NWMO, along with other measures it has been taking, such as its interactive web site, polling and group meetings, hardly substitute for the kind of searching inquiry inherent in the EA processes. But the NWMO was required to have its report completed and submitted to the Minister sometime in the Fall of 2005.

Deeply conscious of the deficiencies in the legislation and the resulting NWMO, some of the Canadian activists, including myself, banded together during 2003 to establish a new cross-Canada network: Nuclear Waste Watch (NWW), which would monitor the work of the NWMO. About thirty environmental and social organizations signed on to the final network position statement. Currently (April, 2008), that statement is available on the web at http://www.cnp.ca/nww

During 2004 and into 2005, I adopted a very low key approach to the

nuclear waste issue as it was unfolding at the NWW and the NWMO.

Phyl and I attended one NWMO information meeting in Kingston in early 2005, which was very poorly attended. The staff nearly outnumbered the public. But it did give us a chance to acquaint  the NWMO consultants with some of our strong negative feelings toward the industry that they were representing.

As a member of the NWW steering group, I did participate in several conference calls designed to reach agreement on various policy positions and strategies. I also waded through the NWMO discussion papers and put some of my thoughts on this web site about several of them. I was particularly concerned about the papers dealing with the relationship between nuclear waste and potential terrorist attacks in a post September 11, 2001.

After you strip out all of the obfuscation in the final NWMO report about "Adaptive Phased Management," and the like, it becomes clear that we were back to square one. NWMO has taken us right back to the late 1970's.

There appeared to be only two significant changes in the NWMO report as compared with the earlier effort spearheaded by Federal Crown Corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd.(AECL).

The first is an expansion of the kinds of geological rock formations deemed suitable for the dump. AECL initially restricted its dump site search and research to special "plutonic" granite formations. Much scientific hoopla was touted for this choice. But, later, after disrupting many communities in the Canadian Shield in its pluton search effort, AECL announced that a dump could go into any type of granite rock formation.

Now the NWMO has gone a step further by including so-called "Ordovician Sedimentary" rock, which can be found in many parts of Canada, including Ottawa, Kingston, and the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. Such locations are now considered suitable candidates for potential irradiated nuclear fuel waste dumps.

Such an expansion of potential sites would vastly increase the chances of NWMO finding some needy community willing to sell its soul and its safety to the nuclear industry for big bucks.

To the best of my knowledge, the NWMO did not "assess" this new geological concept.

Where is the science behind this decision? Where are the extensive geological and engineering studies that would support placing any kind of radioactive waste in such rock formations? Where are the volumes and volumes of information concerning the nature and integrity of "Ordovician Sedimentary" rock? In short, where is the proof that, say, limestone formations (as found in many parts of Canada), are scientifically suitable for such a crucial facility?

The new motto should be "Any old rock will do -- just let us in!"

The other change is the establishment of a longer time line for the upcoming effort. NWMO's time frame could extend as far as three hundred years for final closure of an underground dump, whereas AECL thought that goal could be achieved in a much shorter time period.

As with all good bureaucracies, NWMO is taking out a nice long insurance policy on its own survival as an organizational entity.

The so-called "Option 4 'Adaptive Phased Management' (APM)" discussed in the NWMO final report is simply a dressed-up version of AECL's original nuclear waste burial program.

Option 4 combines elements of the on-reactor site option, the centralized storage option and the underground burial option. In fact, nearly all the elements of APM can found in an October 1978 AECL publication, Management of Radioactive Fuel Wastes: The Canadian Disposal Program, J. Boulton (Editor), numbered AECL-6314.

The Boulton report encompassed "Pre-disposal Technologies, including wet and dry storage at reactor sites, as well as the possibility of the need for a central storage facility.” That report stated that " A central storage facility could be located at the site of a generating station or at a fuel management site which may also include immobilization and disposal facilities." These "pre-disposal" storage options would be needed for "several decades."

And for the final disposition, the Boulton report described the ultimate underground dump configuration in grim detail.

As expected, the NWMO rejected the option for continued on-reactor-site storage of the waste. Expected, because such a decision could be fatal to the nuclear industry. It would be tantamount to a declaration that there is no solution to the nuclear waste problem (which at present happens to be true!).

The industry's efforts to promote more nuclear energy, with the resulting production of more nuclear waste, would undoubtedly meet with more than a little skepticism from the Canadian public if the waste remained at the reactor sites indefinitely. So, NWMO's recommendations are quite in sync with the nuclear industry's current aggressive reactor marketing schemes.

In effect, the NWMO recommended a lengthy process that leads up to deep rock permanent underground burial of Canada's irradiated nuclear reactor fuel.

How would the Government of Canada react to the final report of the NWMO?

We found out on June 14th, 2007, when Gary Lunn, the Minister of Natural Rsources of Canada, announced that the Government of Canada had accepted the NWMO recommended approach for managing irradiated fuel wastes.

I had hoped that the new minority Conservative government would have had enough sense to refer the NWMO approach to the Canadian parliament as a whole for consideration before moving ahead; it would have been the right, moral, and democratic thing do, given the seriousness of (pardon the expression) the undertaking.

But the upside of the decision is that the die is finally cast and the public will know exactly what it is facing---no more fudging and misleading people with AECL's old mantra that "it is only research," "it is only a concept," "we have no plans to emplace waste here," etc.

NWMO is presumably officially looking for an actual site for its underground nuclear waste dump; likely the first of several such sites if the industry gets its way on nuclear energy expansion.

Furthermore, with the new rather unscientific "virtually any old rock will do" approach, communities in Ontario, New Brunswick, Québec and Saskatchewan are now potential nuclear waste dump sites. Hey, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Québec City, Fredrickton, Regina, Saskatoon---are you ready? How about under the CN tower?

Manitoba is NOT on the short list; (at least not yet). Our efforts back in the 1980's may have had something to do with that fact, in that the Manitoba legislation prohibiting the import and disposal of nuclear waste is still on the books, as of 2008. But political parties

and laws can change over time. I would never rule out Manitoba, but

I have a strong suspicion that NWMO may be taking a close look at some other options.

Although NWMO loves using the terms “open and transparent” regarding its activities, any serious possibility it may have for a final resting place for Canada’s irradiated nuclear fuel waste will likely remain a state secret until all the basic “spade work” is accomplished behind the scenes, and the foot is truly in the door.

Nuclear Waste Management Organization:

"Back to the Future"

by Walt Robbins

Volume One -

1980-1984-

Originally published in paperback as "Getting

The Shaft, The Radioactive Waste Controversy in Manitoba."

Volume Two -

update: 1984-1988-

The growing prospect of nuclear waste dumps on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border intensifies the controversy

Volume Three -

update:1988-1998

Federal Environmental Panel concludes that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s permanent underground nuclear waste burial concept lacks public acceptability.

Volume Four -

update:1998-2008

Mixed Oxide plutonium transport and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and

nuclear waste issue grinds on

Nuclear Waste Saga

A free web site dedicated to the well being of future generations

Spring-Summer 2010