DRYDEN — Seeing Finland’s almost-completed nuclear waste facility up-close was a valuable exercise in “adding to my knowledge,” mayor Jack Harrison said Monday.
Still, he said, he’s not completely sold on the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed deep geological repository, which could be built upstream from his city.
The NWMO is considering two locations for the repository: a site near Ignace on Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation land, and a site near South Bruce on Saugeen Ojibway Nation land in southern Ontario. It is slated to make a decision next year after going through a “willingness process” in affected communities.
Harrison and three other members of Dryden city council — councillors Bill Latham, Catherine Kiewning and Ritch Noel — visited Finland’s Onkalo deep geological repository and a nuclear power plant in early November and returned on the weekend.
Also on the junket, which the NWMO paid for, were an Ignace delegation of 10 as well as people from Lac Seul First Nation and Atikokan.
“I think everyone’s concerned about safety,” Harrison said. “Is this going to be a safe procedure?”
Another area of concern lies in how having a nuclear waste site in the area might affect Dryden’s “brand” as a place to connect with the outdoors, he said.
Latham said he is “on a learning curve right now” regarding the proposed repository.
“I’m comfortable, but I still need more time to see more about the transportation and stuff like that,” he said.
“That’s the biggest thing people are interested in, transportation. So that’s my next adventure, to learn more about that — how they’re going to (transport nuclear waste), and how safe it is.”
Latham said the tour’s hosts “were very good in their explanations when we asked questions. They answered all of our questions, and it made it a lot easier to understand.”
Kiewning said she came away from the visit feeling neither more nor less in support of the NWMO’s project.
“It's quite different from the situation that we are facing in our area,” she said of the Finland repository. “We obviously have a lot of differences in opinions in our area.”
She noted that Finland has had nuclear power plants for decades while there are none in northern Ontario, “so a lot of their citizens now are very comfortable with it, are very used to it.”
Overall, “the concerns that I have about the project are still there,” she said.
She said some of her concerns relate to “community preparedness” — whether communities are prepared for the impacts a multibillion-dollar project would have on the economy and services in the region.
Health care and child care are already stretched thin, she said. Would a big population increase exacerbate those challenges?
“Housing is a big example. We don’t have enough housing,” she said.
