DRYDEN — The City of Dryden and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization are in negotiation on the matter of “community benefit.”
Recent Dryden council meetings, including this week’s, have included closed-session updates for councillors on the municipality’s talks with the NWMO toward a community benefit agreement.
A community benefit agreement sets out how the municipality would be compensated if a nuclear waste facility is established nearby.
Dryden Mayor Jack Harrison said Wednesday city staff have been in talks with the NWMO for “about a year.”
Dryden is a half-hour drive from Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, which is a potential host First Nation for an underground waste facility the NWMO wants to build for Canada’s nuclear power plants.
The deep geological repository, as it’s called, has a shortlist of just two potential sites: a spot near Revell Lake between Wabigoon Lake and Ignace, and a location in the South Bruce municipality in southern Ontario.
According to the NWMO’s stated timeline, a site will be chosen in December.
Wabigoon Lake and the Ignace township have both signed potential host agreements in which the NWMO promises to pay them many millions of dollars if their site is selected.
Ignace’s 80-page hosting agreement, for example, says the township would receive nearly $170 million from 2024 through 2105 if the Revell Lake site is selected.
Dryden’s negotiations with the NWMO have been “led by our CAO and treasurer, with support from a lawyer,” Harrison said.
The NWMO estimates a deep geological repository at Revell Lake would mean 250-300 new households in Dryden, he said.
And that, Harrison said, will add significant costs to the city’s operating and capital budgets.
For example, “new infrastructure, sewer, water, roads and curb lights in a subdivision – who’s going to pay for that?
“Well, it certainly is not going to be the property owners of Dryden.
“So we’re in the principle (that) growth should pay for growth. If they’re interested in having a successful project here and wanting to relocate workers here, then obviously they’re going to have to pay for that growth to be put in place.”
He said the NWMO’s repository would have some “positive aspects” for Dryden’s local economy, “but we also see some negative impacts.
“So it’s going to have to be addressed through a community benefit agreement as (the repository would be) outside our tax jurisdiction, so we just can’t simply put an industrial tax on it.”
Whatever agreement is reached with the nuclear organization “will be brought to council for debate and discussion,” Harrison said.
“It will be publicly disclosed. The public will have the opportunity for input, and then we’ll see where we go from there.”
