IGNACE – The five-day community vote on whether to proceed as a potential host for nuclear waste repository operations concluded Tuesday night.
Hundreds of residents voted in-person at the local curling hall and online at a site set up for balloting.
Emile Desforges was one of those residents.
“I voted for it,” said the retired welder, who voted Friday and brought another resident to the curling hall to cast her ballot Tuesday.
The proposed repository would yield great economic benefits to Ignace and surrounding area, he said.
The vote was open to Ignace residents and property owners aged 16 and over.
Ed Synak said he voted no because “I don’t have a lot of faith in our current science. I think they should leave it as is until they have a solution.”
People “have been bought off by the NWMO,” he said, referring to the industry-backed Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which aims to build a deep-underground waste storage facility.
Evelyn Synak, Ed’s wife, said there were many reasons for her no vote.
“The primary reason is, it’s nuclear waste, not candy,” she said.
The area’s natural environment needs to be protected, she said, and a repository “could potentially disrupt the environment.”
Kevin Goudie said he’s on the yes side, in part because “we have to deal with (nuclear waste) seriously.”
The ballot asked for each voter’s position on the township “continuing to participate as a potential host community” for a deep geological repository.
Eligible voters could choose yes, no or “ABSTAIN, I am indifferent about participating in the process as a potential host community.”
Results will factor into a consultant’s report on how willing Ignace is to proceed in the process of site selection for a deep geological repository for waste from Canada’s nuclear power plants.
“We have been run off our feet and having so much fun helping the community vote,” Chéla Breckon, the consultant charged with writing the willingness report, said Tuesday at the curling hall.
Breckon said her team knocked on doors at every address in Ignace and mailed information to all residents and property owners over the last several months to be sure every eligible voter was contacted.
She said her report in June to the township’s Willingness Ad Hoc Committee will have three key components: the process followed by her With Chéla Inc. team, “qualitative information” from interviews with Ignace residents, and the vote’s results.
The deep geological repository proposed by the NWMO would be constructed approximately 500 metres below ground for the long-term containment of used nuclear fuel from Canada’s reactors.
The NWMO’s website says the repository will have “a multiple-barrier system” and “a network of placement rooms” for fuel bundles.
“Rigorous safety standards govern the project,” according to the industry-backed organization’s website.
Two locations are on the NWMO’s shortlist of potential sites for the repository: Revell Lake between Ignace and Wabigoon Lake, and South Bruce near Lake Huron.
The NWMO has said it will choose between the two sites by year-end, but first it needs to know it has willing host communities.
Ignace is on track to be the first community reporting its level of support for the repository project to the NWMO, by the end of July according to an agreement the township ratified earlier this year.
The results of the April 26-30 community vote will factor into a report Breckon will present in June to the willingness committee.
After the willingness committee considers With Chéla’s report, it will make a recommendation to township council and then the council will make a decision and notify the NWMO.
The Municipality of South Bruce has set Oct. 28 as the date for its willingness referendum.
Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, which has Revell Lake in its traditional territory, has set neither a date nor a question for its community vote on the issue.
The South Bruce site is on the traditional territory of Saugeen Ojibway Nation, which has not announced plans for a plebiscite or other community vote.
A Saugeen spokesperson said Wednesday by email that the First Nation “is undergoing its own process to decide how it will come to a decision on this matter and what that decision might be.”
The community vote is “pretty exciting for our community,” Ignace Mayor Kim Baigrie said Tuesday afternoon, adding praise for the work done by the With Chéla team to ensure widespread community participation.
