IGNACE — A week after her township was named host municipality for a proposed nuclear waste facility, Tammy Barden said she’s happy with the decision.
The retired Ignace resident, volunteering at Silver Tops Senior Centre, said Thursday she had environmental concerns about the idea of storing spent nuclear fuel underground west of the community.
“But from the aspect of what the town needs, it is a very good choice for us,” she said. “And I think most of those people are interested in growth happening in our community again.”
Bryce Schellenberg agrees.
“It’s probably going to be a plus for the community and the region as a whole with the amount of money that’s going to be flowing into this area,” he said after a trip to the local supermarket.
“I think it’s going to be good for a lot of people, even though they may not realize it right now.”
Donna Rogers, an Ojibway Nation of Saugeen (Savant Lake) member living in Ignace, opposes the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s deep geological repository project.
“I don’t like it and it’s not safe,” she said
Rogers shares repository opponents’ safety concerns, including the risks in transporting radioactive fuel bundles to the Revell Lake site just south of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Trucks “go into ditches” often on the region’s highways, she noted.
Charlotte Pesola, a former township councillor, said she understands why people see risks in the project but she trusts the NWMO to know what it’s doing.
“I’m not really worried about the safety issue or even the transportation,” she said. “I’m sure that’s all going to be taken care of.”
The NWMO’s local Learn More Centre is open to answer questions about nuclear power and the project, she noted, so skeptics “can get their answers.”
Schellenberg said the used fuel bundles will be transported in highly secure containers, so transportation should be “totally safe” unless a “catastrophe” occurs.
The NWMO, a federally mandated body funded by nuclear power producers, announced on the morning of Nov. 28 it had selected a spot between Ignace and Wabigoon Lake as the site for the deep geological repository it wants to build.
The proposed repository, commonly called a DGR, would be a series of rooms and tunnels hundreds of metres below ground for the long-term placement of spent fuel from Canada’s nuclear reactors.
A similar DGR has been constructed in Finland, and a delegation from Ignace and nearby communities visited that facility last November in junket paid for by the NWMO.
Ignace council approved a resolution to continue as a potential host municipality for the DGR in July. In a referendum last month, Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation members approved continuing to the next phase in the project as the First Nation on whose territory the facility would be built.
The NWMO has said the DGR’s construction could, if it clears regulatory and licensing hurdles, begin in 2033 and conclude about 10 years after that.
“In the conversations I’ve had with community members is a general feel of excitement and anticipation of the next steps and how things will look moving forward,” Coun. Jodie Defeo said Thursday.
