Moving nuclear waste through traditional territories could face opposition, Ontario First Nation says

A First Nation in southwestern Ontario says even if the community votes yes on a proposed $26 billion dump for nuclear waste within their traditional territory, it would likely be opposed by other First Nations, through whose territories the more than 5.5 million spent fuel rods would have to pass. 

Canada's nuclear industry has been on a decades-long quest to find a permanent home for tens of thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste. The search has narrowed to two Ontario communities — Ignace, northwest of Thunder Bay, and the Municipality of South Bruce, north of London. 

Both will vote later this year on whether to build a deep geologic repository, a kind of nuclear crypt, where more than 50,000 tonnes of waste in copper casks will be lowered more than 500 metres underground to be kept for all time, behind layers of clay, concrete and the ancient bedrock itself. 

But so will their Indigenous neighbours, whose traditional territories the towns are within, which gives each respective First Nation a veto.

In the case of Saugeen Ojibway Nation in particular, it means the community again finds itself as the future arbiter of a potential nuclear waste site on their traditional lands for the second time in a few years. 

In early 2020, its members voted overwhelmingly against the construction of a deep geologic repository outside of Kincardine, that was proposed by Ontario Power Generation.

This time around, Chief Greg Nadjiwon of the neighbouring Chippewas of the Nawash, says the proposal by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a non-profit industry group, for a similar facility has a better chance, but is still a tough sell. 

"I mean, anything's possible," he said. "I think at the possibilities there for the proponent are more favourable, that doesn't mean it's going to be a yes."

Chief among the possible problems, Nadijwon says, is the fear radioactive material rightly or wrongly whips up. He recalls the public reaction to a 2010 plan to ship 16 nuclear steam boilers with radioactive components across three Great Lakes.

That plan called for the boilers to be sent from nearby Bruce Nuclear Generating Station to Owen Sound. From there, a ship would take the components through lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario to the St. Lawrence River before entering the Atlantic Ocean and on to a recycling facility in Sweden. 

At the time, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission said the plan would pose little, if any, threat to human health or the environment and it was approved by Ottawa, only to be opposed by 16 communities in Canada and the U.S., including the Khanawake Mohawks and a number of other First Nations along the way. 

Nadjiwon says even if the dump is built in South Bruce, based on what happened in 2010, it's unlikely other First Nations would accept radioactive waste being transported through their traditional territories. 

"You're talking about transporting nuclear waste on the highway system. I think it has even less chance, which is just personal opinion. But, if you think about how many treaty territories that waste would have to go through, I don't think it will happen." 

The process for challenging the transport of the waste is murkier, however. 

Nadjiwon says even if Ignace and nearby Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation say yes to the proposed nuclear dump, he doubts the spent nuclear fuel from the Bruce station, which is currently in temporary storage, would ever leave his nation's traditional territory. 

Community divided

In 2022, the NWMO said once a nuclear crypt was built, some 30,000 shipments of nuclear waste would have to move from eight temporary storage sites through some of the country's most populated areas over a period of 40 years. 

Both Nadjiwon and his counterpart, Chief Conrad Ritchie of Chippewas of the Saugeen First Nation, were reluctant to answer questions about what they thought of the NWMO's plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste under one of two Ontario communities. 

"That's a decision that will be made by the membership because that position is a referendum," Nadjiwon said. 

Ritchie was equally disinclined to say which way he thought members might lean, saying only the decision, whatever it may be, will reverberate through the decades and centuries to come. 

"We won't feel those effects," he said. "It will be our grandchildren and our great-, great-, great-grandchildren that will inherit whether we're selfish or not selfish in how we live today."

In nearby South Bruce, the question of whether to bury radioactive waste below the town has divided the community, between those who believe it would bring new jobs and prosperity and those who think the prospect of money has made the others unable to see the risks. 

Generous subsidies from Canada's nuclear industry have already renewed many aspects of town life, from new equipment for volunteer firefighters, to more money for municipal infrastructure projects. 

In Saugeen Ojibway nation, Nadjiwon says the money has helped with the community's homebuilding program, which has languished under the federal government. 

"We need to build 10 houses a year. We struggle to build two," he said, adding if the nuclear industry's subsidies were to vanish tomorrow, his community would continue to push forward as it did before. 

"We got along without it before, we'll manage again. We'll change our goals."

Under Canadian and international law, the nation's nuclear industry has a duty to consult with Indigenous people, or risk violating their constitutional rights in Canada and their human rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

The NWMO said the nuclear waste facility will not be built in southwestern or northern Ontario without the willingness of the First Nations whose traditional territory encompasses the site. 

A spokesperson from the NWMO was not immediately available for comment Friday.