Moving planned nuclear-waste bunker would cost billions, raise risks, OPG says
TORONTO — Relocating a nuclear-waste bunker from its currently proposed site on Lake Huron would cost billions of dollars, take decades to execute, and increase health and environmental risks, according to a new report by the project’s proponent.
The report by Ontario Power Generation, done at the request of the federal environment minister, also asserts that the public doesn’t really care about the proposal for the deep geologic repository — or DGR — even though scores of Great Lakes communities in both Canada and the United States have denounced the plan.
“There is little interest among the general public regarding the DGR project,” the report states. “Ontarians are not looking for information on nuclear-waste disposal in large volumes. This topic is not a popular one nor is it generating large volumes of curiosity.”
In May 2015, an environmental review panel approved the project — currently estimated to cost about $2.4 billion — which would see a bunker built at the Bruce nuclear power plant near Kincardine, Ont. Hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of radioactive waste — now stored at the site above ground — would be buried in bedrock 680 metres deep about 1.2 kilometres from Lake Huron.