An Ontario farm town will vote in October on whether to become Canada's largest nuclear dump

A bucolic Ontario farm community will go to the polls in October in an historic online vote that will decide whether their quiet rural town will be transformed by a multi-billion project that will give Canada a permanent tomb for millions of bundles of highly radioactive used nuclear fuel.

The search for a place to put them stretches back decades — one that has now zeroed-in on just two Ontario communities, Ignace (246km northwest of Thunderbay) and the farming town of Teeswater (170km north of London), part of the Municipality of South Bruce.

On Wednesday, town officials in South Bruce published the terms of the deal for voters in the town to decide in an online referendum that will take place October 28.

If voters say "yes" to burying tens of thousands of tonnes of used CANDU reactor fuel deep below their community of 5,880, the town will get hundreds of high-paying jobs and $418 million in subsidies from Canada's nuclear industry over the course of the 138-year project.

If voters say "no," the town still walks away with $8 million.

Debate has created deep ruptures

For the town, the October vote is the culmination of a 12-year debate that has left deep ruptures in the community — between those who see welcoming radioactive waste as a new kind of prosperity and those who see it as nothing but a potential danger.

Protecting Our Waterways - No Nuclear Waste is a grassroots group that's trying to stop the community of Teeswater, Ont., from becoming a disposal site for the nation's nuclear waste. (Michelle Stein)

Except, when it comes to storing nuclear waste, there's a broad scientific consensus  the kind of nuclear dump officials have proposed in South Bruce is the best possible solution to the tricky problem of what to do with radioactive waste.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has proposed building a deep geologic repository, a 600-metre deep tomb that would see highly radioactive material contained behind multiple barriers, including copper casks, bentonite clay, layers of concrete and finally the geology itself to keep the waste sealed away for eternity.

"We know that system of protection does work and the challenges are not likely to ever occur that deep underground," said John Luxat, an engineering professor at McMaster University, who holds the senior industrial research chair in nuclear safety analysis.

"If you want to keep the fuel safe and these these canisters from corroding because of environmental impactthe best
way is to put it somewhere where you are below the water table."

A diagram shows the vast underground network of chambers that would permanently hold spent nuclear fuel deep below the Earth in a kind of nuclear dump known as a deep geologic repository that have already successfully been built in Finland and Sweden. (Nuclear Waste Management Organization)

The 600-metre deep vault is nearly three times the 229-metre depth of nearby Lake Huron, far away from water, which, if it penetrates the layers of concrete and clay surrounding the waste can cause the copper casks that contain it to rust.

"You need to keep it away from air and water," Luxat said, adding the vault is "for all intents and purposes meant to store the waste forever."

Once construction of the facility is completed, the NWMO has said some 30,000 shipments of nuclear waste would begin moving from eight interim storage facilities from Manitoba to New Brunswick to the Ontario dump site through some of Canada's most densely-populated areas.

This map taken from the NWMO's proposed transportation plan shows the relative geographic position of interim storage sites and the two Ontario communities being considered as a permanent site to store Canada's nuclear waste. (NWMO)

Even then, Luxat said, the risk minimal, noting the transportation of spent nuclear fuel already happens regularly.

Once nuclear fuel is spent, the rods are moved to cooling ponds where the rest for approximately 10 years. After that, they are taken to temporary holding facilities where they are in either shallow pits or above-ground in dense concrete bunkers.

This image, taken from the NWMO's transportation plan, details the components of the containers in which spent nuclear fuel rods will be shipped. (NWMO)

Luxat noted that when nuclear waste is moved anywhere, it's packaged and sealed inside a specially-designed container that can withstand collisions from large vehicles such as trains or being dropped from great heights.

"They've been doing this transporting the spent fuel to temporary sites for decades now and there's never been a
dangerous event."

Luxat said Canada's nuclear waste has been sitting in temporary storage, in some cases, for 80 years and the risk of finding a permanent place to entomb it is far greater than leaving it where it is.

"It would be a significant increase in risk because they would be potentially exposed to much higher levels of moisture," he said, noting both Teeswater and Ignace were chosen because of the "low probability of seismic damage to the rocks."

Now that the terms have been made public and a date has been set for a referendum, all that's left is the vote, which is set for Oct 28.

In order to make the nuclear dump a reality, the nuclear industry still needs buy-in from the nearby Saugeen First Nation, which has yet to make decision on the project.

When reached by CBC News Wednesday, Chief Conrad Ritchie said he wouldn't comment until Saugeen's band council had a chance to meet with representatives from nearby Ojibway of the Nawash First Nation on the Bruce Peninsula later this week.