KEY FACTS

• A federal review of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO) “Adaptive Phased Management Project” commenced on January 5th, and the public has just 30 days to review an “initial project description”. The public comment period will close at 11:59 pm on Wednesday, February 4th.

• The NWMO’s plan is to transport, process and bury all of Canada’s nuclear fuel waste at a site between Ignace and Dryden in northwestern Ontario. The project will include 50 years of transporting highly radioactive waste with average transportation distances of 1,800 km per trip (1,700 from Ontario reactors).  The 160 years of operation will place 150,000 tonnes of the radioactive waste underground in the headwaters of the Wabigoon River watersheds.

• NWMO has selected a site between Ignace and Dryden in northwestern Ontario, in the heart of Treaty 3 territory. The NWMO has deemed only Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and the Township of Ignace to be “host communities”.

• The Township of Ignace is 45 km east of the site and in a different watershed; there are other communities closer by and hundreds of communities along the transportation route and downstream from the site who the NWMO has not included in their decision to select the Revell site.

• The NWMO describes the Revell site as being “in the territory of Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation” but there are several other Treaty 3 Nations who are also in relationship with the land NWMO has selected.  Treaty 3 Chiefs in Assembly have expressed their opposition, as have Nishnawbi Aski Nation, Anishnabek Nation and Chiefs of Ontario. 

• The NWMO project will generate radioactive releases at each stage,  from transportation to when the wastes are eventually abandoned underground

• There is no operating deep geological repository (DGR) for high-level nuclear waste  anywhere in the world; there are project in Finland  and Sweden under development but no DGR has received final approval or begun to operate