Engagement and authority of First Nations key topic in Nuclear Waste Conference

By Brennain Lloyd

OTTAWA— The engagement of First Nation people got repeated mention at the 3rd Canadian Conference on Nuclear Waste Management, Decommissioning and Environmental Restoration Conference (NWMD&ER) in Ottawa, Ontario, on September 11 to 14, 2016.

However, real measures of how the rights of indigenous people being impacted by nuclear operations or threatened by nuclear waste burial plans are being respected were less evident, with a few notable and hopeful exceptions.

Flying under the banner of “Collaborative Solutions for Current and Future Needs”, plenary and workshop sessions covered a broad range of topics related to the management radioactive wastes that generated at each stage along the nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining to nuclear power plant operation and shut down. But the largest share of attention was on the nuclear industry’s long term problem of containing the over 60,000 tonnes of high level radioactive waste they have generated through the use of nuclear power in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Currently, the closest thing the industry has to a long-term plan is to find a “willing and informed community” and then dig deep and bury the wastes.

It’s a plan that has not been warmly welcomed by First Nations, particularly in northern Ontario where the municipalities of Elliot Lake, Blind River, White River, Hornepayne, Manitouwadge, and Ignace are engaged in a siting process with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. There are 18 areas totalling over 3,000 square kilometres are now under investigation by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), all of which are outside of the six participating municipalities. Several First Nations, including Pic Mobert First Nation, whose community trap line is overlaid with one of the NWMO’s candidate areas, have expressed their opposition to the NWMO’s plans and process repeatedly but seemingly with little effect, given that the NWMO siting process carries on.

While the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s mandate is to find a long term management option for high level nuclear waste, they have also been working as “consultants” for their largest shareholder, Ontario Power Generation. Ontario Power Generation is pursuing the approval of a plan to place up to 400,000 cubic metres of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes in a repository carved out of limestone on the shore of Lake Huron, deep below the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station and in the heart of Saugeen First Nation’s territory.

Randall Kahgee, former Chief of Saugeen First Nation and now practicing law as a specialist in Indigenous Rights, provided a powerful outline of the experience of his community, telling how the community of Saugeen First Nation has now established their authority over their territories, after decades of nuclear industry expansion and now the plan by Ontario Power Generation for a deep geologic repository for low and intermediate level radioactive wastes and the siting process by the NWMO for a deep repository for nuclear fuel waste, which includes three area municipalities.

“Gone are the days when our people are left on the outside looking in on our own territory – those days are done,” Mr. Kahgee declared.

“I challenge you to put yourself in our position. We have the largest waste management facility in our territory, which represents all of OPG’s historic and ongoing low and intermediate level waste from all its facilities, and roughly half of Canada’s spent fuel, and all co-located on the same site as the largest operating [nuclear] facility in the world. In the heart of our territory. That should give some understanding of the magnitude of these issues for our people. And they are not easy issues for our people to address, but I believe that our people are equal to the challenge.”

Kahgee described how Ontario Power Generation made a commitment some time ago that the deep geologic repository for low and intermediate level wastes will not proceed over the objections of the Saugeen First Nation, and that in June of this year, Saugeen First Nation received a similar commitment from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

“That commitment operates on the basis that NWMO will not proceed with siting a site in our territory without our consent,” Kahgee said.

“These decisions cannot be made without the consent of Indigenous peoples,” added Kahgee.

The conference, attended by approximately 300 people, was organized by the Canadian Nuclear Society and sponsored by a handful of Canada’s largest nuclear companies, including the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, Ontario Power Generation, Bruce Power, and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.