N.B. Green Party leader doubts plan to transport Point Lepreau’s nuclear waste to Ontario by early 2040s

The wheels are slowly turning on plans to move Canada’s nuclear waste to one single underground facility, but New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon doesn’t believe it will ever actually happen.

Within the plan, NB Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station would deliver spent nuclear fuel to a $26-billion underground repository in northern Ontario, with the location announced late last year by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO).

The NWMO was created in 2002, with a directive to determine a long-term plan for where and how Canada’s nuclear waste should be stored.

Right now, nuclear waste from generating stations are stored at the plants’ sites.

Coon said Point Lepreau’s radioactive waste was “doing just fine where it was now,” and doubted whether jurisdictions along any route would go along with the travel plan.

“I’d be surprised if Quebec would allow it to go through, or if First Nations allowed it to go through their territory,” said Coon. “The ultimate solution is to stop producing this waste in the first place by not building any more nuclear power plants.”

Last year, Chief Hugh Akagi of the Peskotomuhkati Nation and Grand Council Chief Ron Tremblay of the Wolastoqey Nation travelled to Parliament Hill and raised concerns directly with the federal government about transporting radioactive waste from Point Lepreau, with Chief Tremblay calling it “very dangerous.”

According to the NWMO, almost a million packages of nuclear material are transported safely in Canada annually by land, air, and sea. The organization called the transportation of radioactive materials a well-established practice that posed “very little threat.”

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt reaffirmed her support for Point Lepreau in a year-end December interview and said it was encouraging to hear the NWMO’s decision on a underground repository location, adding “new technologies are coming up all the time to better help handle nuclear waste.”

The NWMO said it would take about 10 years to build any underground repository, with a plan to have it operational by the early 2040s.

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