Ignace, Ont., group was in Finland to tour world's 1st long-term nuclear waste repository at NWMO's expense
CBC
After travelling across the Atlantic Ocean and taking an elevator hundreds of metres underground, it's hard for Jodie Defeo to put into words what it was like to be among a handful of people in Finland to take in the world's first long-term geological repository for spent nuclear fuel.
"It was large. It was very cavernous. There was room for large-scale trucks to manoeuvre in these tunnels," Defeo, one of four councillors in the small northwestern Ontario township of Ignace, said about the facility.
Defeo was among a 10-member Ignace delegation who were in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the west coast of Finland, earlier this month to visit the Onkalo deep geological repository, which is under construction and expected to be completed within a year.
The northwestern Ontario group was sent on the all-expenses-paid trip by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), the non-profit tasked with choosing the location for a similar deep geological storage site for Canada's nuclear waste.
Late next year, NWMO will choose between:
This summer, South Bruce representatives also visited the Finnish site, with costs also covered by the NWMO.
For years, both communities targeted to possibly house the Canadian nuclear waste storage site have been dealing with arguments for and against being chosen as host.
For Defeo, the trip was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
"I was very excited and I think some of that was contagious because our host of course demonstrated a lot of pride in being the first [country] in the world … to come up with a solution for spent nuclear energy," she said.
Vince Ponka, NWMO's regional communications manager for northern Ontario, has referred to Canada's first nuclear waste repository as a $26-billion project, and says it is expected to create between 400 and 600 jobs. If built in Ignace, he said, the township's population of roughly 1,000 could double.
While the project has already been under much scrutiny, particularly from groups such as Nuclear Free Thunder Bay and Environment North, it's a long time coming. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2033, with the site operational by the early 2040s.
Photos were not permitted underground at Onkalo for security reasons, Ignace's communications contact, Jake Pastore, told CBC News.
Besides touring the repository itself, the visitors from Ignace also saw the community's nuclear education centre, which Defeo said is similar to the Ignace Learn More Centre, and a nuclear power plant.
She also met residents in the community and got to have more off-the-cuff conversations about the project.
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