Plans to dump nuclear waste along the Ottawa River must be halted.
Many Ottawa Valley residents have heard about the proposed giant mound of radioactive waste at Chalk River Laboratories.
Fewer residents know about another plan to ‘entomb’ old reactors, including one on the Ottawa River at Rolphton, Ontario.
So what is the giant mound?
The proposed mega-dump at Chalk River would stand seven stories high and cover 70 NHL hockey rinks.
Designed like a landfill, it would hold one million cubic meters of radioactive waste.
Such a facility has never before been licensed in Canada.
In 2014, the Government of Canada created a crown corporation, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), which now manages Chalk River and the other federally owned nuclear sites. CNL recently shut down the NRU, the last of the federal reactors still operating.
The government now finds itself with six shut-down reactors on its hands, three of them on the Ottawa River.
There is no federal policy on how to deal with them.
One of them is the Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) reactor in Rolphton, Ont. 15 miles upriver from Chalk River, directly across from Rapides-des-Joachim.
It has been shut down for 31 years.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)’s plan was always to dismantle the reactor and haul the pieces away to a disposal facility.
The previous Conservative government hired private corporations to run CNL (under contract to AECL).
These private corporations now want to demolish the above-ground parts of the old NPD reactor, stuff them in the reactor vault, fill it with concrete, and abandon it, creating a permanent radioactive waste dump.
A dead reactor isn’t really dead.
After years of bombardment with neutrons, concrete and steel reactor components become highly radioactive.
They will remain so for tens of thousands of years.
It’s like the living dead – a zombie.
The NPD reactor is only 200 metres from the Ottawa River. Its foundation is cracked. Rocks surrounding the reactor are cracked. Groundwater flows through them into the reactor vault and is pumped out periodically.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says entombment “is not an option in the case of planned permanent shutdown. It may be considered a solution only under exceptional circumstances (e.g. following a severe accident).”
The private corporations that run CNL disregard IAEA safety requirements.
Their environmental assessment documents barely mention the IAEA’s recommended ways of dealing with reactors and their wastes.
They describe alternatives to a Chalk River waste mound and an entombed NPD reactor, but then dismiss them as being too expensive.
Retired AECL scientists are highly critical of the two projects and how they were put forward.
One characterized the process as “Decide, Announce, Defend.”
But the “new” AECL – downsized from 2,800 to 40 employees when CNL was created – fully supports the projects.
AECL’s President and CEO, Richard Sexton, formerly worked for one of the private corporations that AECL has hired under contract.
Canada’s nuclear wastes should be dealt with in an open and transparent manner, with a proper assessment of alternatives, such as a geological repository located away from water.
In Finland, radioactive wastes are packaged and disposed of in underground repositories, 50 to 100 m deep in crystalline rock, in concrete silos.
Such alternatives would be safer, better for the local economy in the long-term, and would protect our health and environment.
If the federal Liberals do not halt these irresponsible corporate schemes hatched in the dying days of the previous Conservative government, the Ottawa River will be contaminated with radioactive waste, essentially forever.
It’s not too late to stop these proposals. Citizens can write and meet with their MPs and MLAs, and municipalities can join the over 130 mayors and councils that have voted to oppose the projects.

Ole Hendrickson
Scientist and Researcher,
Concerned Citizens of
Renfrew County and Area