Last Thursday, a group of Canadian citizens initiated a legal challenge against the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) following the commission’s approval to construct a Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) close to the Ottawa River. The Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive, and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility spearheaded the challenge, raising numerous environmental and public health concerns linked to the potential impacts of the NSDF.
This legal action hinges on an application for judicial review pursuant to section 18 of the Federal Courts Act. The challenge is questioning the CNSC’s decision dated January 8, which approved Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) application to alter the Nuclear Research and Test Establishment Operating License for the Chalk River Laboratories sites. The controversy stems from an amendment that authorizes the construction of the NSDF, classified as a Class IB Nuclear Facility—a project not previously approved under the existing license.
Representing the applicants, Nicholas Pope is pushing for an order to revoke the decision to adjust the license for NSDF construction. The NSDF is intended to be a nuclear waste disposal facility capable of holding up to one million cubic meters of radioactive waste. The lifespan of the NSDF includes several phases like construction, operation, closure, institutional control period, and post-institutional control period. The applicants express concern about possible rainwater infiltration during the operation phase, which could lead to leakage of radioactive materials into the environment.
Among the raised arguments is a section within the Waste Acceptance Criteria document submitted by CNL. This clause essentially allows the disposal of waste that doesn’t meet established acceptance criteria, thereby undermining waste management standards and rendering safety assurances moot. Furthermore, there’s an ongoing concern about whether the waste verification processes will indeed ensure compliance with acceptance criteria.
Applicants also assert that CNL did not sufficiently consider the environmental impacts of alternative wastewater discharge methods, including the proposed pipeline to Perch Lake, a tributary of the Ottawa River. Pope remarked, “The public could receive up to fourteen times the legal limit of a radiation dose. So this surface level facility has been designed to only last for 550 years before it erodes and only be under institutional control for 300 years yet the materials they are planning on placing in this mound have half-lives of thousands of years.”
The challenge also questions CNL’s fulfillment of consultation obligations with Indigenous nations, particularly the Kebaowek First Nation, whose traditional territory includes the proposed NSDF site.