Canada’s plan calls for used nuclear fuel to be safely contained and isolated in a deep geological repository to be located in an area with informed and willing hosts, including local municipalities and Indigenous communities.
A key part of the site selection process is identifying and studying sites that have potential to safely house the underground repository and its surface-level facilities. That work requires us to assemble and access sufficient land for technical site evaluations, including borehole drilling, environmental monitoring and other site investigation work such as Indigenous cultural verification.
In Huron-Kinloss and South Bruce, the NWMO initiated a process in May 2019 to seek agreements with interested local landowners to access sufficient land to complete those studies.
In 2020, the NWMO signed a combination of option and purchase agreements with landowners in South Bruce that allow sufficient access to land for studies at a potential repository location. The agreements allow the NWMO to conduct studies and landowners to continue to use the land, in some cases through leaseback arrangements. If the site is selected to host the repository, the NWMO would purchase the optioned land.
The NWMO will continue discussions with landowners in the vicinity of the potential site over the coming months and years.
This is one of two potential host areas that remain in the site selection process; the NWMO announced in November 2019 that studies are also continuing in the area of Ignace, Ont. In the Ignace area, the proposed repository location is on Crown land, so a different process is in place to access the land there.
South Bruce: What We're DoingHuron-KinlossAbout the Process
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