Ontario Municipal Election 2022

Please answer these two questions.

Question 1 Background Information:

The total radioactivity of the nuclear wastes stored at the Bruce, Darlington and Pickering Nuclear Stations is 700 times greater than the total radiation released to the atmosphere by the Fukushima accident in 2011.

The International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board is calling for Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) nuclear waste storage facilities to be “hardened” and located away from shorelines to avoid them being compromised by flooding and erosion.

According to a report prepared for OPG, the total capital cost of building above-ground, attack-resistant, reinforced concrete vaults at the Bruce, Darlington and Pickering Nuclear Stations would be approximately $1 billion. This safer interim solution can be fully paid for by OPG’s nuclear waste storage fund, which has a market value of $11.3 billion.

In Germany, six nuclear stations have hardened storage facilities. The concrete walls and roofs of these facilities are 1.2 to 1.3 metres thick.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is still decades away from having an operational long-term storage site for high-level radioactive waste, and its plans are opposed by many Indigenous communities and organizations in the areas it is considering. This means that safer interim storage solutions are needed for the waste that is stored at our nuclear stations.

For more information, please read our report: A Safer Interim Storage Solution for Ontario’s Nuclear Wastes.

Question 2 Background Information:

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) wants to delay the dismantling of the Pickering Nuclear Station for 30 years after it is shut down even though the International Atomic Energy Agency says that immediate dismantling is “the preferred decommissioning strategy” for nuclear plants.

While delaying the station’s dismantling for 30 years is in OPG’s financial self-interest, it is not in the best interests of its workers, the City of Pickering, the Town of Ajax or Ontario’s economy.

Immediate dismantling will allow the existing Pickering Nuclear Station workers, who know this one-of-a-kind station best, to be involved in its dismantling. It will create 16,000 person-years of employment at the Pickering site over the first decade after it is shut down.

Immediate dismantling will also permit most of the 600-acre waterfront site to be returned to the local community by 2035 for parkland, recreational facilities, dining, entertainment, housing or other employment uses.

OPG already has more than enough money in its nuclear decommissioning fund to pay for the immediate dismantling of the Pickering Nuclear Station.

In January 2020, Pickering City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for the Pickering Nuclear Station to be dismantled as “expeditiously as possible” after it is shut down.

For more information, please read our report: Making the Right Choice for Pickering’s Waterfront.