Holes in the ground have kept Flin Flon-Creighton going for decades.
Mines, and the metal-laced rock they unearth, have always been this area’s bread and butter.
But for a period of time, another industry relying on a hole in the ground – underground nuclear-waste storage – looked like a distinct possibility.
The concept sparked debates in the local media, on Facebook and at often-heated public meetings. The longer the process carried on, the more intense the arguments became.
In the end, after more than four years of discussion and research, it all came to a surprising conclusion one winter morning.
The opportunity
Nuclear waste was the furthest thing from most Flin Flon-Creighton area residents’ minds in
late 2010.
At the time, they were more apt to talk about Hudbay’s exciting Lalor mine, then in the early stages of development, and what spin-offs it might yield for the local economy.
Then in December, the Town of Creighton issued an 815-word news release about a very different sort of economic-development opportunity.
“Town of Creighton representatives visited Toronto recently to meet with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to learn about Canada’s plan for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel,” read the opening paragraph.
The release marked the first time the public learned of the Town’s interest in the “management of used nuclear fuel,” or, put less diplomatically, the storage of still-radioactive nuclear waste.
It was also the first time many residents had heard of NWMO, a government-mandated agency tasked with deciding what to do with the growing number of spent nuclear fuel rods from Canada’s nuclear power plants.
NWMO’s favoured solution was what it called a deep geological repository, or DGR, a highly secure underground facility that would stockpile spent rods that had accumulated across the country, presumably for eternity.
More information on Creighton’s involvement in NWMO’s site-selection process followed in a January 2011 Reminder article.
The piece noted that Creighton was one of seven Canadian communities interested in learning about the DGR (though more would follow). The DGR would be built around 2035, and whichever community secured it would see a multibillion-dollar investment and a combined total of 4,000-plus jobs before, during and after construction.
At the time, Creighton mayor Bruce Fidler emphasized two things: while the DGR represented “a heck of an economic development opportunity,” there was “no commitment at this point whatsoever” from the Town.
Early reaction to the concept was mixed. A February 2011 letter to the editor in The Reminder panned the idea, saying “a possible nuclear waste dump in Creighton should warrant some concern.”
Others maintained a more open mind, noting that Flin Flon-Creighton had perhaps finally found a secondary industry to complement the cyclical mineral sector.
By the spring of 2011, a geological screening of Creighton had found no obvious conditions preventing the town from hosting the DGR. A year later, town council approved a lengthy study to determine whether Creighton was a feasible location for the subterranean facility.
As 2013 drew to a close, the DGR looked like a realistic scenario for Creighton after it and 16 other communities survived the first round of cuts in NWMO’s site-selection process.
Nevertheless, DGR proponents faced some serious hurdles.
The opposition
With his pro-economy reputation, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall seemed like a natural ally for a project such as the DGR. Only he never was.
In April 2011, Wall told The StarPhoenix that Saskatchewanians were not supportive of nuclear waste storage in their province and that it was highly unlikely his government would ever allow a DGR. He reiterated his position in October 2011.
In light of Wall’s comments and the opposition NDP’s aversion to nuclear-waste storage, many DGR opponents in Flin Flon-Creighton wondered why, exactly, so much time and effort was being spent on a seemingly doomed project.
Those questions grew louder in May 2014 after northern Saskatchewan’s Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation (PBCN) declared its opposition to placing the DGR on the piece of land near Creighton that NWMO was studying. PBCN was one of two First Nations with traditional claims on the site to come out against the project.
The bands’ stance was problematic for NWMO, which had emphasized the DGR would not proceed without support from First Nations in the area.
NWMO insisted it would continue “efforts to engage PBCN,” but its continued presence in Creighton only seemed to aggravate band officials who had already made up their minds.
But what was behind all of this animosity? Why were so many people against a project that numerous experts and reams of research insisted was safe?
Some DGR proponents believed the opposition stemmed from misinformation available on the internet. They had a point, as some of the data cited by opponents appeared to lack peer-reviewed credibility.
Then again, some very educated people were willing to put their reputations on the line to stand against the DGR. Among them was applied physicist Mark Bigland-Pritchard of Saskatoon, who made several trips to Creighton to attend community meetings regarding the DGR.
As 2015 arrived, NWMO was still years away from selecting a DGR site. The public was assured no final decision would be made without a referendum. Locally, both supporters and opponents were confident that if it came down to a vote, their side would win.
The end
Whenever the DGR was discussed in public, officials were careful to say the proposed site near Creighton was no slam-dunk. The land would have to meet stringent geological requirements, they noted, to ensure the long-term integrity of the underground repository.
Behind the scenes, however, several people with knowledge of the project were convinced the site’s geology, robust as it was, perfectly suited the DGR. Based on the region’s long history of hard-rock mining, many in the public shared this belief.
But the conventional wisdom was off the mark. At 9:05 am on March 3, 2015, NWMO’s Toronto headquarters issued a news release headlined “NWMO Concludes Studies in Creighton, Saskatchewan and Schreiber, Ontario.”
NWMO had been studying a 20-sq-km swath of land – two km by 10 km – just northwest of Creighton. Within that area, the DGR itself would need about
six sq km of space. In attempting to locate that six sq km of space, NWMO identified two areas where further work could have been focused.
The problem was that both areas contained fractures “that could have impacted on the safety of the repository,” NWMO spokesman Mike Krizanc explained.
The areas in question were so small that there was “no real room” to manoeuvre around the fractures if they were going to be problematic, he added.
The announcement spurred predictable reactions.
“I was very disappointed and it’s unfortunate, but you know, it’s a matter of safety,” Creighton mayor Bruce Fidler said. “It showed up in the geology, the aerial surveys, that they couldn’t find a safe spot for it, so I can live with that. But again, it’s very disappointing to be out of the process now.”
For Nadine Smart, a local resident who stood firmly against the DGR, the news marked the culmination of a hard-fought battle.
“Nuclear waste should not be buried anywhere. It has to be kept above ground where it can be monitored, forever,” she said.
The aftermath
Today, nine communities, all of them in rural Ontario, remain involved in NWMO’s site-selection process. In 2017, NWMO will begin drilling to test geology near one of the potential sites, the town of Ignace, according to CBC.
Had the proposed site near Creighton been geologically sound, it is unknown whether the DGR could have garnered sufficient support from the local populace to proceed.
Beyond that question, NWMO would have had to somehow sway Premier Brad Wall and area First Nations that were openly against the very notion of nuclear waste storage.
At the end of the day, nuclear-waste storage will go down in the history books as the most ambitious – and controversial – economic-development proposal the Flin Flon-Creighton region has ever seen.
