Canada's Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has cancelled plans to bury nuclear waste near Lake Huron in Canada, according to Canadian press reports.
The project, estimated at more than CAD2.4 billion ($1.75bn) involved the storage 680 metres underground of hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste.
In a letter to the federal environment minister, OPG said, "We do not intend to carry out the project and have asked that the application for a site preparation and construction licence be withdrawn." OPG also requested the minister to cancel the environmental assessment for the project.
Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson accepted the request, and said he had terminated the ongoing assessment.
The radioactive waste facility was to have been built at the Bruce nuclear power plant near Kincardine, Ontario. Although Kincardine was a willing host, the proposal has drawn opposition from environmentalists and communities on both sides of the Canada-US border.
A vote by the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) in January rejected the construction of the deep geologic repository at the Bruce site. OPG agreed in 2013 that it would not build the repository without the support of SON. OPG said it will look for alternative storage solutions.
Photo: Image showing proposed DGR at Bruce nuclear site (Credit: OPG)
