IGNACE — The selection of five major companies for design and planning work is a big step towards building a huge underground facility for spent reactor fuel in Northwestern Ontario, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s Craig MacBride said Monday.
The organization wants to build a deep geological repository, or DGR, for long-term disposal of radioactive waste from Canada’s nuclear power plants.
On Monday it announced that five firms have been chosen for essential design, engineering and planning work over the next three years: WSP Canada Inc., Peter Kiewit Sons ULC, Hatch Ltd., Thyssen Mining Construction of Canada and Kinectrics Inc.
“This is a very exciting milestone for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and for the deep geological repository that will eventually contain and isolate Canada’s used nuclear fuel,” MacBride, the NWMO’s media relations manager, told Newswatch.
“We are still in the regulatory process, so this is not a shovels-in-the-ground announcement necessarily, but it’s the next step in getting to that moment.”
The chosen companies will work on facility infrastructure design and engineering, mine design, mine construction planning, nuclear management advising, and systems and facilities design.
Construction of the DGR between Ignace and Dryden won’t begin until after the project has cleared all the hurdles in the federal government’s multi-year regulatory process and a separate review by Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, a news release from the NWMO said.
The companies and the NWMO “will work hand-in-hand,” the release said.
WSP Canada, part of an international engineering corporation, will be responsible for all architectural design and engineering for the project.
Peter Kiewit Sons, headquartered in Omaha, Neb., will be responsible for above-ground construction design.
The news release said the responsibilities for Hatch, a global engineering firm with headquarters in Mississauga, Ont., include “all aspects of the project related to underground mine and waste rock management.”
Thyssen Mining will be responsible for the underground mine construction design of the service, test and demonstration area, as well as the sinking of three shafts into the repository.
The release said Toronto-based Kinectrics will provide “in-depth nuclear operations management expertise and advice to inform the development and planning of the project.”
The NWMO announced the selection of a location south of Highway 17 as the site of a future DGR on Nov. 28, 2024.
Ignace was selected as the DGR’s host municipality, Wabigoon Lake as the host First Nation.
An “open house” on the project is set for Tuesday at Ignace’s recreation complex.
