Letter to The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

I strongly oppose the Deep Ground Repository for the Revell  Lake area near Ignace, Ontario. I am especially concerned about the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) trying to pretend that transportation of high level nuclear waste should not be included in the IAAC. It is vital that transportation be included because this poisonous contaminant must travel thousands of kilometres coming from east and west across Canada.

We basically have only one highway from Wawa, through Thunder Bay to Kenora. It is some of the most dangerous areas to drive through with close rock cuts, hilly terrain, mostly single traffic with no meridians and only intermittent passing lanes. This major highway travels through the centre of most cities, towns,villages and reserve lands.When any accident occurs, it halts traffic both ways for hours and sometimes days. We have a lot of accidents with trucks in this area. The National Safety Council estimates 7,700 to over 9,000 accidents involving transport trucks in Canada per year. It also reported that there is a 10% increase in transport truck accidents from 2022 - 2023. The leading causes are driver error, improper loading, and equipment failure.

Transportation by rail is not viable either. Most railroads travel through the cities’ and town’s centres. The railway travels through a lot of reserve lands and many inaccessible routes, as well as zigzagging back and forth along the highways across Canada. Rail transportation is not that safe. We have had 35 major deadly and 44 minor deadly accidents in Canada since we began counting on October 14, 1897 until December 25, 2022. The Ministry of Transportation estimates that there are 50 main track train derailments per year. The latest train derailment was on February 1, 2026 in Toronto. The main cause is broken rails, a symptom of a failing infrastructure.

There are head on crashes with other trains on the same and neighbouring tracks, crashes with vehicles, and earth failures, as well. These are symptoms of lack of maintenance and / or safety protocols. Even tragedies, like Lac Megantic on July 6, 2013 had safety procedures that were NOT followed.

We cannot make any mistakes with transportation, for centuries. This noxious, vile dreck cannot be cleaned up in decades or even centuries. It will be around for hundreds of thousands of years.

In 1977, I gave a presentation to Dr. Kenneth Hare, when he came to the city for the nuclear hearings. I tried to explain my feelings and fears about railway safety. It was a rushed process with only 3 months to present, no public consultations and the report was published the same year. “The Management of Canada’s Nuclear Wastes - Energy, Mines and Resources EP77-6” was published in August. His report stated that Canada needed a plan to manage and dispose of nuclear wastes in deep, geological formations, specifically granite in Northern Ontario. His statement aligned with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). This outlook and attitude prevails in the nuclear industries.

With no public consultations, the AECL, once a Crown Corporation, is now called Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and  Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). Both are now owned by major corporate private investors. If there is a nuclear accident, then CNL and NWMO are only financially responsible for some clean-up of the nuclear wastes. The insurance for nuclear damage is not fully covered and therefore not sufficient enough to cover the total costs. The remainder is to be paid for by the public.

Our existing infrastructure is inefficient. Our insurance coverage is insufficient. Our need for nuclear power to generate electricity is not proven. Our politicians are not thinking of the quicker, cheaper, cleaner, and more stable selections of green technologies from solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, heat pumps, gravity, efficiencies and storage. I do know what I am talking about because I have been living in a solar home that provides both heat for my house and hot water needs for over 45 years.

If I cannot trust the IAAC to show all and be honest, how could I trust anything that the nuclear industry says? Stop making the toxic rubbish! Keep what is there and protect it! Let’s have a nationwide referendum on nuclear use. We are using it to boil water, to make steam to turn turbines to generate electricity. This is short sighted and noxious technology.

Susan E Grinstead