The failure of a toxicity test at the Chalk River nuclear facility near Ottawa is raising concerns about environmental damage and poor communication with Indigenous communities.
According to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) was granted a licence to construct a near surface disposal facility (NSDF) at the Chalk River site in May 2016, with the purpose to dispose radioactive waste and “isolate it from people and the environment.”
However, the disposal facility reached non-compliance in sewage effluent which raised a number of questions, claims Ottawa Riverkeeper, a citizen-based action group which promotes ecological health for the Ottawa River watershed.
“The proposed NSDF project at Chalk River poses immediate and severe environmental, health and cultural risks to the communities living east of the Ottawa River, including both First Nations and Québécois,” reads an open letter from Indigenous leaders to Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette.
Looking into the failure, Environment Canada issued a directive last April, saying it “takes pollution incidents and threats to the environment seriously.” However, CNL reported it is “confident that the non-compliant discharge from the sewage treatment facility does not pose a threat to the environment or the public.”
Ottawa Riverkeeper became aware of this issue as part of its participation in Chalk River’s Environmental Stewardship Council.
At Council meeting in March, the Riverkeeper’s team requested additional information about the NSDP non-compliance report.
“The facts we know at this time are that, back in February 2024, the effluent from Chalk River’s sanitary plant failed an acute toxicity test, which automatically triggers a type of investigation that happens,” said Larissa Holman, Director of Science and Policy at Ottawa Riverkeeper.
She believes there is a variety of waste stored at the site that poses a danger to the river. There is a waste mound located a few hundred metres from the river, and the effluent from the plant will be discharged into Perch Lake, which drains into the Ottawa River.
In response to concerns, CNL reported that “the criteria for what waste is allowed at the site has been narrowed to only low-level radioactive waste as opposed to low- and intermediate-level waste in the initial proposal,” an Ottawa Riverkeeper report of toxic sewage from Chalk River reads.
CNL Media Relations told The Nation in an email statement that with its “very modern” sewage plant, CNL “remains confident that the sewage treatment plant effluent at Chalk River Laboratories has had no detrimental impact on fish in the Ottawa River.”
Yet CNL has never released information about the reasons for the failure, and many questions remain, Holman said.
“They didn’t have a lot of info at that time,” she stated. “Our concern is that despite the fact that they were providing information, they were not providing specific details.
“In this particular case they were not passing the compliance test,” she added. “There was something malfunctioning in the treatment process and we hope that this incident will impel CNL to report failures more quickly and more transparently.”
In her opinion, the Canadian government is responsible for regulating this facility. “All the licenses at the Chalk River Laboratories are made through the Canadian initiative commission, and CNL is funded by the government,” she explained. “But in this case with the non-compliance of the wastewater treatment facility, Environment Canada stepped in… it can potentially cause harm to fish and sea habitants.”
Although the CNL announcement on December 4 says it “achieved emissions reduction of 51% from 2005 levels at the Chalk River site,” Holman still questions whether they are keeping the waste out of the municipal landfills.
“And what about an experimental reactor that is on site and came offline because there was a number of issues with it?” she asked. “And how much is this going to be very open in steps taken to keep the environment safe?”
Holman aims to draw attention to what is happening at these facilities and along the Ottawa River, which is over 1,200 km long. “There needs to be a strong voice that speaks on behalf of the river and the organisms that live in that diverse system,” she said.
The Algonquin community of Kebaowek and local groups are challenging a CNSC decision in court to protect the Ottawa River from a nuclear waste disposal facility.
However, industry and the government are evading seeking the consent of Indigenous nations for projects that destroy their territory, said Kebaowek councillor and economic development director Justin Roy.
He says the government is not only disrespecting the environment but also violating the principles of reconciliation outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“Kebaowek members were not able to go on site during our own Indigenous-led environmental assessment,” he said. “No other community has had access to this site.”
In July, Kebaowek filed for a judicial review against CNL in Federal Court in Ottawa, yet no judgment has been received.
Roy pointed out the location would receive over a million cubic metres of nuclear waste. This would have a direct impact on water quality, animals and plants in the watershed, while threatening a source of drinking water for millions of people in Quebec and Ontario.
“They talk about the mound lasting 300 or 500 years, but whatever is left in the amount after that time is still going be there,” he said. “So, what happens to the mound at that point in time?”
Roy says communities were not consulted on the project early enough, and that CNSC should bring all the stakeholders to the table to create a better and long-lasting solution.
For the last five years, dozens of letters expressing concern have been sent to the federal and provincial governments, numerous ministries, and even to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Roy said.
Although federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault is open to improvements after Indigenous leaders raised concerns, there has been no action, and “it seems worse,” Roy said.
“One big solution that can help tackle a lot of the problems is if regulators [the federal government, provincial governments and nuclear industry] got more proactive in adopting articles under UNDRIP into their work,” Roy said.