(continued)

Keeping You Connected
to the DGR for April, 2011
By Marie Wilson, NWMO

Technology

To Comment on this article Click Here

marie

The submission of Ontario Power Generation (OPG)’s Environmental Impact Statement in support of its proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) Project for low- and intermediate-level waste (l&ILW) marks a significant achievement in the regulatory approvals process. Most importantly, the submission concludes the DGR can provide safe, long-term management of L&ILW in an environmentally and publicly-responsible manner. And, extensive studies have been conducted to ensure that the DGR is unlikely to cause any significant adverse effects on the environment, workers, and members of the public.

The submission of about 12,500 pages of documentation represents more than four years of significant study, analyses and investigations, and reflects a broad range of input from Canadian and international specialists and others through a robust public engagement process conducted in an open and transparent manner.

In order to further the “open and transparent” engagement process, a DGR Project website, accessed at www.opg.com/dgr, will provide you with easy access to all DGR documentation. A document roadmap will direct you through a mountain of information - everything you ever wanted to know or needed to know about this proposed project. You can take a long, extended DGR tour, a short junket or make repeated trips – as many as are required or desired.

Remember the old ad about “let your fingers do the walking”, well that’s exactly what the DGR document roadmap allows you to do – you simply sit down in front of your screen, at your leisure, and use the map to find your way to the major documentation for the project, listed under the following headings:

  • Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) – Consolidates and summarizes all aspects of the Environmental Assessment (EA) studies. Includes descriptions of EA methods, the DGR Project, and the existing environment, along with an assessment of potential and predicted effects (including cumulative effects) and discussions of the EA follow-up monitoring program and the community engagement program. It also includes the Human Health Assessment;

  • Environmental Impact Statement Summary – A 60-page plain language summary of the EIS for those who don’t require the level of detail available in the EIS;

  • Supporting Reports and Studies for the EA - Documents important aspects of the EA assessment of effects of Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs) found in the atmospheric, aquatic and terrestrial environments, etc. (there are 10 documents in all);

  • Preliminary Safety Report – Presents the safety case that demonstrates the proposed DGR Project will provide safe, long-term management of OPG’s L&ILW, and that it is safe to construct, operate and decommission the DGR. It also demonstrates the manner in which the DGR will comply with the applicable regulatory requirements, provides a description of the DGR site and its geological characteristics, preliminary design and site preparation, construction and operation phases. In addition, this document provides an explanation of, and the results of safety assessment;

  • Supporting Reports and Studies for the Preliminary Safety Report – Documents important aspects of the Preliminary Safety work program, including a detailed description of the waste inventory to be emplaced in the DGR, a radon assessment, a maximum flood hazard assessment, a descriptive geosphere site model, which describes the existing geomechanical and hydrogeologic conditions relevant to the DGR safety case and engineering design, etc. (there are 13 documents in all).
Additional documents, in support of the findings outlined in the submission documents above, are also available on the website. Specifically, there are eight additional documents in support of the Postclosure Safety Assessment (considers the safety of the DGR during the expected evolution of the DGR system with time, and the potential impacts of low-probability unlikely or “what if” scenarios). 

Fourteen additional documents are also available on the website in support of the Geosynthesis (a program that combined historical and regional geologic information with data from site-specific studies to describe the geoscientific basis for understanding the past, present and future geologic evolution of the Bruce nuclear site as it influences DGR safety).

Forty-eight documents exist in all, to provide a high level of confidence in the ability of the proposed DGR Project to provide safe, long-term management of OPG’s L&ILW – a substantial amount of reading material to be sure, but would you expect anything less after four years of extensive study, analyses and investigations? The DGR will be constructed only if it is safe to do so, with regulatory approval and community support. These documents validate the safety case for the DGR.

The DGR roadmap is expected to be live early in April – pick a route and enjoy the view!

To see what a document roadmap looks like, click here


Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area.  You can click on the ads for more

Survey Participate in our latest Kincardine Times survey Read More

 
Survey Participate in our latest Saugeen Times survey Read More

 
for world news, books, sports, movies ...

Thursday, April 07, 2011