{"id":480748,"date":"2026-02-17T13:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/480748\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T13:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:26:09","slug":"concerns-mount-about-growing-stockpiles-of-radioactive-waste-next-to-ottawa-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/480748\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerns mount about growing stockpiles of radioactive waste next to Ottawa River"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ottawa River flows through an\u00a0ancient rift valley<\/a>\u00a0that extends from near North Bay through Ottawa toward Montreal. The area is seismically active, and experiences dozens of minor earthquakes each year. Stronger earthquakes also occur such as the magnitude 5 quake in June 2010 that caused shaking, evacuations and damage in Ottawa including shattered windows in Ottawa City Hall and power outages in the downtown area. Above: Photo above shows Chalk River Laboratories, beside the Ottawa River upstream of the Nation\u2019s Capital, in the ancient, seismically-active rift valley.\u00a0Photo submitted.<\/p>\n

Experts say<\/a>\u00a0Ottawa is at risk for a big earthquake. The Government of Canada is currently in the process of shoring up and earthquake-proofing the buildings on Parliament Hill. The project will take 13 years and cost billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, at the same time as billions are being spent to earthquake-proof Canada\u2019s Parliament Buildings, the Government of Canada is paying billions of dollars to a\u00a0US-based consortium<\/a>\u00a0that is importing large quantities of radioactive waste to the Ottawa Valley.<\/p>\n

Soon after it took control of Canada\u2019s nuclear laboratories and radioactive waste in 2015, the consortium, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), announced its intention to consolidate<\/a>\u00a0all federally-owned radioactive waste at Chalk River Laboratories, alongside the Ottawa River, 180 km upstream of the Nation\u2019s Capital. There was no consultation or approval from the Algonquin Nation in whose unceded territory the Chalk River Laboratories is located, nor any consultation with residents of the Ottawa Valley about the plan.<\/p>\n

CNL is importing nuclear waste from federal nuclear facilities in Manitoba, southern\u00a0 Ontario and Quebec. The imports comprise thousands of shipments and thousands of tonnes of radioactive debris from reactor decommissioning, and dozens of tonnes of high level waste nuclear fuel, the most deadly kind of radioactive waste that can deliver a lethal dose of radiation to an unprotected bystander within seconds of exposure.<\/p>\n

High level waste shipments from Becancour, Quebec have already been completed. They involved\u00a0\u201cdozens of trucks\u201d and convoys operating secretly<\/a>\u00a0over several months, from December 2024 through July 2025, under police escort, to move 60 tons of used fuel bundles to Chalk River. Tons of high level waste from Manitoba will follow soon.<\/p>\n

\"\"Above: Silos for radioactive waste storage. (Photo submitted) <\/p>\n

Since there is no long-term facility for high level waste at Chalk River, nor is there any such facility anywhere in Canada at present, CNL built silos to hold the waste at a cost of 15 million dollars. This high level radioactive waste is ostensibly in storage at Chalk River, but there is no guarantee it will ever be moved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CNL plans to put the less deadly waste into a giant, above-ground radioactive waste mound called the Near Surface Disposal Facility, a controversial project currently mired in legal challenges. The dump would hold one million tons of radioactive waste in a facility designed to last about 500 years. Many of the materials destined for disposal in the dump, such as plutonium, will remain radioactive for\u00a0far longer than that<\/a>.\u00a0 According to CNL\u2019s own studies, the facility would\u00a0leak during operation<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0disintegrate after a few hundred years<\/a>, releasing its contents to the surrounding environment and Ottawa River less than a kilometer away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Above: Shipping containers at Chalk River Laboratories (Photo submitted)<\/p>\n

Shipping containers filled with radioactive waste are piling up at Waste Management Area H on the Chalk River Laboratories property, awaiting a time when they can be driven or emptied into the NSDF. At last count there were 1500 shipping containers there. <\/p>\n

It would be hard to choose a less suitable place to consolidate all federal radioactive waste than in a seismically-active zone beside the Ottawa River that provides drinking water for millions of Canadians in communities downstream including Ottawa, Gatineau and Montreal.<\/p>\n

Concerns about imports of radioactive waste to the Ottawa Valley are widespread and growing.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Ottawa City Council unanimously passed\u00a0a resolution<\/a>\u00a0calling for radioactive waste imports to the Ottawa Valley to stop.\u00a0Ottawa Riverkeeper recently called fo<\/a>r transportation of radioactive waste to the Chalk River Laboratories to stop until a clear, long-term plan for the waste is available. A December 2025\u00a0letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a>\u00a0from Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois and Green Party MPs along with First Nations and many civil society groups requested a moratorium on shipments of Canadian radioactive waste to Chalk River.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Action is urgently needed to halt the imports of radioactive waste to the earthquake-prone Ottawa Valley.<\/p>\n

Jones,L.,Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area(2026,Feb.3) Growing stockpiles of radioactive waste beside the Ottawa River upstream of Parliament Hill causing widespread\u00a0concern [media release]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa River flows through an\u00a0ancient rift valley\u00a0that extends from near North Bay through Ottawa toward Montreal. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-480748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}