Manitouwadge ponders nuclear storage

The Mayor of Manitouwadge says council wants to learn more about the potential to store nuclear waste near the community.

But John MacEachern said that doesn't mean Manitouwadge is interested in becoming a host site.

MacEachern said it's prudent for Manitouwadge to learn more, especially with several other towns already involved in the process.

"My big thing is I wouldn't want people to have a knee-jerk reaction that says 'we just don't want to know anything about it,’" MacEachern said. "Not knowing is probably worse than knowing and saying 'no we don't want it.'"

MacEachern said he will meet with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization later this month. The town has joined the list of communities in the northwest looking into the possibility of storing nuclear waste, but it has not formally joined the process.

"It's going to have to be stored somewhere, and if it's as safe as they say it is, and as safe it can possibly be, it could be up in this area, maybe this is a good area for it," MacEachern said. "Who knows?"

Several other communities in the northwest are at various stages of investigating the feasibility of nuclear waste storage, including Ignace, Ear Falls, and Schreiber, Nipigon, Wawa and Hornepayne.

Red Rock was in the program, but last year the NWMO deemed it was unlikely the geological formations around the town would be suitable.