For decades, Canadian farmers have safely farmed near nuclear facilities. Their crops and livestock are routinely monitored by partners and federal agencies such as the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. There have been no adverse effects on their land or agricultural products.
 
The NWMO will work closely with the agricultural community to ensure the deep geological repository project will have added value to the agricultural sector, and to find opportunities to support and promote Ontario agriculture crops and products.

Protecting water, people and the environment is so important to the NWMO — it is at the core of what we do and a value we share with Canadians and Indigenous peoples. Understanding water, its quality, its memory and where it flows is essential for us to be able to make good decisions as we do our work.

In July 2021, the NWMO partnered with Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority (SVCA) to research water resources in the South Bruce area. The information collected will help the NWMO and SVCA make future project decisions to protect water.

The program will monitor water flow and collect surface water samples in rivers, lakes and wetlands throughout the Teeswater River and the Beatty Saugeen River subwatersheds.

The water samples will be submitted to CALA-certified laboratories for analysis. They will test for:

• General water quality;
• Existing local industries; and
• Potential contaminants.

Here is what the water will be tested for:

Tier 1 (natural radionuclides): tritium, carbon-14, strontium-90, iodine-129, cesium-137 [and associated cobalt-60, ruthenium-106], gross-α, gross-β

Tier 2 (natural radionuclides): uranium-238, uranium-234, uranium-235, potassium-40, thorium-228, thorium-230, thorium-232, radium-226

Tier 2 (artificial radionuclides): chlorine-36, cobalt-60, selenium-79, ruthenium-106, neptunium-237, plutonium-238, plutonium-239, plutonium-240, plutonium-241 americium-241, curium-244

Metals: aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barium, beryllium, bismuth, boron, cadmium, cesium, chromium (total, trivalent, hexavalent), cobalt, copper, iron, lead, lithium, mercury, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, rhodium, ruthenium, samarium, selenium, silver, strontium, thallium, tin, titanium, uranium, vanadium, zinc, zirconium

Organics: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, petroleum hydrocarbons, dioxins and furans, polychlorinated biphenyls (total), organochlorine pesticides

Nutrients and general chemistry: alkalinity, bicarbonate, bromide, calcium, carbonate, chloride, cyanide, fluoride, hydroxide, magnesium, pH, potassium, sodium, specific conductivity, sulphate, sum of ions, total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness, total suspended solids (TSS), turbidity, ammonia as nitrogen, nitrate + nitrite, nitrate (NO₃), total organic carbon (TOC), total inorganic carbon (TIC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), phosphorus, total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), chlorophyll-a, biological oxygen demand (BOD), total coliforms, E. coli

Canada's plan for the safe, long-term management of used nuclear fuel involves containing and isolating the used fuel in a deep geological repository in a way that protects both people and the environment, including water.

The repository will be located deep underground in a suitable rock formation, which must meet technical criteria for the development of a robust safety case. The repository uses multiple barriers that include the waste form, container, sealing materials, and the host rock. The system is designed such that the failure of one component would not jeopardize the safety of the containment system as a whole.

The project will also be subject to a thorough regulatory review process, including an impact assessment and a licensing review to ensure that it is implemented in a manner that protects people and the environment. There cannot be any credible risk to the public or the environment, including bodies of water.

Studies conducted around the world have concluded that high-level waste from reprocessing should also be contained and isolated in a deep geological repository.

If Canada chooses to reprocess nuclear fuel in the future, it would be a joint decision by the nuclear energy producers, the associated provincial governments and the federal government.

If such a decision were made, the NWMO would work with utilities and government to safely manage whatever high-level waste resulted from this process. For example, if some used fuel was identified for reprocessing, it could be diverted for that purpose instead of being placed in the deep geological repository, and be retrieved at a later date.

To help anticipate any changes in fuel cycles used in Canada, we keep an annual watching brief on new developments.