DoomsdaysCW<p>The Most Toxic Substance on Earth – and the Tiny Town Volunteering to Host It</p><p>The fraught quest for a safe site to bury <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NuclearWaste" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NuclearWaste</span></a> </p><p>by William Leiss Updated 8:12, Jan. 13, 2025</p><p>"In a landmark decision announced this past November, Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization, or the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NWMO" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NWMO</span></a>, selected the municipality of Ignace in Northwestern Ontario as the site for the country’s first deep geological repository—DGR—for spent nuclear fuel. The repository is to be located within the traditional territory of the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/WabigoonLakeOjibway" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WabigoonLakeOjibway</span></a> Nation, forty-three kilometres from Ignace.</p><p>[...]</p><p>"The Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation—WLON—or <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/WabigoonFirstNation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WabigoonFirstNation</span></a>, based in the Kenora district southeast of Dryden and a member of Grand Council Treaty 3, is the First Nation partner for the NWMO in the Ignace area. Treaty 3 encompasses 55,000 square metres and stretches from eastern Manitoba to just west of Thunder Bay; it includes twenty-eight communities of <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Anishinaabe" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Anishinaabe</span></a> peoples, located in Northwestern <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Ontario" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Ontario</span></a> and southeastern <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Manitoba" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Manitoba</span></a>, with a total population of about 25,000. The WLON is a Saulteaux First Nation band and, as of 2021, had a registered population of 822, with an on-reserve population of 186 residing at Wabigoon Lake 27 Indian Reserve who operate a wild rice processing plant, a logging business, and a tree nursery there. The consultations over the possible DGR siting in the Ignace area led to some quite acrimonious public controversy among a number of First Nations communities, many of which are very close to each other in an area at the southernmost corner of the extreme northwestern edge of Ontario, near both the Manitoba and US borders."</p><p>Read more:<br><a href="https://thewalrus.ca/the-most-toxic-substance-on-earth-and-the-tiny-town-volunteering-to-host-it/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">thewalrus.ca/the-most-toxic-su</span><span class="invisible">bstance-on-earth-and-the-tiny-town-volunteering-to-host-it/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us</span></a> <br><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/EnvironmentalRacism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>EnvironmentalRacism</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NoNukes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NoNukes</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NuclearWaste" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NuclearWaste</span></a></p>