Ontario Power Generation and the Municipality of Kincardine inked the financial deal in 2004

Proposed Plan

ONTARIO POWER GENERATION / KINCARDINE FINANCIAL DEAL³

1.  $35.7 million in payments to the Municipality of Kincardine and adjacent municipalities for exercising best efforts to support OPG to secure all approvals required to construct and operate the DGR.

Commencing in 2005 through to 2034, OPG is paying out $35.7million by way of lump sum and annual payments (inflation protected) to five shoreline communities who, in OPG's unilateral view, are demonstrating willingness and support of OPG's application to construct and operate a Nuclear Waste Dump, or DGR. According to the DGR Hosting Agreement the $35.7million is allocated: Kincardine $22.1million and $13.6million shared by Saugeen Shores $8.5million, Huron Kinloss $2.38million, Arran-Elderslie $1.36million, Brockton $1.36million.

Between 2005-2012, before approval to construct the dump is even received, OPG will have paid out $10.5million to the five municipalities.

Upon OPG being granted a license to construct the dump, (anticipated in 2013) the communities, in addition to their regular annual payments, receive another lump sum payment of $2.1million.

2.  There are major strings attached to receipt of these payments:  If Ontario Power Generation, in its unilateral view, decides that Kincardine or any of the adjacent municipalities have failed to exercise best efforts to support the construction and operation of OPG's Nuclear Waste Dump, OPG may, in its sole discretion, and acting reasonably, decline to make further payments and the affected municipality will not have any right to receive or recover that payment.

It is not unreasonable to think that all municipalities may be reluctant to raise concerns about the Nuclear Waste Dump. The Ottawa Citizen reported that the Hosting Agreement "..allows OPG to withhold payments should any of the municipalities have failed to exercise best efforts to support construction of the repository or to meet construction milestones. Politicians might interpret this to mean they cannot criticize aspects of the plan, for fear of losing the money, or that future councils cannot change course."⁴

3.  OPG's 2004 Agreement with Kincardine provided for a Property Value Protection Plan that was established to compensate some property owners for diminution of property value suffered as a result of radioactive contamination, limited to the timeframe during which the dump is operating.

If OPG is so certain that the Nuclear Waste Dump will be safe and good for the community, why is it necessary to establish a Property Value Protection Plan? This plan is despite Ontario Power Generation's safety assurances. Is it possible that OPG is not certain about the Nuclear Waste Dump's safety? And if a Property Value Protection Plan makes sense for some citizens in Municipality of Kincardine, why are the 40 million citizens potentially affected by this proposal not receiving access to the same protection?

4.  In addition, Ontario Power Generation is also entitled to use the dump to bury all additional future low and intermediate decommissioning waste for all current and future Ontario nuclear reactors.
Ontario Power Generation is also entitled to expand the use of the Nuclear Waste Dump to include storage of the low and intermediate nuclear waste that will be produced as part of the closure of each of Ontario's 20 nuclear reactors when they are shut down at the end of their useful life (decommissioning waste). In addition, OPG is also entitled to also bury all future low and intermediate waste that would be produced from new nuclear generation in the Province of Ontario.

5.  40 million affected Canadians and Americans situated throughout the Great Lakes Basin that can and will be impacted if things go wrong were not consulted or informed and receive nothing but risk and uncertainty.

³ http://www.nwmo.ca/uploads_managed/MediaFiles/537_HostingAgreement.pdf
⁴ Ottawa Citizen, July 28, 2005 Compensating Kincardine