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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

Winter is back baby, and the season is forecasted to “salvage its reputation” in Canada, according to the Weather Network’s chief meteorologist. The cold comeback means that we’re unlikely to see a repeat of last year’s warmest winter on record, but it’s still a little too early to make any white Christmas predictions.

A colder-than-normal winter is expected in Alberta and British Columbia – but that’s good news for ski resorts and outdoorsy activities, including in Banff and Lake Louise.

Now, let’s catch you up on other news, including a deep dive into nuclear waste.

1. Books: Jane Goodall has been famous for decades. At 90, the primatologist still isn’t used to it
2. Theatre: Erased is a climate manifesto that explodes from a slow burn to an apocalyptic climax
3. Energy: Drilling projected to hit highest level in a decade as sector seeks regulatory, policy support
4. Plastic: Guilbeault disappointed as talks to halt plastic pollution end without agreement
5. Politics: Alberta’s plan to defy emissions cap raises concerns of overreach and disclosure for energy companies
6. Courts : Alberta launches second court challenge to federal Impact Assessment Act
7. Homes: Vancouver city council votes to stick with ban on natural gas in new builds
8. From The Narwhal: Rising sea levels could put Vancouver’s airport underwater

Matt McClearn is an investigative reporter and data journalist with The Globe’s Energy, Natural Resources and Environment Team. For this week’s deeper dive, he talks about recent nuclear news.

Ending a search that consumed 14 years, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has finally selected a burial site for Canada’s nuclear waste. The non-profit organization announced last week that it will build a facility, known as a deep geological repository, at a location in northwestern Ontario known as the Revell site, approximately 50 kilometers southeast of Dryden. But the controversies it has provoked are not over.

The DGR would be a warren of tunnels and rooms located underground, as deep as 800 metres below the surface. It would be the final resting place for Canada’s inventory of spent fuel bundles removed from Candu reactors at nuclear power plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick – all 3.3 million of them (as of last year) and counting. The owners of those plants control the NWMO.

The NWMO had promised from the outset that it would obtain a “compelling demonstration of willingness” from both a municipality and a First Nation on whose traditional territory the facility would be located. Having successfully concluded hosting agreements with the Township of Ignace (located about 40 kilometres east of the Revell site) and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation (WLON), the NWMO declared that it had found its willing hosts.

WLON’s public statements, though, don’t seem all that firm. It described itself as a “potential host” and emphasizes that the NWMO had decided only to “proceed with the site characterization process.” It announced that it would conduct its own regulatory review of the project, which it had not yet approved.

The NWMO’s hosting agreement with WLON wasn’t released publicly. That’s a contrast with the agreements with municipalities, which were published earlier this year. They provided for payments collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars and detailed commitments and responsibilities. Ignace, for example, confirmed its unequivocal consent and promised to “not engage in any action that could frustrate, delay or interfere with, or stop NWMO from proceeding with the project.”

Charles Faust, a spokesperson for an opposition group called Nuclear Free Thunder Bay, said the NWMO came up short. “The closest they could get from Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation was consent to continue in the site characterization process,” he said in a statement. “It’s a small victory which they are going to play big.”

In October, the Grand Council Treaty #3 – the traditional government of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty #3 – passed a resolution stating the DGR “will not be developed” within the territory. Of the 28 First Nations the treaty represents, WLON is the closest to the Revell site.

Another Treaty 3 member, Grassy Narrows First Nation, has a reserve 160 kilometres downstream along the Wabigoon River. Joseph Fobister, its team lead for land protection, said the band fears the DGR could contaminate the watershed, and that the NWMO had not addressed its concerns.

“We’ve said no in every possible way,” he said. “We’ll do what we can to stop this from happening. And I think we have a lot of support from other First Nations communities and towns and municipalities in the area.”

An impact assessment for the DGR is to begin in 2028.

- Matt

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