In January 2021, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) indicated that Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) December 2020 submission of the revised draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the NPD Closure Project had not passed a completeness check. While CNL had made significant progress and that the majority of the issues had been resolved, there were still five remaining responses to improve before the CNSC could proceed with a technical review of the revised draft EIS. Currently, CNL is on course to respond to the CNSC’s guidance and resolve remaining issues by the mid-April 2021.
Pending CNL’s pass of the next regulatory checkpoint, the CNSC will proceed with a technical review involving other federal bodies. Afterwards, the CNSC will then provide CNL with a comprehensive review of the revised draft EIS.
It is CNL’s hope and intention to be able to submit a final EIS, incorporating all of the comments provided by the public, Indigenous communities, interest groups, and federal and provincial bodies since 2015, in late 2021.