Municipal participation

The Municipality of Port Hope and Municipality of Clarington have been actively involved in the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) from the beginning. They continue to act as key participants in the Port Hope and Port Granby projects.

Consultations and communications

Consultation and communication are cornerstones of the Legal Agreement. Representatives from the municipalities meet regularly with PHAI MO staff to keep abreast of all aspects of the projects and to discuss municipal undertakings of importance to the projects.

Several times a year, the municipalities, PHAI MO and Natural Resources Canada meet through the Agreement Monitoring Group to review project commitments made through the Legal Agreement. Additionally, each municipality receives annual federal funding to retain specialist consultants, known as the Municipal Peer Review Team, to advise them on the technical aspects of the projects.

Development of the PHAI

The municipalities played an important role in the development of the PHAI, which was built on community-initiated concepts for managing the waste locally -- within each municipality’s borders. In 1998 and 1999, the former Town of Port Hope, former Township of Hope and the Municipality of Clarington proposed the concepts which formed the basis of the Legal Agreement for the Cleanup and the Long-Term Safe Management of Low-Level Radioactive Waste Situate in the Town of Port Hope, the Township of Hope and the Municipality of Clarington. With the finalization of the Legal Agreement in 2001, the PHAI began.

Municipal host fees

As host municipalities for the future long-term low-level radioactive waste management facilities, each of the three original municipal signatories to the Legal Agreement received a $10 million host fee.

The Town of Port Hope and the Township of Hope amalgamated in 2001 to form the Municipality of Port Hope. The Legal Agreement established that the principal would be paid by the federal government at the time each of the long-term waste management facilities received a licence from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This occurred in 2009 for the Port Hope Project.

Since 2001, the municipalities have earned the interest on their respective host fees.