Their existing research site at the Chalk River Laboratories outside Ottawa appeared to be "at saturation" and too small to host all the planned experiments.
The idea of an oil-cooled version of the CANDU was eventually abandoned in 1972, and from then on the WR-1 was operated at low power settings in a purely experimental program.
Their general program would involve burial to shield the fuel for about three hundred years while the majority of the gamma ray sources burned out, followed by a much longer period of physical isolation, not necessarily underground, to ensure the remaining radionuclides did not enter the water supply.
This led to the construction of the Underground Research Laboratory (URL) whose primary concern was measuring the stability of hard-rock burial and potential groundwater exchange.
The facility was decommissioned and deliberately flooded in 2010 to perform one final experiment to examine how mine seals work in a water environment.
Work at these sites concluded that by following some basic precautions the possibility of such an explosion in a CANDU was remote, and was used to test the Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners (PAR) system developed to scavenge trace amounts of hydrogen that might be present.
Starting in 1984, Whiteshell began a collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to develop a nuclear battery for powering the North Warning System radars.
[6] Whiteshell Laboratories is currently operated under a decommissioning license issued by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Committee (CNSC) on January 1, 2020.
[7] Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has proposed an in situ decommissioning plan, meaning the reactor will be left in place.
Some factors that make WR-1 eligible for this process include its location underground, the fact that it does not contain large quantities of long-lived isotopes, and that it can easily be monitored during the post-closure control period.
This involves sealing the structure with grout and encasing it in concrete in order to contain any remaining radioactive material for a regulated period of control under CNL.
[9] While the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada requires Indigenous engagement in the early planning of the project, it is understood that the role of the CNSC is to provide technical knowledge to all parties involved.
In eight annexes it defines the responsibilities of both the CNSC and the IAA to be information sharing and notification, public participation and engagement, appointment of rosters and review panels, and Crown consultation.
[7] Sagkeeng First Nation (SFN) and the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) have filed 29 comments on the draft Environment Assessment (EA) between 2017 and 2018.
In January 2015 SFN alerted CNL that they felt it was failing in its obligation to meaningfully include them in the consultation process, ignoring Treaty rights and community interests or concerns.
[1] SFN asserted that their right to free, prior, and informed consent demanded a more serious level of commitment from the Crown, citing inadequate funding in order to participate in the EA being conducted.
[1] The WR-1 decommissioning project represents the first instance of permission being granted to dispose of nuclear waste in an irretrievable, permanent manner, and several shareholders including SFN remain concerned about the implications of structural failure resulting in contamination.
The agreement includes the creation of a liaison position within the MMF, as well as a yearly leadership meeting, and Red River Metis inclusion in an Indigenous Advisory Committee.
The MMF will be included in the environmental monitoring of the WR-1 site after decommissioning, facilitated by creation of the MMF-led Harvester Sample Collection Program.
This program allows the MMF to steward a key portion of their traditional territory and creates opportunities for citizens to be involved in the WR-1 monitoring process.