OWEN SOUND, Ont. -- A plan to bury nuclear waste near Lake Huron doesn't have the key approval of area First Nations.

"Of course we are opposed to it," Saugeen First Nation Chief Vernon Roote said Thursday. "In our community that I represent ... there are no members that are agreeable to the burial at the site at this time."

The proposal by Ontario Power Generation cleared a key hurdle this week when a federal review panel approved the plan.

OPG continued to insist Thursday approval by the Saugeen Objiway Nation is necessary for the project to proceed.

"As we have stated in the past and we will state again, we will not build this project without SON support," OPG spokesperson Neal Kelly said.

Roote said he's concerned about possible contamination of the Great Lakes.

"If something were to happen with the disposal or the leakage of nuclear waste, I wouldn't want to be drinking the water downstream," he said. "That means the balance of Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and also anyone drinking from those lakes, even into the U.S.A."

OPG wants to bury low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Ontario's three nuclear plants in a shaft deeper than the CN tower is tall at the Bruce nuclear site near Kincardine, Ont.

The site is in the traditional territory of the Saugeen Objiway Nation that includes Saugeen and Chippewas of Nawash First Nations.

Chippewas of Nawash Chief Arlene Chegahno couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.

Federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq has 120 days to review the environmental assessment report before deciding if she will authorize the panel to issue the licence to prepare the site for the so-called deep geological repository.

In its report, the panel concluded the project is "not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects."

That conclusion dismayed Erika Simpson, an associate professor of international relations at Western University in London, Ont., who has written about the proposal.

"I can't understand why they can claim the science says it's permissible. The testimony, which I've read, had many scientists, many geologists, questioning the science," she said.

The review panel recommendation comes after 14 years of study and consultation, including 300 hours of public hearings. The panel also sifted through tens of thousands of pages of documents.

If built, the repository would extend 680 metres underground in rock that's 450 million years old.

Opponents, including more than 154 cities across Canada and the U.S., argued the project could menace the water supply in the Great Lakes basin, one of North America's most densely populated regions with about 40 million people.

"It's hard for me to accept the Joint Review Panel's conclusion that a site less than a mile from Lake Huron is the safest and most appropriate place to store millions of gallons of nuclear waste when they failed to even consider other potential sites," Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee said in a written statement.

OPG insists the ancient rock is the perfect site for waste burial.

While SON support has not yet been secured, Kelly said the proposal has had strong support from others locally.

But Simpson said support for the project has been influenced by the millions of dollars promised to area municipalities in a sharing agreement struck in 2004.

If Agluqqak gives the go-ahead to issue the licence, the proposal would go back to the panel to consider OPG's application to prepare the site and begin construction, which could be as early as 2018.

Construction is expected to take seven years and OPG would then need to apply to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for a licence to operate it.

--with files from Randy Richmond