Think CANDUs are safer than anything else? Think again.

It is a popular Canadian myth that CANDUs are exponentially safer than other reactor designs. Is nationalistic pride trumping real evidence? Or, has the massively funded PR machine of the nuclear industry convinced an all-too-gullible public with its "Don't worry. Be happy" corporate bullshit? If CANDUs are so safe, why can't AECL turn a profit? One would think a super-safe nuclear reactor would be the obvious choice but even Ontario is leaning away from CANDU heavy water technology and toward other designs.

Greenpeace's Shawn-Patrick Stensil has an excellent Q&A on whether Canada is safe from a nuclear accident. Here's what he tells us about the CANDU.

Canada’s CANDU nuclear reactor is no safer than any other reactor design. 

Following the accident at the American Three Mile Island nuclear station in 1979, an all-party committee of the Ontario Legislature (the Select Committee on Hydro Affairs) investigated Ontario’s nuclear policies.  In its 1980 report to the legislature, the committee concluded that:  

“It is not right to say that a catastrophic accident (in a  CANDU  reactor) is impossible ... The worst possible accident could involve the spread of radioactive poisons over large areas, killing thousands immediately, killing others through increasing susceptibility to cancer, risking genetic defects that could affect future generations, and possibly contaminating, for further habitation, large land areas... 

Accidents, mistakes and malfunctions do occur in [CANDU] nuclear plants: equipment fails; instrumentation gives improper readings; operators and maintainers make errors and fail to follow instructions; designs are inadequate; events that are considered `incredible' happen...no matter how careful we are, we must anticipate the unexpected.”

Additionally, the spent fuel storage pools that must circulate cool water over hot waste for 10-15 years are essentially the same at CANDU facilities as at every other facility. We have no deep geologic repository for spent fuel. All spent fuel in North America is being stored on site at nuclear power plants.

Spent fuel will remain hazardous for 1000's of years past the time when the plant responsible for creating it has ceased production. No production means no income... obviously. Yet today, we have SWAT teams guarding nuke plants to ensure bad guys don't get their hands on spent fuel. Who will be paying for the SWAT team and keeping the SWAT team armed with advanced weaponry 100 years from now? 200 years from now? 250,000 years from now? Remember, the most optimistic lifespan of a nuke plant is 60 years, including refurbishment.

BTW, all of Canada's plants are about the same age as Fukushima's 1971 reactors. They're failing. Pickering's CANDU leaked 73,000 liters of contaminated water into Lake Ontario this week. NB's Pt Lepreau refurbishment is years behind schedule and costing millions and millions more than estimated. Bruce Power's refurbishment is 18 months behind schedule and 100's of millions over budget.

Pro-nuke spinmeisters and vested interests are flailing desperately. It's their death throes. AECL was already on the auction block at a fire sale price with precious few (2) qualified bidders. Right now, I don't think we could give it away.

Is Canadian Uranium Fueling Iran's Nuclear Program? Follow the links.

Whooee! Well, friends an’ foes, seems like a dog’s age since I done any boogin’. I been twitterin’ up a storm but I reckon I ain’t been motivated enough to typewrite more’n a hunnert an’ forty characters at a time. Until now, that is.

What got me chewin’ nails an’ fartin’ tacks this mornin’ was when I read about a spill on a shipload of Canadian uranium bound for China.

Right off, I gotta say I ain’t too keen on the cosy trade relations we got with the world’s worst human rights abuser. Sure, China’s a terrific supplier of poison dog food, lead-painted kid’s toys, prison labour produced shoes, suicide factory iPhones an’ a whole whack of other great stuff. But tradin’ our uranium for all them great consumer goodies sorta sticks in my craw.

Of course, China wouldn’t dream of using any Canadian uranium to fuel its nuclear weapons program. Right?

And, they’d never sell it on to a nuclear wannabe like Iran. Would they?

Wikileaks has let us know that Iran’s nuclear program is being aided by 30 countries. As of yet, the names of those 30 countries remains unknown. However, the leaked cables inform us that Iran’s chief problem in advancing its nuclear program is a lack of uranium. Hmmm… Canada’s got plenty. In fact, we’re the world’s second-largest supplier after Australia.

But Canada doesn’t sell nuclear technology to Iran, does it? Not directly, at least. We do sell nuclear materials and technology to a couple of Iran’s trade buddies, though: China and Kazakhstan.

And Kazakhstan, like China, would never sell to Iran. Would they?

Of course, all this worry about Canadian technology and uranium being used to further nuclear arms proliferation is just unfounded scaremongering. Right? We sold our technology to India, didn’t we? Did India use CANDU know-how to build an atomic bomb? Oh yeah, they did. But that didn’t have any serious consequences. It’s not like India’s arch enemy, Pakistan, felt pressured to become a nuclear power. Oh yeah, it did. But these countries are responsible world citizens and they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, didn't they? Oh yeah, they didn't.

That stuff’s all in the past. Who cares if India refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Canada decided they don’t pose any threat and signed a nuclear trade agreement with India just last summer.

Well, at least India's enemy, Pakistan, is so politically stable that their nuclear arsenal will never fall into the hands of extremists. Will it?

Soldiers... with guns... in our streets - Forces Training for Domestic Deployment

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, I'm a little slow on the uptake in catchin' this story. I come across it while lookin' fer news about nuclear power plants in Canada.

Military readies reservists for threats to 'domestic front'

Adrian Humphreys, National Post
Published: Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Master Cpl. Brian Walsh/DNDReserve units across Canada
are being trained in securing perimeters in case of an emergency.

The Canadian military has embarked on a wide-ranging plan to turn its reserve soldiers into focused units trained and equipped to respond to a nightmarish array of domestic threats, including terrorist "dirty bomb" attacks, biological agent containment, Arctic catastrophes and natural disasters.

The creation of seven units within each region of the country -- including unusual all-terrain vehicle (ATV) squadrons and perimeter security teams to cordon areas of potential devastation -- prepares reserve soldiers for operations on the "domestic front" while freeing regular force soldiers to concentrate on foreign battlefields.

(More...)

What's that got to do with nuclear power plants?

"We all know the threat from dirty bombs, chemical contaminants. This is certainly one of the more dangerous situations that can arise," said Brig.-Gen. Collin.

"You can certainly get it from a terrorist act. You can also get it from a man-made disaster. You can get nuclear contamination from a nuclear power plant -- Three Mile Island, Chernobyl.

"We are training to establish a perimeter. Do I see a scenario when we might be obliged to keep people in? Probably. You need to be trained to be able to make sure that you don't become a casualty in the process of doing that security."

(Emphasis mine, JB)

The proponents of nuclear energy routinely dismiss concerns about security and the possibility of terrorist attacks and the problem of dirty bomb fuel being stored at power plants. The Canadian army is not so dismissive and is preparing for just such possibilities.

One of the more disturbing things in General Collin's quote is when he says that soldiers guarding a perimeter could be deployed to keep people inside the perimeter. If people happen to be in the 30KM radius of a nuclear accident, toxic leak or chemical warfare attack, I would hope the military would be deployed to get them out -- not to keep them in.

This is another example of the public picking up the tab for nuclear power plant security. How many military units will be needed to guard against contamination from windmills, solar panels and distributed hydro power?

JimBobby

Three Mile Island - People Died

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, this is the 30 year anniversary of North America's worst nuclear accident: Three Mile Island. True to form for nuke incidents, we've been kept in the dark concerning the actual scope of the disaster.

Robert, over at Blast Furnace Blog, had a piece on TMI and I left a bigass comment. I'm recycling that comment here.

We're only just learning about the cover-ups at TMI.

People died.

Also:
In 1983, Metropolitan Edison was busted for falsifying documents related to the accident and reactor safety. They pled guilty to six, and no contest to one, of the 11-count indictment.

(The) thousands of people who received the same dose as an x-ray included pregnant women and children under the age of five. Pregnant women, fetuses and young children are more easily damaged by small doses of radiation. Acceptable doses are based on "reference man" -- a 20-30 YO Caucasian male.

Until we have a permanent, safe, passively secure site for storing spent fuel, we sure as hell shouldn't be adding to the stockpile.

While (Robert's) assertion that CANDUs are safer than other types is arguable, AECL has abandoned the old heavy water CANDU and is promoting the ACR 1000, a EPR (Generation 3) type reactor. All 3 of the reactor designs shortlisted for Ontario are EPR types.

In the past couple weeks, the Oxford Research Group, UK think tank, released a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research. They warn that these third generation (EPR) reactors, like the three models on OPG's shortlist for Ontario and Bruce Power's shortlist for Nanticoke, pose proliferation risks that could lead to “nuclear anarchy.” The report notes that the new type of reactor produces high grade plutonium as a by-product. Plutonium is used to make the most efficient nuclear weapons.

It's been nearly 60 years since the "Atoms for Peace" campaign started promoting nuclear electricity generation. Back then, the scientists were heady from successes like the Manhattan Project. They saw the problem of spent fuels but were understandably confident the problem would be solved quickly. After all , the world's best minds were working on a solution. After 60 years, the best they came up with was Yucca Mountain and that has just been kiboshed by Obama after 20 years work and $11 Billion thrown down the drain.

Reprocessing doesn't work either. A reprocessing plant in West Valley, NY, just across Lake Erie must be decommissioned at taxpayer expense. The operator went broke. NY State taxpayers are looking at a $27 billion estimate to decontaminate the site. Remember though, nuke projects typically come in at least 50% over budget.

Why on earth would any sensible person even consider a technology that leaves behind waste that must be guarded by paramilitary swat teams for 250,000 years?

Here's picture from Bruce Power bragging about their security team. The stuff they're guarding will need to be guarded for more than 100,000 years. Who's going to be responsible for securing the waste we're creating today? What right do we have to burden future generations and civilizations with the toxic legacy of our wasteful lifestyles?

JimBobby

AECL Throws in the Towel - Medical Reactors Scrapped

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, the chickens is comin' home to roost. Everybody remembers the big Isotope Crisis where the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission blew the whistle on AECL's mismanagement of the reactor at Chalk River and that led to a shut down and that led to Harper callin' all MP's to override the safety folks and start up the nuke plant despite non-compliance with safety orders. We all remember how Linda Keen was fired in the middle of the night a coupla months later.

Underneath all that was the assurance that Chalk River's aging NRU reactor was to be replaced by two shiny, new specially-designed medical isotope reactors: Maple 1 and Maple 2. Back in February, those reactors were 8 years behind schedule and $400 million over budget. But, don't worry, AECL assured us.

Experts and informed observers were saying that the Maples had a serious design flaw and would likely never come online. Hogwash, said AECL. The new reactors would be churning out isotopes by late 2008. There were just a couple of minor problems, they said.

Greg Weston wrote about it for the Sun.

The old Chalk River reactor has been patched and repaired since it was first tagged for the scrap heap almost two decades ago -- after a serious accident in 1991 when a broken weld spilled 18,000 litres of contaminated heavy water into the reactor building.

The reactor was formally scheduled to be taken out of service the minute the new Maple reactors were in service which, 17 years later, still has not happened.

The federal agency that owns and operates all three reactors, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., still claims the first of the new atomic marvels will be ready for service by the end of this year.

But government sources told Sun Media both of the new reactors -- called Maple 1 and 2 -- have a serious design flaw, and would cost taxpayers a fortune.

A source close to the issue says flatly: "You can bet you will never see those in service. Ever."

The growing consensus that the new reactors are duds is the latest chapter in what may be one of the longest-running government boondoggles in history.

In 1996, MDS Nordion, a Canadian company that markets medical isotopes, agreed to pay Atomic Energy $140 million to build two Maple reactors that were to be in commercial service no later than 2000.

MDS would own the reactors, and Atomic Energy would get a share of the proceeds from the sale of medical isotopes across Canada and around the world.

But by 2005, costs had spiralled out of control, and still the Maple reactors were plagued with technical and other problems.

In 2006, after a lengthy legal fight with Atomic Energy, MDS Nordion did something that should have sounded alarm bells about the reactors.

The company simply wrote off the staggering $345 million it had invested in the Maple reactors, and handed Atomic Energy the keys -- and all future financial responsibility for the project.

In return, MDS got a guaranteed 40-year supply of isotopes.

MDS Nordion's share price went up on the announcement.

At that time, Canadian taxpayers had at least $150 million in the Maple project, bringing the total project cost to just over $500 million.

In 2007, officials at the federal agency predicted it would cost the public purse another $130 million to get the new reactors in service.

But senior government sources say the figure is closer to another $400 million, bringing the total cost to around $900 million -- an overrun of about 650% from the original contract price.

"There is no way those (reactors) make any economic sense for commercial isotope production," says one federal official close to the situation.

"Taxpayers would be subsidizing them forever."

Sources also warn that even investing $400 million more would not guarantee the reactors would actually work.

The biggest technical problem, in simple terms, causes the nuclear reaction to speed up as the reactor speeds up, creating a cycle of ever increasing power that may not have a happy ending.

Atomic Energy officials argue that the problem is only slight, and can be rectified.

But one federal official points out the world has already seen the phenomenon in action once, albeit on a far larger scale than anything that could occur at Chalk River.

"It was called Chernobyl."

Well, folks, AECL has finally thrown in the towel. They are scrapping the $600 Million white elephants. They're gonna walk away from the Maples just like MDS Nordion did in 2006, after MDS had invested $345 million.

AECL is a crown corporation and all the losses associated with this colossal screw-up have been at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer. They've spent 12 years collecting hundreds of millions in welfare while building a coupla pieces of junk. We can't sue them because we ARE them.

AECL aborts reactor development

The Canadian Press

May 16, 2008 at 11:34 AM EDT

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is scrapping development of its two new MAPLE medical-isotope reactors at its Chalk River, Ont., laboratories.

The decision “is based on a series of reviews that considered, among other things, the costs of further development, as well as the time frame and risks involved with continuing the project,” the federal Crown corporation said Friday.

The MAPLE reactors, described as the first in the world dedicated entirely to medical isotope production, were intended to be capable of supplying the entire global demand for molybdenum-99, iodine-131, iodine-125 and xenon-133.

AECL said the decision to abort them “will not impact the current supply of medical isotopes.”

It said contracts with MDS Nordion provide for production to continue at AECL's existing National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River.

So, we're not only tossing out the two flawed Maples, we're planning to honour the 40 year supply contract with MDS. I guess we're planning on keeping NRU Chalk River running for another 38 years. The reactor was built in the 50's and was scheduled for decommissioning in 2000, when the Maples were to have replaced it. Now, they'll never replace it.

Let's all remember that Dalton Ginty has AECL on the short list, along with General Electric and Areva, to bid on $40 billion dollars worth of new nuclear power generation in Ontario. They are said to be the hometown favourite with their newly-designed, never-built ACR-1000 CANDU.

Harper wants to sell all the crown corps. AECL's been on the block for a couple years. Looks like somebody'll be able to snap up a bargain. Confidence in and value of AECL must be at an all time low.

Disgustin', sez I.

JimBobby

Isotope Crisis: Manufactured and Avoidable

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, I just left a bigass comment over to The Progressive Right and I'm recyclin' that comment here. Jim was talkin' about Presto Manning and how he's pushin' fer some new Ministry of Science and Technology, or some such thing. Manning says the new bureaucracy could do things like develop replacement reactors for the aging Chalk River NRU.

So, Manning thinks we need a brand new bureaucracy to develop new research reactors? We're already building the Maple 1 and Maple 2. Those new research reactors were scheduled to replace the aging Chalk River plant in 2000. They are 8 years late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. More bureaucracy will fix that? I ain't bettin' on it.

The latest chapter to the AECL saga is that Mr. Burns was selected on purely partisan grounds after two headhunting studies recommended a qualified, experienced individual for the job. Just like Harper said, the problem is with political hacks being appointed to jobs for which they are unqualified.

Tony Clement is now saying there are management problems at AECL. He's making it sound like Burns had to go. Two days ago, the spin was that Burns' hasty departure had nothing to do with the manufactured isotope shortage. Yesterday, a different story. Tomorrow? Wait for the next spin cycle. The $31 million dollar polls aren't in yet.

“I think it's fair to say it confirmed our impression that there has to be new management, there has to be better management, at AECL,” Mr. Clement said.

Was that the same impression they had in 2006 (edited from "2005" by JB per correction from LKO - see comments) when they paid for a headhunter and then chose a party hack instead of the recommended hire?

The biggest part of this whole scandal is the fact that the shortage and ensuing crisis were avoidable, even at almost the last minute.

MDS is the profitable private company that distributes AECL's isotopes. On Nov 30, MDS issued a press release advising investors that the company was facing a supply problem and shortages may develop. Such reporting is required for publicly traded companies when a known issue may affect stock price.

Alternate suppliers, particularly a Holland-based reactor, were already gearing up their production schedules to meet the demand when NRU could not. A similar outsourcing program was used in 1998 when a labour dispute shut down Chalk River.

Procedures for dealing with future shortages were implemented after the 1998 strike. Even during that strike, though, they managed to keep isotopes available.

This time, they let the crisis develop. Lives were put at risk. A full-blown crisis was manufactured and Harper, et al, saw no other option than to overrule CNSC and restart NRU. There were other options but they were apparently unknown to parliament.

If MDS had outsourced, no crisis would have developed. If MDS had outsourced, MDS's stock price would be negatively affected. Outsourcing from suppliers who are working overtime to meet demand is expensive. MDS's customers are mainly in North America. Flying isotopes from Holland or South Africa is expensive. Transportation costs would have would cut further into MDS's profits.

MDS played its cards skillfully. They created a shortage. They failed to notify all the affected parties. They failed to procure available alternative isotopes. They put thousands of lives at risk. They got Parliament to restore their source of profitable isotopes.

Harper's disdain for crown corporations is well known and his years at NCC document his anti-crowncorp ideology. Placing an unqualified party fundraiser in charge of a multi-billion dollar nuclear industry giant was tantamount to sabotage. Now, CPoC strategists like Norquay are popping up and saying we need to rid ourselves of this troublesome AECL.

Who benefits from a discredited safety board and a devalued AECL? G.E. for one. They are front runners in the bid to purchase AECL from the taxpayers of Canada.

20 years from now, will we be seeing some HoC ethics committee grilling Harper about his connection to an avoidable isotope shortage that threatened thousands of lives?

UPDATE: A commenter at the Globe & Mail found this file:
http://www.eh.doe.gov/NEPA/rods/1996/17se6rod.pdf

It outlines how a shortage is to be dealt with and names a Belgian supplier as the alternative source for isotopes.

'IRE and Nordion have signed a mutual Mo-99 backup agreement to avoid a complete shortage of Mo-99 in case of an unscheduled shutdown of the Canadian NRU reactor.'

Nordion is MDS Nordion,


JimBobby

Other bloggers are posting on this:

• Accidental Deliberations
• Take off, eh?
• Impolitical
• Sean in Saskatchewan
• Lord Kitchener's Own
• Indiescribe
• Jake Gray
• La Revue Gauche
• A BCer in Toronto
• Scott's DiaTribes

Olaf's Great Debate: Nuclear Power, Yes or No?

Whooee! I was just over to a new site called The Great Canadian Debate where they got a interestin' idea. They get two bloggers to make their case on a topic and then the readers go on a discussion board to comment. Olaf from The Prairie Wrangler is behind the site and I say kudos to Olaf fer a dang good idea.

Today, the debate's on nuclear power. John of Dymaxion World is arguing against nukes. Frank Cybulski is on the pro-nuke side. Since I'm a lazyass and a recycler, I lifted my comment from there and I'm pasting it here.

Frank said: However, it can be assumed from both evidence and logical deduction that those single two incidents are the two blotches on an otherwise flawless safety record,

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are the two most well-known nuclear accidents. The industry's safety record is anything but flawless. A simple wikipedia search for nuclear accidents would tell even the most casual investigator that there have, in fact, been hundreds of accidents. To suggest that the nuclear industry's safety record is "flawless" is to insult the reader. After reading that genuinely offensive piece of disinformation, I very nearly quit reading Frank's argument.

If I had quit, though, I wouldn't have seen the next falsehood: The main example in favour of nuclear is that of France.

During heatwaves in 2003 and again in 2006, many of France's reactors had to be shut down due to a lack of cooling water. This was at the time when they needed the most energy for AC, refrigeration, fans, etc. In the 2003 heatwave, thousands of French citizens died from heat related problems.

Not enough cool water caused reactors to shut down in Michigan in 2006.

Groundwater in the French Champagne wine and dairy district is seven times more radioactive than EU standards permit. An entire industry, centuries old, faces collapse due to leaking radioactive contaminants.

Here in Canada, we have the Cameco situation. Cameco is a processor of raw uranium into nuclear fuel. Their Port Hope, Ontario plant has been leaking radioactive toxins into the ground and the plant has been shut down while they try to find the leak. They are being forced to drill holes through the sides of their various buildings and structures looking for the source. They've been looking for about three weeks, now.

The notion that nuclear energy production is carbon neutral is flat out wrong. Uranium mining is one of the most CO2 intensive of all mining operations. Transportation and refining of uranium are CO2 emitters. The construction of new nuclear plants takes years and is anything but carbon neutral.

Ontario's Environment Commissioner, Gordon Miller, says we should be looking at smaller, localized sources of power rather than large, centralized generators. The loss of power in transmitting across hundreds of miles amounts to more than 10%. Buyilding those transmission routes is another CO2 emitter and also takes valuable agricultural land out of use. McGuinty has chosen not to take the advice of his environment commissioner.

Frank goes on: Much is made of nuclear waste, but the miniscule amount of waste created by nuclear is insignificant when properly taken care of,

It's not the quantity. It's the toxicity. As far as "properly taken care of", nobody's figured out how to do that, yet. They've been looking for a way to properly take care of this waste for 60 years but, so far, temporary on-site storage is what we're doing. Even industry insiders say this is not a good permanent solution.

Nuclear waste must be guarded 24/7 by armed guards. Why? So terrorists or other criminals don't steal it to use as the dirt in a dirty bomb... or worse. Ontario Power Generation is training its own security force to takeover this responsibility from police.

No nuclear project in Canada has ever come in on time or on budget. The cost over-runs have been in the bilions. Reactor lifespans were said to be 40 years and when the existing Ontario reactors were built, the cost was prorated over 40 years. After 20 years, however, they began to fail. No reactor in Ontario has lasted more than 25 years. This has effectively doubled the cost to the taxpayer. Ontarians pay a charge on every monthly bill for "Ontario Hydro Debt Repayment." This money is entirely going to pay off bad investments in nuclear energy.

Shall I get into the cancer rates (200%-300% above average) in locales near nuclear plants? Shall I note all the times there were accidents and the public was left uninformed of the danger they were in (think way back to the Japan earthquake a couple weeks ago.) Shall I tell how the industry wines and dines local municipal government officials when a plant is proposed (Manitoba councillors flown out east for lobster dinners before a critical vote in which they approved a nuclear application)?

No nukes!

JimBobby

Nuke Accident Downplayed -- As Usual

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, here we go again. Over in Japan, they had an earthquake an' they had a fire an' leaks at the world's biggest nuclear power plant.

First, the nuke plant operators said there were no leaks. For several hours after they knew they had a problem, they kept their mouths shut.

Then, they said there was a tiny leak that didn't pose any threat.

Then, they said that the leak was 50% bigger than they first said it was but it's still nothin' to worry about, sez they. 325 gallons of radioactive water just got washed in to the ocean. Drop in the bucket, sez they.

Then, they said there was about 100 barrels of low level radioactive waste that fell over and some of the lids come off.

Then, they said it was really 400 and not 100.

Then, the mayor of the city where the nuke plant is shut down the plant indefinitely. He ain't too happy about the way the plant operators kept the public in the dark fer so long. Maybe he ain't too sure they ain't still coverin' up. I know I ain't. Some industry watchers is sayin' it's worse than Three Mile Island.

Here in Nanticoke, Ginty's all gung-ho about buildin' a new nuke plant so's he can shut down the smokin' chuggin' coal-fired generator we got pollutin' the air. I reckon this situation in Japan oughta make ol' Dalton take another look. If he thinks we're ready to accept that sorta risk an' he won't run into a bigass fight, he's dreamin' in radioactive technicolour.

But, we don't have earthquakes in Ontariariario, so we ain't got nothin' to worry about. Right?

Wrong. We do have earthquakes and tremors here in GintyLand and also out in Lake Erie and just across the pond over in Ohio an' Pennsylvania. There's a whole whack o' faults under Lake Erie and in Southwestern Ontariariario. Out on the lake, they got a few gas wells. Some farmers got gas wells on their property 'round here, too. That travels underground in the faults. If there weren't faultlines, there wouldn't be any natural gas down there.

Why does Ginty wanna put Ontarians into the same jeopardy and danger as them poor Japanese?

JimBobby