Bill C-5: The Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act

[Oscar]

Bill C-5: The Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act

----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 10:37 PM
Subject: Bill C-5: The Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act

Here (below) is a copy of my 10-minute intervention to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources on Thursday morning (November 29). A CCNR colleague, Michel Duguay, a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Laval University with a degree in nuclear physics, was also presenting at the same time.

The government has introduced Bill C-5 to replace the old Nuclear Liability Act, which limits the liability of a nuclear facility owner in case of off-site damages caused by a nuclear accident. The old act had a limit of $75 million. The new (proposed) act has a liability limit of $650 million.

The reasons for this kind of legislation, which has its counterparts in the USA and in Europe, can be understood by reading a brief history : http://ccnr.org/insurance.html.

The proposed bill C-5 can be found at the following link

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublication ... 386&file=4

Here are my comments to the Committee, as well as the Exhibit. The final paragraph of my comments has been slightly altered.

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Comments on Bill C-5

by Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President,
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources - November 29 2007

1. Before it is used in a nuclear reactor, uranium fuel can be safely handled using only a pair of gloves. Inside the reactor, however, hundreds of new radioactive substances are created called “fission products”. These are the broken pieces of uranium atoms which have been split. The fission products are millions of times more radioactive than fresh uranium fuel. Immediately after being discharged from a reactor, a single CANDU fuel bundle can deliver a lethal dose of penetrating radiation in just 20 seconds to any unprotected person standing one metre away. This intense radioactivity is due to the presence of fission products. Indeed, the irradiated fuel is so radioactive that it has to be cooled under 14 feet of circulating water for at least 7 to 10 years or it will spontaneously overheat, experience self-inflicted damage, and release radioactive gases and vapours.

2. Inside the core of a reactor, even after the fission process has been completely shut down, the radioactivity of the fission products is so intense that the core continues to generate 7 percent of full power heat. That’s an awful lot of heat, and if adequate cooling is not provided – even after complete shutdown of the reactor -- the residual heat is more than enough to melt the core at a temperature of 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. When the fiuel melts, large quantities of fission products are released as gases, vapours, and ashes. I have provided the Committee members with excerpts from four official Canadian documents. These excerpts confirm the fact that core melting accidents are possible and even probable if Canada chooses to build a large fleet of nuclear reactors. The official bodies that produced the douments from which these excerpts were taken are the Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning, the Atomic Energy Control Board, the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, and the Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs.

3. As a participant in the deliberations of both the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning and the Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs, I can assure the Committee members that the rationale for Bill C-5 is based on the potential offsite consequences of fuel melting accidents. For without fuel melting, it is not possible for a nuclear accident to have offsite property damages exceeding $10 million. However, the consequences of core melt accidents can typically run to tens of billions of dollars, or even hundreds of billions of dollars, and can make large regions of land uninhabitable for a considerable period of time. In the case of such a catastrophe, Bill C-5 limits the liability of nuclear operators to a very modest amount (less than half the cost of retubing a reactor), it eliminates all liability for nuclear equipment suppliers – even if they supplied defective equipment which caused the accident -- yet it does not address any important measures that would limit the overall financial liability to the Canadian taxpayer or the societal liability of any of the affected populations.

4. The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility feels that it is important for the elected representatives of the people to ensure that the nuclear industry is held publicly accountable, and to ensure that the best interests of Canadians are not compromised in order to serve the interests of the nuclear industry. We believe that the figure of $650 million has no sound scientific or financial basis, and that this arbitrary amount serves to distract the Committee from a much more important question: Just how great might the total damage be in case a core melt accident occurs here in Canada? Have such studies been carried out? Has the Committee received copies of them? What if such an accident occurred at the Pickering site? How much of the Toronto population would have to be evacuated, and for how long? And how far would the radioactive contamination spread? It is sobering to realize that even today, 20 years after the Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine, some sheep farmers in Northern England and in Northern Wales cannot market their meat because of radioactive contamination with cesium-137 from the Chernobyl reactor, thousands of kilometres away. Will farmers in the Ottawa Valley and in Quebec have to curtail their agricultural practices following a nuclear accident near Toronto? Is the Canadian Parliament expected to pass bill C-5 to limit the liability of the nuclear industry without giving careful thought to the question of limiting the ultimate financial liability of the Crown?

5. One way of limiting public liability would be to require that any new reactors be sited far away from large population centres. Observers both inside and outside of the nuclear industry have commented that the Pickering reactors are among the worst-sited reactors in the world, because of the catastrophe potential in such close proximity with one of Canada’s largest cities. Such a catastrophe could be realized not only in the event of a severe industrial accident, but also as the result of external causes such as a large earthquake causing multiple pipe breaks in the reactor core, or an act of deliberate sabotage or terrorism, which can no
longer be discounted as fanciful.

6. I was one of the fortunate few to attend a 1977 Conference on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Salzburg Austria. At that conference, one of the leading American nuclear scientists, Alvin Weinberg, spoke for an hour to an audience of about 300 nuclear scientists from every corner of the world. His message was stark. “We nuclear scientists,” he said “have not faced up to the full consequences of complete success. If we succeed in building tens of thousands of nuclear reactors around the world, which we must do to make any noticeable dent in the world’s use of petroleum, we can expect to have a core meltdown approximately every four years. The lesson is clear. We must stop building these reactors near large cities.” I was impressed by the sincerity of Mr. Weinberg’s proposal. In fact, he recommended that large tracts of land should be set aside specifically for nuclear reactors and nothing else. If the reactors are going to melt down, let them do so there, far away from the population centres.

7. Alvin Weinberg’s proposals may strike some of us as extreme, but perhaps it’s only because we have not taken the trouble to educate ourselves about the science behind core melting accidents and the possible consequences of such events. In 1978, one full year before the Three Mile Island Accident, the Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning spent months on this question and found that if there were 100 reactors operating in Canada at some future date, then under the worst assumptions, there could be a core 3 meltdown here in Canada once every 40 years. In his report, Arthur Porter – a professor of Engineering from the University of Toronto – wrote that serious consideration should be given to building any new reactors underground, so that the radioactive releases from an uncontained core meltdown could be largely trapped in subterranean caverns and prevented from spreading over vast land areas.

8. Another way of limiting the nuclear liability of the Crown and of the Canadian population is to invest in other energy technologies which can reduce greenhouse gases faster and more efficiently than nuclear power can possibly do, without posing the same risks of catastrophic impact. According to a report issued in May 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nuclear power currently provides about 16 percent of the world’s electricity (which amounts to about 2.7 percent of total energy use). In the next quarter century, the IPCC estimates that nuclear power could increase its contribution from 16% to 18% of electricity use. This is far from solving the climate change problem. Meanwhile, the same IPCC report states that renewable electricity currently accounts for 18% of electrical supply, and that in the next 25 years it could account for 35% of all electricity. That’s twice as much as nuclear can provide in the same time frame. Evidently, renewables are a better bet than nuclear, at least for the next 25 years. Nuclear is not a good investment; it doesn’t do the job.

9. Germany decided about 10 years ago to phase out of nuclear power. They have shut down 2 of their 17 reactors and will soon shut down a third. In that same 10-year period, Germany has installed 20,000 megawatts of wind power. That’s more than the entire Canadian nuclear program. Meanwhile, Germany is leading all other European countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So perhaps instead of passing Bill C-5, the Committee members should be recommending that a comprehensive inquiry into the risks and benefits of nuclear energy in comparison with other energy technologies be undertaken in the public interest. Such an inquiry is long overdue.

10. It would be a shame for this Committee to approve a piece of legislation that is so peripheral to the larger issues. While Parliament is asked to rubber-stamp legislation such as this, which merely shifts financial liability from the nuclear industry to the taxpayer, multibillion dollar decisions are being made behind closed doors without any parliamentary debate. I refer in particular to the recent decision by the Minister of Natural Resources to approve a 25-billion dollar proposal of the nuclear industry to centralize its inventory of irradiated nuclear fuel at some location within Canada, yet to be determined. If Parliament votes for Bill C-5 that vote will be interpreted as a green light for nuclear expansion, even though such a question is never phrased in a forthright and honest manner. Is the government afraid to ask an honest question of Parliament: “Do you approve of this government embarking on a vast expansion of nuclear power both here and abroad?”

11. CCNR believes that Bill C-5 is based on misinformation and a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the energy choices that we all must confront. We believe Bill C-5 should not be passed unless it is radically revised to include stringent measures to limit the financial liability of the Crown and to dramatically reduce the potential risks to Canadian citizens.

Exhibit: Findings on CANDU reactor accidents, prepared by Gordon Edwards in 1996.

------------------------------------------------

Findings on CANDU Reactors - Verbatim Quotations from Official Documents

http://www.ccnr.org/CANDU_Safety.html

[Oscar]

Check it out! Does your insurance policy cover nuclear accidents, injuries????

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Nuclear Insurance Association of Canada

http://portal.cgi-ibs.com/en-CA/RiskMan ... rance.aspx

Nuclear Insurance Association of Canada, or NIAC, was established in June 1958 to respond to the emerging needs of a new technology called atomic energy. Governments worldwide were beginning to encourage the development of nuclear energy for commercial purposes and Canada was at the leading edge, being the second nation in the world to control nuclear fission using a reactor.

NIAC is a voluntary non-profit, unincorporated association of insurers through which members may provide protection by participation in property and liability pools.

Management

Nicholas Smith (Chairman)
Rob Cruickshank (Vice-Chairman)
Dermot Murphy (Manager)
Colleen DeMerchant (Assistant Manager)
Yuriko Maass (Technical Assistant)
John Honey (Consultant, Specialists Engineering)
NIAC Staff Members
Underwriting

NIAC underwrites and accepts nuclear risks located within Canadian territorial limits for Nuclear Liability and Physical Damage.

Nuclear Liability Insurance. Licensed nuclear operators purchase Nuclear Liability Insurance to satisfy the financial responsibility requirements under the Nuclear Liability Act through NIAC.
Nuclear Property Insurance. NIAC also provides nuclear property insurance coverage which may be purchased by licensed nuclear operators.

Link for Nuclear Liability Act: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/N-28/

The fundamental principles of the nuclear liability regimes are more or less common in almost all world jurisdictions that utilize nuclear power to generate electricity. First of all, strict liability or absolute liability as we use in Canada, channels all liability of a nuclear incident back to the operator regardless of the actual cause of the incident. In addition, there is no right of recourse on the part of the operator. This is the exclusivity of the regime.

The liability is limited in time and amount. This means victims must make their claims for damages arising from a nuclear incident within a specified time frame. Furthermore, the operator is responsible for a specified limit of liability. The operator must purchase appropriate insurance coverage to cover this liability. When this limit is exhausted, it is presumed that supplementary compensation will be provided by the jurisdiction’s government from public funds.

Most of this information comes from the Exposé des Motifs of the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy. This information may be accessed on the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency website.

In Canada our regime is very similar to those of Paris Convention states. The Canadian legislation is called “The Nuclear Liability Act” or NLA.

In Canada, the operator is absolutely and exclusively liable for nuclear damage arising from the nuclear installation they operate. The current limit that the large nuclear power operators must carry is $75 Million. There is a 10 year limitation period in which persons injured must file their claim and, the operators must cover their liability by purchasing from NIAC an appropriate insurance policy.

See Also:

NIAC Brochure:
http://portal.cgi-ibs.com/en-CA/RiskMan ... 202007.pdf

Nuclear Energy Liability Exclusion Explained:
http://portal.cgi-ibs.com/en-CA/RiskMan ... lained.pdf

Application for Nuclear Energy Liability Coverage Policy:
http://portal.cgi-ibs.com/en-CA/RiskMan ... 20Long.pdf

Renewal Application for Nuclear Energy Liability Coverage Policy:
http://portal.cgi-ibs.com/en-CA/RiskMan ... 0Short.pdf

Nuclear Insurance Seminar May 6, 2008 - Registration Form - ACCESS DENIED

For more information on NIAC, please contact us at the below address.

Nuclear Insurance Association of Canada
Colleen P. DeMerchant FCIP, CRM (Assistant Manager)
c/o 150 Commerce Valley Drive West
Lock Box 200
Markham, ON
L3T 7Z3
Tel: 905 695-6657
Fax: 905 771-5312
Email: colleen.demerchant@cgi.com

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EXCERPT: "5. Nuclear power has the potential for catastrophic accidents. No insurance company in the world will insure against radioactive contamination of persons or property brought about by a nuclear accident."
http://makingpeace.wordpress.com/2008/0 ... go-for-it/

NUCLEAR POWER: SHOULD SASKATCHEWAN GO FOR IT?

Posted by strattof on May 19, 2008

The Saskatchewan government has been speaking openly about the possibility of a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan, saying nuclear power development will help us to:

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Meet rising demands for electricity
Enhance employment and investment opportunities

Here are 8 reasons why it is not a good idea to build a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan:

1. Nuclear produces greenhouse gases. The nuclear industry is very energy-intensive, using massive fossil fuels—from mining, refining, and enriching uranium, to transporting and storing nuclear wastes.

2. The bulk of the electricity that would be generated by the proposed plant would either be sold to the United States or used in tar sands oil production in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Tar sands oil is one of the dirtiest sources of energy in the world, creating 5 times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil.

3. Nuclear is a cancer industry. Reactors spread radioactivity in the earth’s air, soil, and water.

4. There is no safe place for nuclear power development. Lake Diefenbaker, one of the sites proposed for the Saskatchewan reactor, is the source of drinking water for about 40% of the province, including Regina. In Port Hope, Ontario, where Cameco owns and operates a uranium refining plant, a 2007 study shows long-term uranium contamination in the bodies both of residents and former nuclear industry workers. The plume of radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl accident drifted as far as western and northern Europe and eastern North America.

5. Nuclear power has the potential for catastrophic accidents. No insurance company in the world will insure against radioactive contamination of persons or property brought about by a nuclear accident.

6. Nuclear reactors produce ever-accumulating radioactive wastes as spent fuel that will have to be managed for millennia. No safe and secure system of storing nuclear wastes in perpetuity has been created.

7. Nuclear power does not make economic sense. A nuclear power plant is several times costlier to build than other types of power plants. No nuclear plant has ever been built without millions of dollars in government subsidies.

8. Nuclear energy is not practical. Uranium, like oil, is a non-renewable resource. If nuclear power could replace all coal presently used for generating electricity, we would run out of accessible uranium in less than a decade. Thus developing nuclear power just postpones the inevitable. The real need is to develop energy conservation measures and renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and geothermal power.

Sources: The Leader Post; Globe and Mail; Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power is not the Answer, Jim Harding, Canada’s Deadly Secret.

Voice your views about the development of nuclear power in Saskatchewan.

Contact:

Premier Brad Wall: 787-9433; premier@gov.sk.ca

Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd: 787-9124; minister.ER@gov.sk.ca

Minister of the Environment Nancy Heppner: 787-0393; minister.env@gov.sk.ca

To sign an online non-nuclear petition, go to http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nonuc1sk/petition.html

The petition will eventually be forwarded to the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly.

============================================

----- Original Message -----
From: Elaine Hughes
To: Layton, J. NDP ; Fed. Health Min. Clement ; Fed. Pub.Safety Min. Day ; Sask Environmental Society ; SK Premier Wall ; Toxic Nation
Cc: Nature Sask ; Dion, S. LIB ; Duceppe, G. Bloc ; Fogal, C. CAP ; May, E. GPC ; Pollution Probe ; Sierra Club - Can. ; SK NDP Caucus ; SK Party Caucus ; Pembina Institute
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 11:51 AM
Subject: Ever wonder why homeowners can’t get nuclear insurance?

EXCERPT: "Without specifically mentioning the illness, death, and destruction from the fallout of a nuclear accident, nuclear waste that stays deadly for centuries, the possibilities for terrorism that come with nuclear materials and power plants, or the extreme cost and cost overruns that are normal for nuclear plants, insurers clearly want no part of nuclear power."

http://www.albertalocalnews.com/reddeer ... e/letters/
Ever_wonder_why_homeowners_cant_get_nuclear_insurance.html

Ever wonder why homeowners can’t get nuclear insurance?
June 07, 2008 Red Deer Advocate

My homeowner’s insurance policy, under “Exclusions — Section 1,” says: “We do not insure loss or damage: 3) caused by any nuclear accident as defined in the Nuclear Liability Act, or any other nuclear liability act, law or statute, or any law amendatory thereof, or nuclear explosion, except for ensuing loss or damage which results directly from fire, lightning or explosion of natural, coal or manufactured gas.”

In other words, I am pretty much not covered for any nuclear accident.

After discovering this, I considered changing insurance companies. But I found that all homeowners policies in North America have a similar clause.

I hope you will check your policy. If you find a company which doesn’t have this exclusion please let me know, I’ll switch.

Insurance companies study all about risk. And while there are proposals for nuclear power plants near Peace River in Northern Alberta, insurance companies have already decided that the odds of having a nuclear accident are always too great. They won’t risk losing the kind of money they would lose insuring houses if a nuclear accident occurred.

I thought maybe the government or someone else would cover me so I read the Canadian Nuclear Liability Act. It says that a nuclear operator must carry $75 million in insurance (which is only available to them from the Nuclear Insurance Association of Canada).

This $75 million is not enough money to cover the extreme destruction caused by the kind of accident the insurance companies are thinking of.

The Canadian Nuclear Liability Act also lists things the operators are not responsible for — such as any damage to the plant or “when a nuclear incident occurs” while carrying or storing “nuclear material.”

Without specifically mentioning the illness, death, and destruction from the fallout of a nuclear accident, nuclear waste that stays deadly for centuries, the possibilities for terrorism that come with nuclear materials and power plants, or the extreme cost and cost overruns that are normal for nuclear plants, insurers clearly want no part of nuclear power.

So, the Canadian government isn’t taking the risk and, other than paying for a small insurance policy, nuclear power plant operators are excused from almost all liability.

I believe insurers are accurate with risk assessment, and I certainly don’t want to subsidize the nuclear industries’ risk with my house.

Ross Dabrusin
Red Deer

[Oscar]

Published in the Tisdale Recorder on July 23, 2008

To the Editor

No Nuke Insurance

One of the most worrisome aspects of the crazed activity surrounding the nuclear power industry in Canada is the disgraceful lack of liability insurance coverage provided for the public’s injury and illness against a so-called nuclear ‘event’.

In accordance with the Canadian Nuclear Liability Act, the maximum coverage a nuclear operation can get is $75 million - available ONLY from the publicly funded Nuclear Insurance Association of Canada. Because of the extremely high risk involved, normal insurance companies won’t touch it! And, even if Bill C-5 is ever enacted to update the Act, it will only increase that coverage to $650 million per operation.

This is not very reassuring when, in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, the federally-funded Sandia National Laboratory prepared a report which estimated that damages from a severe nuclear accident could run as high as $314 billion – or more than $560 billion in 2000 dollars. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/crac.html.

A 2004 update to this report states: “the economic damages within 100 miles would exceed $1.1 trillion….millions of people would require relocation.” http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ ... hStudy.pdf

For Premier Wall’s government to needlessly pursue high risk nuclear energy when unlimited opportunities exist for the development of alternative safe and sustainable energy sources can only be described as gross irresponsibility.

Let’s hope that common sense will put an end to this dangerous nonsense!

Elaine Hughes
Archerwill, SK

[Oscar]

Nuclear Power Liabilities Dwarf Bush's Wall Street Bailout

From: "Elaine Hughes" <tybach@sasktel.net>

To: "Fed. Pub.Safety Min. Day" <Day.S@parl.gc.ca>; "NB Health Min. Murphy" <MichaelB.Murphy@gnb.ca>; "NB Envir.Min. Hache" <roland.hache@gnb.ca>; "NB Energy Min. Keir" <Jack.Keir2@gnb.ca>; "SK Premier Wall" <premier@gov.sk.ca>; "SK NDP Caucus" <caucus@ndpcaucus.sk.ca>; "SK Party Caucus" <info@skcaucus.com>; "Toxic Nation" <info@toxicnation.ca>

Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 6:57 AM

September 23, 2008

Price-Anderson's Blank Check

Nuclear Power Liabilities Dwarf Bush's Wall Street Bailout

http://www.counterpunch.org/wasserman09232008.html

By HARVEY WASSERMAN

As you read this, nuclear power liabilities embraced by the federal government could be making small radioactive potatoes of the mere hundreds of billions George W. Bush wants to hand the pirates of Wall Street.

In fact, they could make all the money spent in Iraq, on the defense budget, on social security and on this bailout seem like nickels and dimes.

Why? Because as of this moment the taxpayers of the United States are on the hook for potential catastrophic melt-downs at 104 licensed atomic reactors. Every one of them can kill hundreds of thousands of American citizens. Every one of them can inflict more financial damage than can be reasonably calculated.

On September 11, 2001, we missed by just one minute learning what costs such a catastrophe can really incur.

And what's truly astonishing is that the reactor industry wants to build even more of these radioactive machines of mass self-destruction.

So while the national mind is focused on the gargantuan cost of what the Bush Republicans have done to the American economy, let's note what could be happening right now.

In the 1950s a study by the Sandia Laboratory warned that a reactor
disaster could permanently irradiate a land mass the size of Pennsylvania.
Based on reactors much smaller than today's, in a state with far fewer
people, Sandia warned the death toll would be in the thousands.

In 1966, a melt-down at FermiI in Monroe, Michigan, destroyed a $100 million reactor and threatened to force the evacuation of all southeastern Michigan, including Detroit. The Great Lakes would have been permanently irradiated.

In 1979 the melt-down at Three Mile Island turned a $900 million asset into a $2 billion liability. It's still unknown how much radiation escaped
and how many people were harmed by it.

The explosion at Chernobyl Unit 4 on April 26, 1986, has thus far inflicted about a half-trillion dollars in damage. The death toll is bitterly disputed. Cancer and birth defects still proliferate throughout the poisoned, impoverished region.

On September 11, 2001, the first jet that hit the World Trade Center flew directly over the two active and one retired reactors---plus their spent fuel pools---at Indian Point, 45 miles north. A melt-down at any or all of these facilities could have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths---or more---and irradiated all of southern New York, Long Island, the Cape and Islands, much of New Jersey and Massachusetts, and much more.

The financial cost of such a catastrophe is beyond calculation.

But YOU would pay for it. Why?

Because in 1957 the utility industry told the government it would not build atomic reactors without liability insurance. No private companies stepped
forward. So Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, forcing taxpayers to
assume virtually all the risk for a major melt-down.

Reactor pushers promised the public that private insurers would soon step
forward. But 51 years later, none have. Beyond a token pool, every cent of a disaster at a privately-owned atomic reactor would be assumed by the taxpayers. Those who lose their health and homes would be forced to beg for compensation.

The industry now touts an "inherently safe" new generation of reactors. But it still demands not only that taxpayers fund their construction---but also that they assume liability for melt-downs.

Those who doubt such a thing could happen need only look at the "sound fundamentals" on Wall Street. All atomic reactors are fatally vulnerable to both terror and error. And a catastrophe at any one of them could be happening as you read this.

If you doubt the financial cost, just add a few sets of zeroes to the numbers being used to bail out Wall Street. Throw in more deaths than you can imagine.

Then you'll have all the reasons you need to demand that no more of these monsters be built. And that the ones that still operate be shut down as fast as possible.

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NOTE: It's important to remember that political decision-makers are fully aware of this incredible situation but choose to ignore it!

Elaine Hughes