Even as a young girl I could not swim in the Ottawa River, because you would get a rash. We never ate the fish, and all we saw was one pulp and paper mill after another.

During Waterwalk one of our most impressive sights along its banks was Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, along with a military base. They seem to go well together. We were duly ignored in the town, but as soon as you were beyond the limits everybody told you they don't fish or swim near there. There is reported soil and water contamination from spills. A plume from their factories was floating downstream, due to arrive in Ottawa by spring. When I questioned the Ministry of Environment, they just threw their hands in the air.

There was an outcry as well because Canada had agreed to recycle nuclear waste from other countries at Chalk River.

Conventional and nuclear power generating plants use more than 60% of the total Canadian water intake. Production of 1 kilowatt hour of electricity requires 140 litres of water for fossil fuel plants and 205 litres for nuclear power plants. Some of the water gets converted to steam, but most is used for condenser cooling. Only 40% of the fuels energy goes into usable electricity, 60% is wasted.*

This is the most inefficient and toxic way of making power that ever existed.