It's interesting that everyone says that the EUB has never turned down a SAGD application, and not to worry. As a long-time Connacher stockholder, I certainly hope that this is the case.

I just finished reading a book entitled, "Stupid To The Last Drop," by William Marsden. It's a pretty critical look at Alberta's O&G industry. The sands are talked about very extensively. Interestingly, there are only two direct references to SAGD operations in the entire book, and everything else relates to open-pit extraction.

There is a reference to arsenic contamination in aquifiers, and this interesting paragraph: "You can also see the expanding square hatching of the steam-assisted gravity drilling projects (called SAGD) that will soon cover most of north-eastern Alberta. At first glance they don't look as violent or intrusive as the open-pit mines, but the effect on the boreal forest and the wildlife amounts to the same thing. Tens of thousands of acres are bulldozen and wildlife habitat is destroyed by a broadening patchwork of drilling platforms, upgrader plants and thousands of kilometres of roads and pipelines a hundred metres apart, slashing through the forest and tearing up the land."

The book was fairly interesting, and one section in particular was pretty unexpected: the beginning of the book, which talked about a proposal (several decades ago) to get at the oil sands by detonating nuclear bombs underground.

Anyway, despite the doom and gloom above, after finishing the book, I got a better feeling about the EUB hopefully approving CLL's application. We'll just have to continue to be patient.