The original mistakes responsible for recent deaths in Ontario caused by abandoned gas wells were made more than a century ago, when the industry began.

In the rush to pump out the fossil fuel, no one thought ahead to a time when the companies would move on and the wells would be abandoned. Record keeping was so shoddy that many weren’t registered and to this day, the total number of defunct wells is a mystery. Companies were not required to post a bond or deposit to cover cleanup costs. And windup regulations were lax — wells no longer in use were plugged haphazardly with “wood, clay and rubble” instead of the cement required today. 

When Ontario’s gas industry was eclipsed by Alberta, it left behind a vast rabbit warren of leaky tunnels that became conduits for poisonous sour gas to travel through underground water sources. At times, it rises to the surface to kill.

The growing list of fatalities include 15-year-old James Aaron Brown, who died after being exposed to H2S gas in an underground water tank on a farm near Parkhill, Ont., and Shawn Seguin, who died in 2022 after climbing into a water well on........

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