This is my very first, hot off the press, make like a reporter and write a story about a public meeting that just occurred (finished two hours ago).

(CPAC) Chemtura Public Advisory Committee: public meeting of 9:00 am. May 17, 2010 held in Woolwich Council Chambers. Attendance regrets from Committee members namely Councillor Sandy Shantz and new member Sandra Bair.

This committee, years ago, was called the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee and met once per month (approx 10/yr). The last meeting was March 29/10 and the next one is August 30/10. I think you can see the trend.
Long time, formerly very active member, Fred Hager has been unable to attend for some time due to health problems and medium length member Shannon Holton has not been seen in either months or years. No news re: her status. Of the three new members last fall Ken Driedger is both the most regular attending and to date the most inquisitive and perceptive.
Good News: The soil & water sub-committee submitted a Draft proposing substantive changes in Chemtura's and their consultant's (CRA) format of their technical reports. This is a good idea, long overdue as CRA's format and readability of their charts and maps was just plain horrible.
Bad News: Yours truly, appearing as a regular delegation to CPAC, discussed a 12 year overdue report (dated April 1998) on Varnicolor's Lot 91 (east end of Oriole Parkway). The Report by a hydrogeologist basically said that the original one done on behalf of the Ministry (M.O.E.) was inadequate. Yours truly also blasted the M.O.E. for their failure to provide groundwater monitoring data to either myself or CPAC regarding the two former Varnicolor sites.
Bad News: The soil & water committee have once again felt the need to make concessions to Chemtura, with the co-operation of allegedly independent hydrogeologist, Wilf Ruland. Feel free to google him and see how many commissions and committees he's been appointed to by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Also note any committees (eg. landfill liason committees) he is on with CRA as his colleagues. Nevertheless this time the concessions involved your public advisory committee agreeing to reduce both groundwater elevation and groundwater quality testing all in order to save Chemtura a buck. DISGRACEFUL is my opinion.

AMR #28 (Annual Monitoring Report) was discussed by conference call with the authors Conestoga Rovers (CRA). As per the last umpteen years , the presentation by CRA was a sugarcoated piece of fantasy, describing the wonderful job that pumping groundwater, treating it (somewhat) and then dumping it into the Canagagigue Creek, has done to clean up the site. Unfortunately leaving the admitted buried wastes (solids & liquids) in the ground negates everything else.

Last but not least, Chemtura has announced yet another delay in the removal of DIOXINS from their south-east corner. GP1 & GP2 were first requested to be remediated by CPAC back in July 2003. Dioxins are considered by many to be the most toxic substances known to mankind.

All in all this was a typical CPAC meeting with all the disgust and outrage of twenty years ago long gone. Apparently senior CPAC members, with the concurrence of Wilf Ruland, think that treating Chemtura with kid gloves and courtesy and respect while being misled, misinformed and just plain bullshitted by them; will somehow get a better cleanup. So far it hasn't done the job.