THE GAME IS RIGGED

always has been and always will be. Today's K-W Record, Editorial and Comment Section, has an opinion piece by Charles Wohlforth which describes how the outcome as well as the perception of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was predetermined. Mr. Wohlforth sees parallels with the BP disaster still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Further we are advised that honest scientific study of the issues is routinely perverted and even intimidated by the powers that be. A typical excuse to confound, muzzle and distract scientific investigation is the mixing of litigation and science. Hence government secrecy and witholding of crucial information from scientists is defended by claiming that either a government or judicial investigation is underway or even that litigation against the guilty parties will somehow be jeopardized by proper independent scientific investigation. The reality is that government don't want all the information to be public because that might inhibit their backroom dealmaking with the polluter. The last two sentences are especially significant: "BP and the Federal government are to blame for the disaster. They shouldn't get to decide what truths are learned from it."

Does any of this ring a bell here in Elmira? Substitute Chemtura for BP and the Provincial government for the Federal government into the above quote. Backroom dealmaking is both the backbone and achilles heel of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. What has taken me decades to understand is how the lower tiers of government are on the same page and wavelength as the higher ones. Woolwich Township Council were a huge part of the problem twenty-one years ago as they still are. Their creation, CPAC is a committee of Council and completely under Council's control. This has not been a problem for CPAC because over the past decade they've weeded out dissent while promoting an honest improvement in air issues in Elmira, not at the expense of ground and surface water improvements but instead of them. Clearly behind the scenes the deal was made to trusted friends of the Chair and former Councillor Pat McLean that Chemtura and the Ministry's deal was a sacred cow that could not be amended. In order to back this up CPAC have long promoted the retaining of an allegedly independent hydrogeologist, who in reality is no more independent than a newborn on it's mother's breast. As happened in Alaska (Exxon Valdez) a scientist who revealed the "wrong" information, according to Charles Wohlforth both in his opinion piece and in his book, lost his contracts and was blacklisted. Do you really think that our Ministry of the Environment is any more ethical with hydrogeologists who are uncooperative?

This therefore is the reality in Elmira. We have and we will receive only crumbs towards groundwater cleanup, no matter how strong the science and truth is.