Erin Brockovitch & HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM

You the reader make up your own mind on the following. Ten months ago I sat in a meeting with the Region of Waterloo's hydrogeologist, Eric Hodgins. He had been requested by Woolwich Township to attend a meeting with them and myself to discuss other sources of contamination within the Elmira Aquifer. The other sources were of course above and beyond Chemtura (Uniroyal) and Nutrite. Eric flatly denied the possibility while at the same time claiming that no he had not looked up the very accessible refernce I sent him that showed Free Phase DNAPL (dense non aqueous phase liquid) below ground behind the old Varnicolor Chemical plant.

In Cambridge (Preston) a municipal well was shut down in 1999. This well P7 was shut down allegedly due to "performance issues", whatever that means. In 2006 a study of the Dumphries Conservation Area (DCA) where both P7 and P6 were located indicated chemical contamination in both the Upper Aquifer and the shallow Bedrock Aquifer which supplied water to wells P6 and P7. This contamination included Hexavalent Chromium, TCE, TCA, Benzene, Toluene and Xylenes. The next year (2007) a report was issued and is currently online which indicates that the Region of Waterloo overdrilled numerous Bedrock wells in Cambridge for the purpose of going deeper into the Bedrock and hence avoiding shallower manmade contamination. The example they used of this manmade contamination was road salt.

Now here's the rub. Throughout the Northstar and Bishop St. disaster in Preston, the Ministry of the Environment and the Region of Waterloo have steadfastly maintained that although there are vapour intrusion issues (TCE) into homes, there are NO drinking water problems from the same chemicals. I'm not buying it. What do you think?