HONESTY IN GOVERNMENT

One day you hear on the radio, read in the newspaper or get a phone call from a friend that your community is contaminated. In the case of Elmira, Ontario you yawn and go back to what you were doing because we all know that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment have been pushing, begging, cajoling Uniroyal to clean up for twenty years.
But then this seems different. It’s supposedly not the drinking water. It’s the air inside your homes. Suddenly a few things begin to come together. The headaches and other physical symptoms that are lessened in the spring and fall when the windows are open and the furnace and air conditioning are off. The sheer number of serious illnesses that have occurred among your neighbours, including numerous cancers.
Quickly the Regional health department and the Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) take the initiative. They hold public meetings, respond to media requests for interviews and begin the process of reassuring citizens that they the appropriate authorities are on top of things. Firstly they tell the local residents, not to worry that the “system” has caught this glitch, this problem in time and that it can be fixed as good as new. Secondly they advise that there was no forewarning, no red flags years ago, that the first indications of a problem were immediately and professionally acted upon by your public servants. Finally they advise that if there was any negligence or errors by the parties responsible for the contamination, those parties will be held accountable.
In the case of the Bishop St. community in Cambridge, all of the above has taken place. And in the case of the Bishop St. community all three of the above claims are falsehoods. The groundwater which is contaminated right down and into the Bedrock will never be as good as new. The parties responsible were both negligent and indifferent to their fellow human beings living nearby and they will never be properly held to account. They will never for example face criminal charges of negligence or manslaughter. Finally the major point of this article deals with the prior knowledge of both the Region of Waterloo and the M.O.E.
610 Bishop St. is the address of the current owner Rozell Inc. By all reports Rozell did not use or handle either Trichloroethylene (TCE) or 1,1,1 TCA. They bought the property from Borgwarner Inc. in 1985 after renting the property for five years. Two Cambridge residents have verbally indicated to me that the owner prior to Borgwarner were Long Mfg. who are currently located on Franklin Ave. in Cambridge. To date I have no written backup for these two claims.
Both Borgwarner and Long Mfg. have environmental histories. Once again with the clear understanding that although I have confidence in the two individuals mentioned earlier, I do not have documentation as yet to back them up. Both the Region of Waterloo and the M.O.E. know and have known for years the environmental issues around Long Mfg. To further complicate matters, Long was purchased by Dana Corporation. Quoting from FindLaw for Legal Professionals “Dana Corporation is a manufacturer of automotive components. Sixty-three of its facilities , located in nineteen states, have become the subject of governmental or third party actions resulting in substantial environmental cleanup costs.” That is a lot of environmental issues ! Long Mfg. however right here in Cambridge have their own issues. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) have been present in the shallow and deep groundwater on their Franklin Ave. site since 1996. These have been the subject of two M.O.E. Control Orders. VOCs including TCE & TCA have been detected in the nearby municipal water well (G9) which the Region are responsible for.
Borgwarner in the U.S. have been naughty. I realize this is a subjective opinion, however when they have been named as PRPs (potentially responsible parties) at 35 different sites in the U.S. by both the EPA & state organizations , you can understand my opinion. A civil lawsuit by residents of South Hill New York alleges that Borgwarner and others “ In disregard of its legal duties, Defendants negligently , wantonly and recklessly , with conscious indifference and disregard to human life and the rights and safety of the Plaintiffs, released toxic and hazardous environmental contaminants into the air, soil and groundwater of the city of Ithaca and the neighbourhoods of the Plaintiff’s residences.” These contaminants included TCE.
Maybe the Ontario M.O.E. & the Region of Waterloo “forgot” to tell this to the Bishop St. community. Perhaps they feared for the safety of the owners/managers of Long or Borgwarner. Or perhaps they feared for their own safety if the citizens victimized by this disaster entering their own homes understood that both the Region and the M.O.E. had almost a decade heads up in regards to the likelihood of environmental contamination at the 610 Bishop St. site. This nine year warning could probably have saved lives and lessened horrific health issues if action had been taken then.