HISTORY & CHEMISTRY OF SYNTHETIC DYESTUFFS

In 1854 a young chemist first produced a synthesized dye using coal tar. Coal tar of course is the nasty, toxic waste product from the production of coal gas and or coke. One type of dye is known as an AZO dye. AZO is a French word meaning Nitrogen which itself was derived from the Greek language. Essentially azo dyes consist of two nitrogen atms bonded together with additional atoms then attached to each of these nitrogen atoms. The process of dyeing fabric uses huge amounts of water and after the fabric is dyed there are very large amounts of wastewater released, contaminated with approximately 20% of the left over dyes in the water. Above and beyond heavy metals and benzene , there are also amines released in this waste water. Amines consist of nitrogen and hydrogen combined. Both amines and nitrogen are precursers to NDMA (N-nitrosrdimethylamine).

Although interesting, what is the significance of this to either Woolwich Township or especially Elmira? Several hundred yards closer to the south wellfield in Elmira than Uniroyal, was located a textile operation for decades which included dyeing of fabric. This business was located at the corner of Union St. and Howard Ave., namely Borg Textiles. Similarily as the Chlorobenzene plume leaving Uniroyal (Chemtura) rises dramatically behind and downgradient of Varnicolor Chemical, so does the NDMA plume so rise in the Municipal Aquifer downgradient (towards the south wellfield) of Borg Textile. I believe that Uniroyal polluted the north wellfield but only contributed to the south wellfield pollution. Varnicolor and most likely Borg had a huge hand in that disaster. Of course the Ontario M.O.E. carefully avoided testing shallow groundwater downgradient of Borg in order to reduce the likelihood of anyone discovering this.