GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY TO MINIMIZE PERCEIVED HEALTH DAMAGE IN CAMBRIDGE

After twenty-two years involvement with contaminated sites, both with hands on experience and with the reading of hundreds of groundwater reports I consider myself extremely knowledgeable regarding the transport and fate of toxic compounds in the subsurface via groundwater. I do not consider myself an expert in regards to air transport of contaminants. This also includes the subsurface transport of toxins via soil gases. Nevertheless I have recently received information which indicates that we the public are being seriously misled in regards to the health risks and damage experienced by the Bishop St. community in Cambridge, Ontario.

My experience at other contaminated sites in Waterloo Region has indicated to me a strong penchant by both our Regional government and our Provincial government to always attempt to minimize the crisis. In Elmira for example both the company and the Ontario M.O.E. have focused for decades on 2 or 3 contaminants while conveniently not mentioning hundreds of others. They have also sold an impossible (but inexpensive) remediation plan to allegedly restore the drinking water aquifer by 2028.

Dated May 2011 is a report by the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion (OAHPP). This report purports to advise its' readers as to the mathematical health risks the Bishop St. community have been subjected to due to vapour intrusion into their homes. This report is a crock of crap. It is based on data and assumptions which can only charitably be called optimistic. Dissolved toxins in water do not magically disperse instantaneously throughout underground aquifers. The same is true for volatolized (gaseous) toxins in regard to them instantaneously dispersing throughout either subsurface pores in the non saturated (vadose) zones or even in the above ground air. Within peoples' homes in Cambridge are large differences in TCE concentrations from their upstairs rooms to their basements.

OAHPP appear to have based their entire report on one chemical, namely TCE (trichloroethylene). TCE may be the most volatile but it is not the most toxic. Some of its' breakdown products are more toxic and they are in the groundwater as well as the air inside homes. Furthermore when tested for, benzene has been found in indoor air. Many more toxic chemicals albeit at lower concentrations have been found in indoor air. Absolutely no one can mathematically or otherwise calculate additive or synergistic health effects of multiple toxins on human beings. Hence the OHAPP report is bogus simply due to its' basic false assumptions of only one chemical present.

The entire OHAPP report is based upon the "knowledge"/ assumption that the TCE indoor concentrations while between .2 to 2100 ug/m3 , average out to 52.3 ug/m3. One these readings only start AFTER 2005. Claims that these numbers accurately represent the indoor air concentrations in peoples' homes for the prior thirty-five years isn't science. It doesn't even rate being called guesswork. Were all the basements finished with concrete floors thirty-five years ago? Did they all have finished recreation rooms? Did any of them ever leak? What were the original capabilities of the air circulation systems and furnaces ? What was the exact history of spills, leaks and dumping of toxic chemicals at Northstar and Rozell (GE) decades ago?

Now we come to the actual TCE readings in these houses. There is one house which has readings in its' basement twice as high, five times as high and even fifty times as high as the maximum relied upon by the OAHPP. Clearly these higher readings taken by professionals accredited in the field, were taken differently than the ones done by the consultants paid for by Northstar etc.. How is it honestly possible to have such dramatic differences found by experts for the polluter versus independent experts? How many other homes if sampled differently, more accurately (?), or by different professionals would also have dramatically higher indoor air readings? How many of these other citizens could have been able to afford thousands of dollars of costs to have their own professionals do this work? Are our governments (Provincial & or Regional) blatantly deceiving citizens knowing that usually they can't afford their own experts? Sadly as stated earlier it has been my experience that both Regional government and Provincial (M.O.E.) routinely minimize environmental crises for their own benefit, both political and financial.