ELMIRA ENVIRONMENTAL DRIBS AND DRABS

Chemtura and friends are very lucky in that they have been able to buy support very cheaply. Secondly they are very lucky that their support has had the honour (?) to stay bought. Just look at Chief Spence and the Idle No more movement. Here our federal government, in good faith (Ha!), has willingly permitted high salaries to Chiefs and band Councils for years. After believing that the band representatives were well and truly bought off, they find out otherwise. Is there no honour among thieves (politicians) and those they've apparently bought off?

Soooo sad. There I was yesterday looking up *Responsible Care via google and yes there were a lot of very glossy, professional stories describing the good things about this program of the CIAC. Keep firmly in mind that these are all voluntary programs that the members endeavour to follow. Also keep in mind that there were a couple of very nasty incidents which gave rise to the whole program. One was the Mississauga train derailment which I think was around 1978. Regardless I'm sure that lots of people don't realize how close to home that thousands of people had to be evacuated due to toxic fumes. The second incident may have included the Bhopal India horrendous number of deaths due to a Union Carbide chemical release. Anyhow the real point I was raising is that in and among all the positives for *Responsible Care on google are a number of posts from the Elmira Advocate. I guess I'm hinting that the CIAC may at some point want to think long and hard about having a rogue company like Chemtura as a member.

Oh yes and I would once more like to suggest that they might want to choose more carefully their local reps for Chemtura's verification attempts. If they want Chemtura to succeed then they need to eliminate true and honest representatives of Elmira residents in the future. For example allowing Chemtura to appoint a member from the CIAC's National Advisory Panel who lives in Elmira and has a very jealous axe to grind with the current public advisory committee; is totally inappropriate. This is especially so as she kept her National Advisory Panel status secret from a number of CPAC voting members at the time, including myself.

There is a public orientation/education meeting of CPAC Monday morning 9 am. January 21/13 at Woolwich Council. A week later at 6 pm. in Council will be the normal monthly public meeting. This Thursday will be a tutorial held by Conestoga Rovers in Waterloo to assist users of their flash drives that they handed out prior to Christmas. I expect to see some discussion about Chemtura/CRA's proposed new "cleanup" plans at the Thursday 6 pm. public meeting.