Thursday, February 20, 2014

CHEMTURA CANADA JANUARY 2014 PROGRESS REPORT



On-site pumping in the Municipal Upper Aquifer was 5.9 litres per second, well above the target average. On-site pumping in the Upper Aquifer (UA- south-west corner only) also exceeded the set point slightly although there is no particular target rate. Off-site pumping was also above the target average for all wells although recall that pumping well W4 has recently had it's target rate lowered from 11.4 to 3.5 l/sec. This is due to the well being reconfigured to only draw from the Municipal Lower (ML) Aquifer. As can be seen there is no pumping rates for the Upper Aquifer in the North-west or the eastern side of the creek plus there is no on-site pumping in either the Municipal Lower or Bedrock Aquifers.

Page 3 refers to the Broad Scan Analysis of parameters for the off-site and on-site pumping wells. One must read the wording very carefully especially when they suggest that all parameters were present at concentrations below various criterion. The text is strictly referring to the treated effluent not the incoming groundwater. Also for the off-site wells (W3, W4, W5A, W5B) there are numerous parameters on their list simply not tested for. The on-site wells (PW4, PW5, GUA) have extremely high Method Detection Limits which effectively screen out many parameters. MDL's include from 250 parts per billion up to 5,000 parts per billion. Finally the text on page 3 refers to Table A.4 . There is a little guess work here as my Tables are clearly marked for A.1, A.2, A.3 and then A.5 and A.6 . There is an unmarked table between A.3 and A.5 which I have to assume is simply an unmarked Table A.4 .

Attachment B refers to the MISA outlets to the Canagagigue Creek. They are ostensibly for surface water (rain) discharge however as they are constantly detecting Chemtura signature chemicals clearly there is groundwater infiltration into the subsurface pipes. After all these years one would expect decreasing concentrations due to dilution, better housekeeping and in the case of Lindane past removal from Chemtura's list of chemical useage. MISA 200 has no trend identified for Ammonia neither increasing nor decreasing. MISA 400 has no trend for Lindane, MISA 800 no trend again for Ammonia. Finally MISA SWS (surface water system) has a decreasing trend for Aniline, but no trend for Carboxin and Lindane. Overall these lack of decreasing trends indicate little or no improvement in groundwater in these areas of the site as well as an inabilty apparently to keep infiltration out of these allegedly surface water drains.

Overall there are little or no detections of chemicals in the Canagagiue Creek however volume of water and dilution are always major players in rivers, lakes and oceans. One interesting item I find however is the Conductivity of the "Gig" at the downstream end of Chemtura's site versus at the upstream end. Conductivity measurements in groundwater quickly indicate the presence of organic chemicals and other pollutants. The upstream end of the "Gig" measures 633 umho/cm and the downstream end is 950 umho/cm. I believe this is a very significant measurement of contaminants "enriching" the Canagagigue as it travels through the Chemtura site.

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