THE CHEMTURA HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Chemtura behind on groundwater cleanup". How incredibly frustrating this must be for a multi national, multi billion dollar company to have to share their failures with the world, despite their best efforts to mislead and deceive. From public relations firms, client driven consultants, co-opted local citizens and partners in pollution the Ontario Ministry of the Environment; it should be a cakewalk for them.

Yesterday's story was written by Paige Desmond and while it is based on CPAC Chair Dr. Dan Holt's Delegation to Woolwich Council last week; she has interviewed Woolwich Councillor and CPAC member Mark Bauman. He states "It's a 30 year plan...We're halfway done the time frame, but we're not halfway done the cleanup". Be still my heart but that is a pleasure to hear Councillor Mark Bauman talk like that. Ms. Desmond also states correctly that "Township officials have said in past years they had doubts about the speed of the cleanup.'.

Both the planned tripling of pumping and treating groundwater combined with In-Situ Chemical Oxidation to break down contaminants are mentioned in the article. Of course neither one has started yet however they are in the test phase right now. It is worth mentioning that at the last public CPAC meeting Steve Martindale of the M.O.E. assurred everyone that prior to any tripling of off-site pumping a new Certificate of Approval for discharge to the creek would be required and it would be reducing the concentrations of permitted contaminant discharge compared to their present concentrations.