DICK JACKSON DISMANTLES CHEMTURA "CLEANUP"

First off Woolwich Observer, have you been subverted? Where are you? Your community needs you to cover these TAG and RAC meetings especially now. You could have helped this community understand the corruption of Chemtura and the M.O.E. over the last five years even though the Elmira Independent covered all the CPAC meetings. Now you are the ONLY LOCAL newspaper in town.

Mr. Jackson led five TAG members plus four CPAC/SWAT members in the audience as well as two more through a tutorial dealing with both Off-site and on-site cleanup. One of those in the audience was Eric Hodgins, hydrogeologist for the Region of Waterloo. Dick Jackson went out of his way when describing the various and multiple technical failures over the last twenty-five years not to mention by name Conestoga Rovers now known as GHD.

Dick described in detail "asymtotic" trends whereby groundwater contaminant concentrations decrease in a linear fashion only until the lower contaminant concentrations start drawing out contaminants that have diffused into aquitards or other lower permeability zones. These diffused contaminants will then back diffuse into the groundwater thus greatly slowing the decreases due to pumping and treating. This is the huge problem facing Chemtura/M.O.E./CRA at the present.

Regarding the field testing done by CRA over a year ago for ISCO (In Situ Chemical Oxidation), Mr. Jackson suggests that the "strategy was good", but "the tactics poor". He further stated that the parties responsible both "poorly understood" and "poorly controlled" the testing held near pumping well W3. He further stated that it was "unforgiveable" that they did not seek professional help for the field test.

Mr. Jackson was particularily upset with a sentence in CRA's report to the effect that Chemtura must needs wait for new and emerging groundwater remediation technologies in order to improve their cleanup time. Dr. Jackson suggested that he would be ashamed to write something like that on a report. It simply isn't accurate.

Regarding the 2012 turnaround by Chemtura and their hired help Dr. Jackson commented on the lengthy turnaround time until now. He stated that it took "3 1/2 years to implement after the lights went on." Referencing a commonly known in the industry geological fact regarding sedimentary aquifers Dr. Jackson suggested that Chemtura's consultant has just figured this out recently.

Dr. Jackson has also clearly indicated his skepticism/concerns that the 2028 cleanup is likely to happen. He feels that Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment "underestimated" the extent of the contamination held in the aquitards (clay & silt low permeability zones).

Getting back to a now new proposal for ISCO testing in 2016 Jackson again referred to the last field trail as "not my idea of engineering". And on it went with criticism regarding MLS or multi level sampling which apparently has been the norm in North America and Europe for many decades but not at the Chemtura site in Elmira. Yours truly provided a Delegation to the old CPAC back in 2009 or 2010 on MLS but as usual it was ignored.

One of TAG's recommendations to RAC will be that RAC advise Chemtura to "get some help". In other words outside independent experts are required for a number of technical initiatives. To date Chemtura have been relying solely on advice from one source only and it's not working.

Last night was stunning. Even the brand new TAG members understood the enormity of what Dr. Jackson was telling them. It is not business as usual if we are to restore the Elmira Aquifers, remove hot spots on site and stop sending DDT and Dioxins down the Canagagigue Creek.