CHEMTURA'S PUBLIC RELATIONS FLUFF

On Monday Januray 11, 2016 Chemtura Canada released a Press Release describing some of the results of their East Side Surficial Soil and Groundwater Investigation. It was a very smooth and professional piece of fluff apparently designed to indicate a minor problem that they are on top of. One sentence of interest for me was the following "The investigation concluded that there are few impacts to groundwater associated with historical activities at this part of the site; however, some variances from the applicable risk criteria for dioxins and furans suggest that additional investigation of shallow soils along the border of the property may be warranted.".

Firstly the "few impacts to groundwater" is a lie. Secondly "some variances from the applicable risk criteria" is unadulterated horse manure. Kudos to your writers for that one Chemtura. Those "variances" are for almost all the surficial soil samples and they are dramatic. As indicated here earlier this week (plus last Saturday) both Dioxins and DDT exceed the applicable criteria anywhere from double to a couple of hundred times when you use the agricultural criteria (13 ppt Dioxins & .078 ppm DDT ) versus their higher criteria of 36.6 for Dioxins and .142 for DDT.

The disappointing aspect of this professional misrepresentation and public deception is the muted response from the media. Three of them were sent by me a Table indicating the MAJOR variances of Dioxins from the applicable criteria. Two of the three to the best of my knowledge have neither responded nor taken any action. One of them (oh what the heck-Woolwich Observer) have indicated some concern/interest and made inquiries.