Wednesday, July 4, 2018

TAG MINUTES



The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Minutes from their last meeting on April 19, 2018 were sent out late last week. Usually TAG members and others receive them approximately a week ahead of the next scheduled meeting which happens to be tomorrow at 6:30 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers. As the next TAG meeting is scheduled for September 20, 2018 then the Minutes of tomorrow's meeting won't be available until approximately September 13, 2018 or two and a half months away. This process of waiting 2 1/2 months to see the Minutes after a meeting is inappropriate. It pretty much guarantees that some important items from the meeting don't make it into the Minutes and that members aren't likely to notice omissions.

I believe that the following items in the recently received Minutes are important. The GHD rep stated that the creek is a dynamic environment with sediments moving constantly.That is huge as it points out how bizarre it is to still be having toxic chemical exceedances decades after production and waste burial took place.

The same rep, Mr.Farquharson, also stated that the first step is a sediment transport study. This is huge and only decades overdue. Dr. Richard Jackson pushed for this and got absolutely nowhere so is this for real or just more of the same poo poo del toro?

TAG believes that there is an ongoing source of DDT and Dioxins (plus a lot more) leaching downstream from the site.This relates back to both point one (dynamic environment) as well as to the ongoing flood events over the decades.

The floodplain Reach 2 is literally miles downstream in the Canagagigue Creek and yet 50% of total Dioxin TEQ (Toxic Equivalency) results exceeds the criteria.

Sediment results in Reach 3, downstream of the Stroh Drain discharge, have 64% and 56% of their sediment samples exceeding the criteria. These could be from either the Lanxess facility directly or indirectly via the man made diversion off-site to the Stroh farm.

We are advised in the Minutes that Dioxin & Furan sediment results increase with sample depth at the majority of the sample locations. This is huge and helps put the lie to Lanxess and GHD claims that these contaminants tend to remain in very shallow soils.

Regarding the test results for creek bank soils there is a similar finding. DDT concentrations are consistent or increase with sample depth and Dioxins & Furans increase with sample depth. This is also huge for the same reason as the previous point.

The floodplain soil results summary also states that concentrations of Dioxins & Furans generally increase with sample depth. Wow again.

There are a number of tables purporting to compare one years sediments or soils with previous years results. Firstly they are cherry picking particular years and not showing all the years since 2012 that testing occurred and the Tables are not self explanatory. In other words you really have to go back to both reports being compared to figure out what they are trying to do.

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