HOW BADLY CONTAMINATED ARE THE ELMIRA AQUIFERS TODAY?

The short answer is horribly. Thirty years after the south wellfield was shut down after NDMA was found there our drinking water aquifers are still way above the Ontario Drinking Water Standards (ODWS). The good news I suppose is that every year chlorobenzene and NDMA and a host of other contaminants are being pumped slowly out of the ground. By the way by "aquifers" I mean the municipal upper aquifer (MU), the municipal lower aquifer (ML), and the Bedrock aquifer (BR). Each of these are very deep from perhaps sixty feet below the surface (MU) to well over one hundred and twenty feet deep(BR). Keep in mind there are areas where the MU is much closer to the surface and unfortunately that is below the former Uniroyal Chemical site among others.

Today I will focus on NDMA with a drinking water standard of 9 parts per trillion (ppt) and chlorobenzene with a drinking water standard of 80 parts per billion (ppb). Parts per billion are one thousand times larger than parts per trillion. There are many more contaminants such as ammonia, benzene, toluene, aniline, MBT, chlorophenols although we are advised that they too are being reduced along with NDMA and chlorobenzene by the pump and treat systems.

Large parts of Elmira in the MU still have NDMA at 100 ppt namely from First St. south to Southfield Dr. Other smaller areas of Elmira have NDMA at 1,000 ppt such as on the east side of town between Howard Avenue and Oriole Parkway as well as a small area at the south end of Industrial Dr. There is also a very high but localized area near Park and Queen St. with concentrations of 10,000 ppt.

NDMA in the ML, the next deeper aquifer is actually worse. Oriole Parkway at Arthur St. spreads south and west in a plume which is at 1000 ppt. It goes all the way south to South Parkwood Blvd. The area at Union St. and Erb south to First St. and west halfway to Duke St. has a plume at 10,000 ppt.

NDMA in the deepest aquifer (BR) has a plume centred around Arthur St. and going south to Oriole Parkway at 1,000 ppt. Again at the south end of Industrial Dr. as well as part of Arthur St. there is a plume at 1,000 ppt.

Chlorobenzene in the MU is above drinking water standards from and including the Lanxess (Uniroyal) site south-west to First St., west along First St. more than halfway to Duke St. then south to Howard Avenue, back east to Union St. and then heading north-west back to the Lanxess property. Concentrations within this large loop 100 ppb up to 637 ppb all well above the 80 ppb ODWS.

Chlorobenzene in the ML has a very similar large loop to the south-west although it is not connected to the Lanxess site as it is in the MU. Concentrations are between 135 ppb and 372 ppb. There are also very high concentrations between 100 ppb and 2,900 ppb on the former Nutrite (Yara) property near Union St. and Bauman St. if Bauman extended all the way to Union St.

We have a very long way to go to restore our drinking water aquifers. My and others predictions are 2050 at the earliest. Even then without sub-surface source removal mainly at Lanxess and possibly elsewhere in Elmira would you be confident to drink that groundwater?