MORE ABOUT YESTERDAY'S POST AND TODAY"S TAG MEETING

First of all today's TAG meeting at 6:30 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers will have a detailed discussion regarding the Ministry of Environment's (MOE/MECP) written comments on both Contaminants of Potential Concern (COPC) and on the Canagagigue Creek Conceptual Site Model (CSM). Lanxess and their consultants GHD have been working on these two matters for some time now.

Rather than go through the MOE's comments in detail I am going to boil it down to the basics. Lanxess, the proud owners of a still disgustingly contaminated site (i.e. Uniroyal in Elmira) do not wish, like every owner before them, to spend one nickel more than absolutely necessary on the cleanup of either their own site or of the Elmira Aquifers and the downstream Canagagigue Creek. The Elmira cleanup has for decades made a mockery of the politicians mantra that "Polluter Pays". All the successive owners of the Uniroyal Chemical site including Uniroyal themselves played the system shamelessly.

The MOE/MECP have touched on only a couple of the games that have been played over the decades. This includes the failures of the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System (UACTS) to fully hydraulically contain the south-west corner of the site much less to contain the shallow aquifers discharge to the creek throughout the site. They have also advised that on page 2 of their July 30/19 document that Lanxess did not evaluate COPC's in groundwater "because the groundwater COPC evaluation was reportedly documented in the Annual Monitoring Report No. 28". "However, AMR No. 28 does not specifically identify the groundwater COPCs."

Elmira citizens and the environment have been on the receiving end of these "errors", falsehoods and deceptions for thirty years now. It is long past time for the games to stop and the truth to be told by both polluters and regulators.