PUMPING WELL W9 SURE SMELLS

Pumping well W9 was supposed to be a significant addition to the off-site pumping (i.e. off the Uniroyal/Lanxess site) in the Elmira Aquifers. First of all it was a couple of years late in coming on line allegedly due to benzothiazole (BT)and toluene concentrations not being adequately reduced by the treatment methods being used. We then waited and waited for new equipment which we were told would take care of things. Well it did at least for a very short while. Three whole months of improved pumping and treating at W9 namely April, May, and June 2019. Now pumping and treating for July 2019 are back in the crapper. The Target Average pumping rate is supposed to be 13.6 litres per second. April was 12.6, May was 13.1 and June actually met and surpassed the Target Average with 15.2 l/sec. Last month, July 2019 has plummeted back to 4.3 l/sec.

We are advised in the July "Progress Report" that the failure of W9 yet again is due to the effluent after treatment being acutely toxic to the insect test subjects. 50% of them died in the first test and a followup killed 100% of them. Realizing that all the treated groundwater from both Uniroyal/Lanxess and the rest of Elmira is discharged into the Canagagigue Creek and you can see the problem. Cleaning Elmira's groundwater at the expense of the Canagagigue Creek is not supposed to happen although citizens certainly advised our authorities back in the early 1990s that that sure looked to be what the plan was. Well here we are three decades since the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis and it appears to me that the Canagagigue Creek continues to be the waste disposal sewer for mankind's "progress". This is more than the ongoing pumping and treating and includes the pretend creek investigation by GHD, the pretend conceptual site model for the creek and soon to be pretend Risk Assessment.