AROUND, AROUND IN CIRCLES WE GO

Newspaper Article Titled "No cleanup target defined for Chemtura". This headline was in the Elmira Independent on Thursday, December 5, 2013. Yes that was over six years ago and we were back at TAG this past fall still asking this question. What are the parameters, the criteria for achieving cleanup in the Elmira Aquifers? The last CPAC (then Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) publicly asked this question of Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE now MECP). To date neither have answered the question.

CPAC asked many such difficult questions of Chemtura and the MOE. We citizen volunteers were rewarded for our diligence and commitment by the new, incoming council of October 2014 as they manufactured a CPAC crisis, backstabbed and lied to assist Chemtura and the MOE obtain a new, more amenable and less knowledgeable citizens committee. Councillor Patrick Merlihan was the only councillor who publicly expressed reservations about the whole plan and in fact referred to the proposed new RAC and TAG public consultation aspect as "cringeworthy".

Some CPAC members in late 2013, Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach, Graham Chevreau, Ron Campbell as well as myself from the SWAT (Soil. Water, Air & Technical) sub-committee all expressed concern that the cleanup standards and expectations were so wishy-washy. Which aquifers, which groundwater monitors, current or future criteria ...what exactly would define whether or not the cleanup was completed and acceptable? To this date we still don't know although there are rumblings that a new Control Order (i.e. Environmental Compliance Agreement?) from the MOE/MECP may be in the works. Whether it will address this issue or simply redefine the 2028 cleanup deadline so as to legitimize the Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura/Lanxess failures remains to be seen.