THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT KNOWINGLY PERMITTED DIOXIN DISCHARGES FROM UNIROYAL CHEMICAL IN ELMIRA TO THE GRAND RIVER, WATERLOO, KITCHENER & CAMBRIDGE FOR SIXTY YEARS

LIKELY THOSE DISCHARGES STILL CONTINUE ........................................................................................................... This is why Ramin Ansari of Lanxess Canada (formerly Uniroyal) is "snakebitten" by public knowledge of a sink of Persistent Organic Pollutants including dioxin/furans on the Stroh and possibly Martin properties as well. This is why all levels of local government from municipal, regional to provincial have participated in the coverup of the flow of Uniroyal's Agent Orange components onto the Stroh farm for decades. Our authorities had a problem. One how to either stop or "mitigate" the discharges and two how to ensure that the public never learned about decades of ongoing dioxin discharges into the natural environment. Part of the solution of the second problem was to ensure that all parties and authorities were on side. It also included total control of everything to do with the Uniroyal "cleanup" after the discovery of NDMA in Elmira's water supply in 1989. This meant that Uniroyal Chemical and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE) became equal partners in the cleanup. Afterall Uniroyal could always cut and run leaving both the physical mess and the public relations mess to the Ontario government to clean up. It is unlikely that every single municipal and regional councillor was "read into" the coverup. Only those who needed to be to ensure no political rogue actions occurred. .................................................................................................................. Total control meant exactly that. While the outraged public would have none of that in 1992, by 2000 councillor Pat Mclean and her CPAC buddy consolidated authority for CPAC entirely with Woolwich Council. Esther Thur, Dr. Henry Regier and I all objected to no avail. Since then CPAC and Woolwich Council have cheerfully desecrated, slandered and removed non compliant citizens from CPAC (Crompton/Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) at will. The Ontario MOE have rolled over continually on cleanup decisions. Science and facts have been sacrificed on the alter of a coverup to protect the reputations of dishonest politicians at three levels. ...................................................................................................... The first problem of mitigation required both subterfuge and finesse. The company adamantly refused to spend many millions of dollars on testing, excavating, trucking and reburial elsewhere or destruction of the contaminants. Uniroyal and the MOE (now MECP) knew or suspected that they had dioxins en masse both on site as well as off site to the east in the low lying bowl shaped area on the Stroh farm. Rumours had abounded for decades that the senior Mr. Stroh was receiving cash from Uniroyal for crop damages and possibly more. Therefore they looked for a way to inexpensively and unobtrusively "mitigate" the problem. In 2013 they (Uniroyal/Chemtura) claimed that they were going to "voluntarily" excavate and remove dioxins/furans from GP-1 and GP-2 on their site. Of course they did no such thing as it cost $3.5 million just to do the partial cleanup of that south-east area. A partial cleanup that included capping with soil GP-2 but no excavtion and removal of soils. All the guilty parties had of course lied like dogs to UPAC and CPAC regarding migration of liquid wastes from the east side ponds/pits further eastwards onto the Stroh property from 1992 until yours truly discovered the Stroh Drain, Ditch & Berm (SDDB) in May 2014. Since then they have minimized, lied, deceived and delayed either proper testing or cleanup of the area. ...................................................................................................................... Yesterday I stated in the sub-title "Its a road, It's a dike; It's a berm, but It's no longer a bowl!" I believe that that is the brief discription of what passes for "mitigation" here in Elmira when the blatant polluter has the 100% complete backing for a coverup by our local and provincial governments. They lied and denied first and then they built a road down through the middle of their south-east corner ostensibly in order to service (sample) recently installed monitoring wells (1981) such as OW 24 and OW69. Of course removing myself and all the CPAC members from sit down discussions with Chemtura/Lanxess in 2015 quickly avoided them having to answer any of these embarassing questions. This road out of necesity required a solid gravel base to elevate it above the low lying wetlands throughout the area. This road also conveniently acted as a Dike for normal spring flooding of the Canagagigue Creek (to the west) which flooded across the entire south-east corner and also eroded and removed soils downstream. This road conveniently serves double duty as it protects the contaminated GP-1 and GP-2 areas from normal spring flooding and erosion which is why there were still high concentrations of dioxins/furans there as late as 2013. Of course as per GRCA 100 year flood models that road is submerged as is everything else in the south-east corner of Chemtura/Lanxess and Stroh with the exception of the very high north-west to south-east diagonal ridge of high ground on the property. .................................................................................................................. The same construction occurred a few hundred metres due east on the Stroh property. Here the Dike protecting the low lying "sink" area is what I've been calling a Berm for the last six plus years. The rationale or alleged (or actual) purpose is to help drain the swamp via means of the Ditch from which the soils were used to build the Berm. The swamp on both properties was indeed drained. Hence this Dike/Berm (and Drain) effectively blocks and redirects the eroding force of Canagagigue floodwaters southwards back towards the creek and reduces (mitigates) the quantity of soil erosion moving downstream to the Grand River, Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge and eventually on to Lake Erie. Lastly the "sink" area was historically bowl shaped. The Stroh Drain opened up the southern end of the bowl thus allowing runoff, reducing settling of contaminated soil particles in the former "sink" area. ................................................................................................................... These two Dikes were a tiny fraction of the cost of a proper cleanup of dioxins/furans, DDT etc. both on the Uniroyal/Chemtura/Lanxess site and off it (Stroh property). Our authorities have and continue to permit this travesty in order to protect themselves from culpability and liability for their failures and errors both of commission and omission over many decades.