GEORGE KARLOS (MOE/MECP): "WE WANT TO REASSURE THE COMMUNITY"

ADDENDUM TO LAST SATURDAY'S POSTING TITLED "ELMIRA'S SHAME" .............................................................................................................. Those were the words in late 2011 or early 2012 which reignited the momentum to deceive the public into thinking that our authorities are looking out for our health and interests. George suggested that after the 1966 (OWRC?) study of the benthic community, sediments and soils in and around the downstream (from Uniroyal Chemical) Canagagigue Creek and followed by the 1995-96 further study by the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE Rein Jaagumagi & Donna Bedard) that it ws time to reexamine the creek sediments, soils, and lifeforms wthin it. George somehow felt that the creek would be all better now. To me that was a shocking assumption. Yes there had been decades more heavy rains, storms and flooding and yes one could assume that much of Uniroyal's toxic discharges both directly into the creek from overflowing ponds, pits and lagoons as well as by groundwater discharge should have all been gone by 1996 much less with the additional passage of sixteen more years (1996-2012). Also of course was the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (1965), ostensibly treating human sewage as well as Uniroyal's and other companies industrial wastes. .............................................................................................................. In other words even though the Ontario Water Resources Commission (OWRC), the MOE, Region of Waterloo, successive Ontario governments, successive Woolwich Councils, the media all knew that generations of families were living together, downstream along the grossly contaminated Canagagigue Creek; they did nothing. Nothing as far as cleaning up the manmade, for profit mess in order to protect the human beings living immediately downstream. Multi national, multi billion dollar Uniroyal Chemical offerred local jobs and income. In exchange they simply wanted and took control of the local creek (Canagagigue), air and water. According to Dr. Gail Krantzberg (McMaster University), eventually everything they discharged/disposed on their property will end up in the natural environment. Contaminants can travel through soils (soil gas), groundwater, air and surface water. Nothing and nobody nearby are safe. As these were Old Order Mennonites unlikely to either sue oe even complain, they were sacrificed. Our authorities knowingly sacrificed the health and lives of fifteen multi generational extended families hoping that the approximate five miles plus from Uniroyal to the mouth of the Canagagigue Creek at the Grand River would dilute the toxins enough not to do too much obvious damage further downstream. ................................................................................................................... As far as local in town (Elmira) residents they could suck it up. The polluted air that is. Or as one Uniroyal executive suggested it wasn't a stink that they smelled in Elmira, it was prosperity. And our local councils bent over backwards to kiss Uniroyal's buttocks from 1943 even unto today. Routine, standard operating procedure lying kept other local critics at bay regarding Elmira's drinking water. Simple denial of any possibility of contaminating the town's two wellfields was aided and abetted by the corrupt Ontario Ministry of Environment. Their greatest success was discovering NDMA in the south wellfield in November 1989, likely two decades after it first arrived. ............................................................................................................................. George Karlos's plan backfired. Starting in 2012 the findings of dioxins/furans, DDT and more in the creek sediments were shocking. Approximately fourty-five years after the direct discharges to pits, ponds and lagoons had ended the creek sediments were still full of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs - dioxins, DDT, PCBs, PAHs etc.). Dilution is the solution to pollution had failed all the professional engineers, hydrogeologists, consultants, municipal and regional bureaucrats and other assorted liars. Now here we are about to finalize another bulls.it report, this one called a Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) for the creek. How in the name of God can anybody believe that this document, totally in the hands of and under the control of the same longterm professional liars, could possibly be honest and forthright. It will be yet another whitewash or greenwash. Nothing has changed. The rot is at the top and everyone else below accomodates it.