2021 ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE PINEBUSH WELL SYSTEM (CAMBRIDGE)

This well system is located in the north-east part of Cambridge not too far from the former Ciba-Geigy pesticide plant. Those of you with long memories will recall the alleged "single" leak of dinoseb to the natural environment back in the early 1990s. Such typical, political drivel. When the smoke cleared there were at least a couple of dozen different chemicals in the soil and groundwater around the plant and if memnory serves me correctly that includes the infamous NDMA found throughout Elmira's well water. This well system consists of three wells namely P10, P11 and P17. We are advised in the report that normally only two wells are in operation at any one time with P10 operating in conjunction with either P11 or P17. Here's where things get sticky. Yes there were over a million and a half dollars in equipment repairs and replacements to the Pinebush Water Treatment Plant in 2021. Hence wells P10 and P11 were offline for 15 weeks in 2021 as was the entire Pinebush Well System. Fair enough but...why was well P17 down for the entire year? This is highly suspicious and one likely reason is that that well is being pumped to waste. In other words the alleged "single" spill of Dinoseb thirty years ago is still having an effect on the groundwater quality. ........................................................................................................ Bacteria results and nitrate and Nitrite results are very good. The last Sodium result published (2018) is high however. All the other chemical results are from 2020 and while there are no surprises far too many of the Method Detection Limits (MDL) exceed 1 part per billion (ppb) which is too high for drinking water. There are 9 chemicals with MDLs at or above 1 ppb with Glyphosate (Roundup) at 25 ppb. which is outrageous and the purpose is likely simply hiding Glyphosate detections in our drinking water. ............................................................................................................ Overall this well system seems typical which means that it does have groundwater quality issues from industrial discharges however the Region of Waterloo are "managing" them. While I hope that the bad old days are gone more likely it's just that governments and bureaucracies have learned to keep things quieter than the 1990's with Northstar Aerospace in the Bishop St. community, Ciba-Geigy, Canadian General Tower, Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira etc.