GIGO - GARBAGE IN AND GARBAGE OUT - THE SHAME OF PROFESSIONAL LIARS IN CHARGE

The Draft Risk Assessment released recently to TAG members and other stakeholders is based upon truly awful raw data. Awful in that it grossly minimizes the extent of serious contamination of the Canagagigue Creek from the former Uniroyal Chemical (now Lanxess Canada) downstream five miles to the Grand River. Of course it also goes further than that but to my knowledge specific Uniroyal compounds have not been tested for in the Grand River. I have over the last several days been giving updtaes on specific problems/failures with this "Draft Risk Assessment Canagagigue Creek, Elmira, Ontario". I have also gone back to the original reports including as of this morning the "2017 Canagagigue Creek Sediment and Floodplain Soil Investigation" as well as yesterday's "2020 Canagagigue Creek Sediment and Soil Investigation". .......................................................................................................................... Besides refreshing my memory with the Figures section (6.1 - 6.11) of the 2017 report, I also went to the Archives in my Elmira Advocate Blog. Well that was certainly an eye opener as well. The Figures section showed the analytical results up and down the creek including non-detects, detections and exceedances of both the Ministry's (MECP) Table 8 criteria as well as of the ISQG (Interim Sediment Quality Guidelines). I had written several comments on the various Figures mostly very critical of the obvious attempts through colouring exceedances to minimize the readily visual extent (volume) of contamination as well as the severity of it. Similar to the 2020 Investigation, the numbers of Method Detection Limits (MDL) in excess of the criteria for both Soils and Sediments is incredible. While a MDL of .020 parts per million (ppm) decreases the number of both detections and exceedances for DDD, DDE, and DDT, the deception is greater for Sediments than Soils because the two criteria (MECP Table 8, ISQG) are very much lower for Sediments than they are for Soils. Hence a MDL 7 or 8 times higher than the criiteria for these pesticides in Soils is more like 50 times higher than the criteria for Sediments and hence even more likely to be documented as a Non-Detect (N.D.). The dates for some of my Elmira Advocate posts on the 2017 Canagagigue Creek ...Investigation can be found by going through my Archives Section on the right side of my Blog. The dates you would be looking for include April 4, 5, 12 2018 as well as June 30, 2018. I'm sure there are lots more. .................................................................................................................................... Generally speaking the Method Detection Limit bias is against finding detections and exceedances in Sediments for Lindane, DDD, DDE and DDT. Dioxins/furans do seem to get a much more accurate treatment. There is also a MDL bias against Soils but as mentioned in the previous paragraph is less pronounced and deceptive than it is for Sediments. Finally both reports (2017 & 2020) have an incredible bias against either detections or exceedances of PCBs, pesticides other than DDT compounds such as lindane, endosulfan, aldrin methoxyclor etc., and Polycyclic Hydrocarbons (PAH). On top of all this is the locational bias that years ago I both wrote about and spoke at public CPAC meetings regarding the 2012-2015 sampling done in the Canagagigue Creek. All in all by using grossly inadequate and biased data the company (Lanxess) and the Ministry of Environment (MECP) have assurred that the Risk Assessment for the Canagagigue Creek (HHERA) grossly minimizes and understates the risk to both human beings and wildlife. This should save Lanxess Canada many, many millions of dollars in cleanup costs. Payoffs to the MECP, local politicians and a couple of local citizens are in order. Try not to cheap out there as well if you want future concessions and special treatment at the expense of the public and environment. .....................................................................................................................

................................................................................................... Left Click To Make The Image Larger - Just a humourous reminder about GIGO