LOCAL COUNCIL IS THE STARTING POINT FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVOLUTION IN ELMIRA

 We had a mini revolution after the 2010 election in which Woolwich Council (excepting Mark Bauman) got the old heave ho. The incident in September prior to the election referred to as BLE-25 was the catalyst. Basically Uniroyal/Chemtura allowed a rupture disc in a pressure vessel to be piped directly into the air in order to avoid an explosion and damage to said vessel. Hence a large part of Elmira got sprayed with a combination of diphenylamine and acetone. While compared to the really dangerous stuff they have on site this was not an extremely toxic release.

Todd Cowan, Bonnie Bryant, Al Poffenroth, Mark (Yuch!), Julie_Anne Herteis were not wedded to Uniroyal/Chemtura as the former council had appeared to be. Extreme pressure was put on Mayor Cowan from Chemtura to drop me from CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee). Chemtura had had an inside job two years previous get me removed from CPAC albeit they had to do it via Council to make it stick. Bill Strauss (buddy to Pat McLean), Murray Martin, Sandy Shantz, Mark Bauman etc. pretended to remove me over the Ammonia Treatment System appeal I had made to the Environmental Review Tribunal. Councillor Ruby Weber was not fooled and knew that that was a red herring and was the sole vote to keep me on CPAC.

Todd succumbed to both Chemtura's pressure and to the realization that I was not going to follow his stupid behaviour blindly just because he had appointed me to CPAC. He had to lie to his Council colleagues to get them to vote me off CPAC but hey in hindsight I essentially stayed on  CPAC (much to Chemtura's chagrin)  and Todd's flexible relationship with the truth became public knowledge. Nevertheless that 2010 Council was an excellent respite from the self-serving dominance of Pat and Susan and even when the 2014 Council replaced everybody (except Mark yet again) and new Mayor Sandy Shantz restored Chemtura and their friends, Pat and Susan were relegated to minor positions on the intentionally impotent TAG committee. No more being the Chair for Pat with Susan backing her up.

Local Council would have to confront both Lanxess Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MECP) but without Council's support those two would be greatly restricted in their dishonesty, puffery and pretend cleanups.