Friday, June 16, 2023

$1.2 BILLION FOR A PIPELINE VERSUS $15 - 40 MILLION PLUS HARSH WORDS TO LANXESS FOR A BETTER CLEANUP?

 Ooh boy it looks like my Blog will be getting some more attention from Germany after this posting. My statcounter program used to indicate that Lanxess were following my Blog but of late it just comes up as a IP address in Germany. Funny thing though it's consistent with my strongest criticisms of the German company once ? part of Bayer Ltd. A few weeks back the K-W Record carried an article suggesting that a water pipeline to Lake Erie was still on the horizon. My recollection is the cost would be around $1.2 Billion but that is strictly from memory. Regarding the $15-40 Million estimate believe me that will not get much done at all and certainly not near enough. Still that additional money on top of the absolutely minimum cleanup currently proposed in and around the Creek on the Lanxess site and the zero further cleanup of lagoons, pits and ponds on site, could be helpful in delaying or even avoiding having to build a pipeline for Waterloo Region to Lake Erie.

Why does Waterloo Region allegedly require a pipeline in the future? Three reasons 1) mass immigration -  more people here require more water 2) gross groundwater contamination in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Breslau, Elmira, Heidelberg etc. etc. etc.   3) refusal to point fingers at industrial sources and demand full cleanup sometimes much less any cleanup. 

The Region of Waterloo have been "managing" groundwater contamination caused by industrial dumping, leaking and sloppy housekeeping for the last fifty years. Their "managing" has mostly meant playing musical chairs with drinking water wells by shutting them down as contaminant plumes arrive and then starting up other wells. This has been going on for decades. They also have learned to redrill contaminated wells deeper in order to intercept these deeper and less contaminated aquifers. Of course the Region minimize the extent of groundwater contamination and will continue to do so until the day they announce "Oh my God our aquifers are all contaminated hence we need a water pipeline to Lake Erie yesterday!" Welcome to drinking water from the shallowest, most contaminated and most algae filled of all the Great Lakes. Well done decades of municipal and regional politicians putting legacy projects (ION etc.) ahead of life saving projects (clean, inexpensive water & water treatment).

 

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