Being on the hook is nothing new. Certainly the environmental and human health damages in and around the Stroh farm should have caused a real cleanup versus the 5.9 inch (15 cm.) deep "excavations" that the Ontario Ministry of Environment accepted four years ago along the property line between Lanxess and the Stroh farm. That is a clear object lesson regarding political influence and corruption. Oops here in Canada we prefer not to use the C word. Influence, deal making, scratch my back and I'll scratch yours etc. are the preferred ways to reward friends and supporters versus brown paper bags of cash (like a former Prime Minister) or even more obvious bribes and inducements.
We now have first hand knowledge that the contaminated soil recently removed is a type of tar that the Region of Waterloo feels may have been dumped there back in the 1950s or so. Well, well. Who do we know whose property line runs right up to Church St. (Hwy #86) and who has produced a plethora of waste tars over the decades starting in the 1940s? Golly gosh that would be Uniroyal Chemical. In fact they had so many waste tars that they not only had specifically named tar pits on both sides of the Creek but they also used waste aniline tars along the west side creek banks to build up low lying areas. They also had two large pits at the north end of their property to dispose of iron oxide catalyst used in their aniline process.
Tars are a form of DNAPL or dense non aqueous phase liquid. This so called "discovery" is once again the result of a corrupt and perverted public consultation and remediation process as DNAPLS have been one of the longer running coverups on the Uniroyal site going back to both the 1980s and 1990s as well as through the early 2000s. These DNAPLS have flowed off-site both to the west and to the north unless of course Uniroyal were able to sweet talk or bribe? persons involved in Highway #86 construction/reconstruction to accept aniline wastes (tars) into the bottom of the roadway prior to adding gravel to form the base of the road. With this company and the willingness of incompetent or environmentally ignorant people to be "flexible" and help out a recent corporate arrival to Elmira anything is possible.
Removal of only 15cm deep of the soil sounds like a really bad joke! Stroh's neighbours wonder why this family never went public with the obvious long-term contamination of their farmland and its water? Why is testing/soil samples/water table analysis of the Stroh farmland so obviously done in the less suspect areas rather that the most obvious areas that need to be tested? If the coverup of the contaminated soil/water on the Stroh farm was corruption, this corruption goes well beyond many elections and certainly indicates that the corruption is deeply seated at the non-elected bureaucrat/PROFESSIONAL level long-term and also IN real-time. Just wait for how much of the low level floodplain will be filled in and covered up in the future industrial land subdivision (we know that the polluted "gravel pit" on the west side right behind the old Stroh barn was filled in by young Mr. Stroh when he took over the farm and the old barn and then the old house was torn down. In the new "grading plan", what happens when future industrial individual lot owners of Stroh farmland test their newly purchased soil and find DNAPL at foundation level? Mr. Marshall, we believe you have been right all along and the official testing that has been made public has been done anywhere but the most likely low spots!
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