TAG members are not stupid. Unfortunately. If they were unable to understand what is good for them personally then they might focus more on what is in the public interest. There is a plethora of new members with science backgrounds, education and experience who are going along for the Lanxess/MECP ride . Or maybe they'd rather be known as incompetent and inexperienced rather than self-serving and willingly blind. You pick which it is.
The entire HHERA (Risk Assessment) as predicted years back by both TAG and Dr. Richard Jackson, their Chair, has proven to be pathetic. A crock if you will. While acknowledging the numbers of soil and sediment samples in the Creek which exceed either provincial or federal criteria for DDT and dioxins/furans despite locational sampling biases, faulty and self-serving Method Detection Limits (MDL) and amateur hour sediment sampling using shovels versus proper core samplers; Lanxess and the MECP have continuously supported, propped up and even bragged about the "science" behind their Risk Assessment.
Their "science" is the science of professional liars whose only goal is to get the hell out of Dodge with the minimal amount of cost to themselves. They don't give a rat's butkiss about you, me, downstream citizens or the public at large. What they are trying to achieve is to convince generally the dumbest half of our citizens that all their degrees, credentials and environmental work experience makes them honest, decent folks who strictly out of the goodness of their hearts, with no self-interest involved, want to do what's right. They want to protect us all. They want to, solely based upon scientific principles mind you, ensure that their conclusions of "no unacceptable risks" in the downstream Canagagigue Creek are believed by us.
Their consultants have been routinely "client driven". The Ministry of Environment, Conservation & Parks (MECP) have been trying to resurrect their reputation for decades. It's been tattered by Uniroyal Chemical, Varnicolor Chemical, Northstar Aerospace and mercury poisoning in the English-Wabigoon river system (Grassy Narrows).
There are health based criteria for DDT, dioxins/furans, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, mercury, PCBs, solvents etc. There are air criteria. There are drinking water criteria. There are eating criteria namely fish tissue concentrations. FOR INDIVIDUAL CONTAMINANTS ! In other words the drinking water criteria for NDMA is 9 parts per trillion of NDMA in pure water. The drinking water criteria for dioxins is 15 parts per quadrillion in pure water. What is the criteria for both NDMA and dioxins in otherwise pure water? Nobody knows because there isn't one. Then add in all the other toxic compounds in the water, soils and Creek sediments. Nobody can honestly say what the health effects are for two separate tocic compounds much less for twenty-two or more.
Nobody can say what the health criteria for one individual compound (such as dioxin) in air is if the resident receptor both breathes contaminated air AND eats contaminated fish, much less drinks contaminated milk and eats beef from his farm. What is the health criteria for that same resident (Old Order Mennonite) along the downstream Canagagigue Creek who also burns his own wood at his house?
Then assume this very same resident is also exposed to the well in excess of criteria DDT in the Creek sediments, creekbank soils and air etc. Again multiple routes of exposure for two toxic compounds. Now throw in every single industrial chemical in the air, ground and surface water, creekbank soils, Creek sediments, fish and what have you got as a health criteria? You have absolutely nothing whether or not every single industrial poison is from Uniroyal Chemical. Which pleases professional liars, whether corporate or government to no end. None of us can prove that Uniroyal Chemical and corporate successors have intentionally poisoned anyone. At the same time honest brokers can not claim that there are "no unacceptable risks" in the downstream Canagagigue Creek.
That however is no problem for the Ontario MECP and Lanxess Canada to do.
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