The Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) discusses, debates and argues changing Parents/Guardians to Family/Caregivers despite the Ministry of Education having no opinion or concerns on the matter. The WRDSB feels an urgent need to shut down any discussion by parents or educators as to whether some books in their public school libraries are age inappropriate for Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten or even Grades 1 and 2. The WRDSB have made their minds up and by gosh no further discussion is to be tolerated! Wow! This includes both parents, oops sorry Family/Caregivers as well as by senior teaching staff. Apparently neither group are "stakeholders" or important enough to be permitted to politely express their opinions on an educational matter.
Is it possible that the WRDSB are simply constantly on the lookout for the flavour of the month issue to argue and capture newspaper headlines rather than the ongoing, decades long focus on crappy results in reading, writing and arithmetic? Or as the Ministry of Education suggested in today's Record perhaps the Board's focus should shift back to their core job of educating our young citizens.
Fast forward to the years long now Human Health & Ecological Risk Assessment (HHERA) of the Canagagigue Creek. While a serious issue it has quite neatly removed the focus on cleaning up the Elmira Aquifers. The cheapest and least effective remediation strategy of Pump & Treat (groundwater), to no surprise has failed. It mostly on its' own couldn't rehabilitate the contaminants in the Elmira Aquifers to drinking water standards after 30 years (allegedly by 2028 despite the "Water Crisis" beginning in November 1989). Also very odd is that the HHERA really didn't even start until our authorities finally, belatedly admitted what citizens have been telling them and our authorities for years namely that too little pumping, too often interrupted pumping and not combined with on and off-site source removal was destined to fail as it has.
So instead of discussing enhanced remediation (including source removal) all parties and most stakeholders are focused on remediating one, two or three "hotspots" in the downstream Canagagigue Creek. Even if Lanxess concede to do so do you really believe that one to three tiny (probably Mickey Mouse) cleanups by New Jerusalem Rd., Northfield Dr. and or Jigs Hollow Rd. will actually do much to remove the many decades of discharged DDT, dioxins/furans, PAHs, mercury and PCBs in the downstream five miles of creekbank and Floodplain soils, creek sediments, fish and other wildlife?
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