Tuesday, January 23, 2024

VARNICOLR CHEMICAL BACK IN THE NEWS IN 2016

It was a Risk Assessment which the current owners of the property (Elmira Pump) hoped would permit some surface development on the property such as commercial storage units. A pump and treat system has been underway there since about the mid 1990s. According to the owner of Elmira Pump they are somewhat constrained in how much pumping they can do because of the pumping efforts in the Municipal Upper and Lower Aquifers throughout Elmira by Uniroyal/Lanxess Canada. That is interesting because my recollection was that the Varnicolor hydraulic containment system (i.e. pump & treat) was located in the upper (i.e. shallow aquifer). Also of interest to me was the admitting that indeed Varnicolor did negatively affect the Municipal drinking water aquifer in Elmira and in fact as of 2016 there were still five chemicals from Varnicolor in the Municipal Upper (MU) Aquifer. 

Firstly I believe that large amounts of NDMA may likely have been illegally disposed on the former Union St. property via untreated dimethylamine discharges reacting with acidic soils containing nitrogen as well from former pig farms in the area. The title of the article in the K-W Record written by Paige Desmond is "Chemical site still concerns Woolwich". 

Overall Elmira Pump got a rough reception from Woolwich Township (mayor Sandy Shantz) albeit not from myself although I did attend the public meeting. The revelations for me were about how deep the contamination went (MU) and the fact that it was still there twenty plus years after soil removal and pump and treat efforts. 

No comments:

Post a Comment