THIRD IN THE RECENT TRILOGY SENT TO WOOLWICH COUNCIL: STROH DRAIN, DITCH & BERM

STROH DRAIN, DITCH & BERM (SDDB)

How many Woolwich councillors know what the Stroh Drain, Ditch & Berm is? What it means? How many of them have ever seen any part of it? The SDDB is a manmade ditch, dug by backhoe or excavator, that joins from further north with the natural spring that comes to the surface as groundwater and becomes what may be known locally as Martin's Creek and which discharges into the Canagagigue Creek very close to the in-ground, dug swimming pond known as Martin's Pond. 

What is/was the purpose of the SDDB? It was designed to drain the chemical swamp on the Stroh property that was the collection point for overflowing toxic waste pits on the Uniroyal side of the property line between Uniroyal and the Stroh farm. It was also possibly designed (i.e. the Berm) to minimize erosion of the soils in the low lying "sink" area of the Stroh farm. These soils were saturated for decades with Uniroyal Chemical dioxins/furans, DDT and so much more.  Prior to the SDDB this "sink" area could be readily flooded and scrubbed by the Canagagigue Creek and the surface soils and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) attached to them mobilized both in the spring floods as well as other large precipitation events. I wouldn't be much surprised if the Region of Waterloo, and the province of Ontario decided the lesser of the evils was to keep as much of the dioxins and more on the Stroh property rather than either remove them ($$$) or to allow them to be eroded into the Canagagigue, the Grand and further downstream through Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge, Brantford etc. That plan clearly has failed.

Decisions like this of course would take local Council's support and would not have been run by a highly skeptical local Elmira population. Lying and deception are politicians' first recourse when making sketchy environmental and other decisions that likely would not pass the transparency test much less the smell test. To this day the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Lanxess and Woolwich Township have refused proper soil testing in specific areas on the Stroh property. You will never find what you refuse to look for. Or quoting Saul Bellow again "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."