TURNS OUT OTHERS HAVE A SIMILAR IDEA REGARDING OUR WRDSB

 

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries an Opinion piece from the Mike Farwell titled "School boards are well past their expiry date". You can hardly imagine my joy upon reading that headline especially as just last week I complimented the Ministry of Education for stepping in and seriously taking a few other school boards to task. Now Mr. Farwell clearly believes that both our separate (Catholic) and public boards (WRDSB) are in need of that kind of tune up from the province.

Now first off I admit that I don't follow the Catholic Board as intensely as I do the WRDSB whom over the decades have behaved like high school bullies and mostly gotten away with it all at taxpayers' expense. Mr. Farwell did mention the Catholic Board spending $200,000 on legal fees to silence opposing voices on the board. If they indeed did do that then shame on those trustees. I believe that the WRDSB legal fees likely have run, year after year, far, far in excess of that as the WRDSB attacks parents, teachers and any other dissenters. Isn't it amazing how higher education has NOT produced staff or trustees of superior moral or ethical character?

There have been many gross failures with the WRDSB not even counting their now "normal" low scores for students in reading, writing and arithmetic. Some of those failures have been discussed here. If there are many that I don't know about with the Catholic Board then I would be much less likely to disagree with Mr. Farwell's assessment.   

THREE POSSIBILITIES MIGHT RESTORE DEMOCRACY IN CANADA

First and foremost Canadians need to stop participating in elections en masse. This so called "voting with your feet" only works when the vast majority of citizens express their disgust at what passes for professional politicians in Canada by refusing to participate in such a rigged process.  

A total and complete abandonment of the two parties who solely have run Canada for the last century or so. Yes both parties have occasionally stepped up and taken control during a crisis and actually provided good governance at least on the occasional issue. It's the everyday propaganda, lies and bullsh** constantly fed to the people that enrages me. Both the Liberals and Conservatives have totally ignored transparency and accountability when it suits their purposes. Both parties have abandoned the public interest (think climate change) in order to reassure their corporate donors (think oil & gas). That said I would agree that the Conservatives aren't even trying regarding the climate change  portfolio other than in name.

First past the post elections need to end. Trudeau promised they would but he's just one more liar among many. Every vote must count and must have some weight and bearing on the outcome. This is called proportional representation and the Liberals and Tories hate it. Guess why?

Whether the NDP, Greens and others would rise strong from such a radical turnaround I do not know but the Libs and Cons can't just change names and come back with the same faces and money behind them.  They are both inherently and intrinsically corrupt and need to be booted to the curb whether for a five, ten or twenty year timeout or even forever I do not know. Yes experience counts when governing a country but so does entrenched corruption and the best definition of that is self-serving rule versus ruling in the public interest. 

Geez even with mistakes and errors made by inexperienced rulers it still would be so great to believe that all levels of our governments are ruling in the true public interest.

ANOTHER BY INVITATION ONLY TOUR OF LANXESS"S EAST SIDE

 

My understanding is that this tour which followed an interesting one in April 2019 is to somehow give TRAC members and specialty guests a better idea of the topography  (lay of the land) and landforms on the east side of the Creek. Of course the plan in 2019 was to defuse any suggestions that Uniroyal Chemical's liquid wastes flowed across the property line from Uniroyal onto the Stroh farm.  That ship has however already sailed as Chemtura/Lanxess did their usual abbreviated and minimal "cleanup" along the property line between the Stroh farm and Uniroyal. High concentrations of both DDT and dioxins/furans were found in about a twenty metre wide swath of land running most of the way from north to south along the property line. Of course by not doing soil sampling much farther away from the Uniroyal site they "scoped" the whole process down as they always favour doing in order to save shareholders' money and the public interest be damned.  Also continuing along the scoping path, again for the same reasons ($),  they only sampled and excavated the top 15 cm (5.9 inches) of soil.  The vast majority of the site, especially in the most likely areas, has been intentionally ignored. Only professional liars with the full backing of our municipal, regional and provincial politicians would dare to pull off the magnitude of this coverup.

Maybe various GHD twits like Luis and Allan  are capable of carrying the day in selling their version of reality to TRAC members who have proven their deferential natures and willingness to hold their noses during public meetings. It's also generally easy to bull**it media folks with little to no understanding of the big picture and who have been instructed not to become better informed about the details. Such a disappointment the media have become over the last twenty years. Investigative journalism my a**.  

YEARS AGO I MADE A LAST SECOND PRESENTATION TO TAG

Most of the  TAG members however departed at the end of the meeting and apparently weren't too interested in hearing and seeing data and information which didn't follow the company's narrative. Off the top of my head I might guess that the TAG meeting was in January 2019. I most certainly remember how embarrassingly stupid both Luis and Ramin were. In hindsight they knew that I would get zero support from TAG so they got cocky making stupid statements about water not running uphill and pouring a single bucket of water onto the ground to determine surface flow direction. More details of this meeting were provided here at the the time.

I seriously didn't believe that they were that incredibly arrogant and blatantly willing to lie so that any honest person should have been outraged. Both Ramin and Luis denied all logic and all facts not out of confidence that they could defend their position but out of confidence that TAG members would simply ignore the obvious when it didn't align with Lanxess's and GHD's positions.

This is what the Elmira cleanup has become: a chat group around a table occasionally trying to get Lanxess's attention here or there but mostly just rubberstamping their directives. Somehow TAG have confused truth seeking with ongoing support for the collusion between Woolwich, the Region, Lanxess, GHD and the Ministry of Environment. Apparently disputes and differences of opinion are best resolved through getting rid of the dissenters.

ONTARIO STEPS IN TO BRING SCHOOL BOARDS UNDER CONTROL

 

Wow the shame! How awful does a school board have to be to actually have the province step in and take control? Keep in mind these boards are democratically elected by the same twits who elect both Liberals and Conservatives provincially and federally.  Yes that would be you and I and frankly sometimes I worry about your competence as a voter.

One board allegedly is guilty of financial mismanagement and three others are being investigated for the same. The fifth board you really have to admire their chutzpah. They are being ordered to repay costs for a trip to Italy to buy art. Man you can't make this stuff up. With tight budgets, provincial deficits and constant complaining about underfunding education how does a board O.K. a junket to Italy to buy art ?

The article in yesterday's K-W Record is titled "Ontario takes control of London school board, launches probes of three others" and was written by Allison Jones and Liam Casey. 

Likely last month I had suggested here that our very own Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) was in need of the province stepping in to get them back on track. Now by getting back on track I was not suggesting financial mismanagement as much as a mismanagement of their core values and goals. We have all seen years and decades of sniping, back stabbing , tattling and deflections of focus away from reading, writing and arithmetic. The ongoing Caroline Burjowski court battles are a prime example. The Board could have and should have settled them back in the beginning instead of letting them fester. Festering however seems to be the prime strategy of this board as they spend taxpayers money in order to bury other taxpayers who have had enough of their arrogance, entitlement and refusal to deal in good faith with dissenting opinions and parties.

WHAT IS MORE STUPID: LANXESS & GHD REFUSING TO BELIEVE TOPOGRAPHICAL ELEVATION CONTOUR LINES OR TRAC MEMBERS (less one) ALLOWING THEMSELVES TO BE BLUFFED BY THEM?

 

How is it possible especially when the majority of elevation contour lines have been provided by Conestoga Rovers and Associates? The rest have come from the Region of Waterloo, GRCA and the Ministry of Environment. Furthermore to date I have seen zero contradictions between any of the sources. Perhaps if Uniroyal Chemical had not perched their uncovered pits and ponds right at the highest elevations between the two properties then so much liquid toxins could not have moved eastwards onto the neighbouring Stroh Farm.

Contour lines do not lie. They are the elevation of the ground's surface above sea level. Despite this Luis Almeida and Lanxess have decided to go all in. I expected reticence on their part. Their history as well as that of their corporate predecessors has generally been abysmal when discussing transparency and honest discussion. What I find now is a corporate decision that can not be justified either in the short or long term. Their refusal to admit that their liquid wastes flowed more than a few metres onto the Stroh property is shockingly self-serving and shockingly glaringly bad.

I have recently reexamined those elevation contour lines. Yes some of the older maps are done in feet above sea level versus more recent ones done in metres above sea level (i.e. masl). Does Lanxess and GHD believe that TRAC members aren't smart enough to be able to convert feet to metres or do they think that TRAC members are too lazy or just don't care? This is what I have to observe carefully now. Why is only one TRAC member  (Sebastian)  pushing this while all the others appear to ignore it? Have many TRAC members been given their marching orders either from Lanxess or Woolwich Township and they don't want to rock the boat? Or is it just too much work as volunteers to look up these maps and see for yourselves?

This alleged Stroh "investigation" is equal in quality to others that the polluter and corporate successors have done over the decades.

TRAC ARE WAY PAST OVERDUE TO WALK AWAY

No criteria. No red line. No benchmark. Mostly nothing except perhaps history to show citizens, the public and TRAC members how much pumping is absolutely required to keep Uniroyal Chemical's contaminants from flowing off-site via groundwater. GHD and Lanxess mutter about circumstances and varying conditions. They suggest that it takes several geniuses plus a pinch of fairy dust in order to determine the amount of on-site pumping required in the Municipal Upper Aquifer to contain their site.

Bull**it says I !  All anybody has to do is assemble the on-site pumping data from the last three or four years and compare it to each month's off-site pumping. The two are related in that from the very beginning we were told that the vastly higher off-site pumping will challenge the on-site pumping by drawing down the off-site aquifer's elevations and tend to draw on-site groundwater off-site. It's all about the relationship between the two numbers.

In 2022 eight months exceeded 4.0 litres per second on-site pumping with the four months below 4.0 averaging  3.6 litres per second (l/sec). 

The same year total off-site pumping exceeded 55 l/sec for eleven of the twelve months which is quite high historically

In 2023 four months met or exceeded 4.0 l/sec on-site pumping with the remaining eight months averaging   3.7  l/sec.  

The same year total off-site pumping exceeded 55 l/sec for eight months and was between 24.6 and 55 l/sec for the rest.

In 2024 zero months exceeded 4.0 l/sec on-site pumping with twelve months averaging 3.4 l/sec.

The same year total off-site pumping exceeded 55  l/sec for five months with the remaining eight months averaging 37.4 l/sec.   

To date in 2025 zero months met or exceeded 4.0 l/sec on-site pumping.

This year (Jan.-March) total off-site pumping has exceeded 55  l/sec. for two of the three months and the third month was at 41.1  l/sec.

The conclusions are obvious. Lanxess are reducing both on-site pumping dramatically the last four years at the same time that off-site pumping has also been reduced albeit less dramatically.

So are they intentionally wimping out on all pumping and treating to save on costs and or are they intentionally reducing on-site pumping more in order to drag contaminants off site that if treated will be treated partially at taxpayers' expense versus all their own expense?

HISTORICALLY SPEAKING LANXESS & WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP SUCK

 

November 29, 2018 we have an article in the Waterloo Region Record advising us that two documentary makers, Michael Heitman and Bonita Wagler were both treated shabbily and cut off at the knees by Lanxess Canada. They had with permission from Chemtura interviewed employee Jeff Merriman an environmental engineer as part of their documentary. Now literally at the last moment the new owners, Lanxess Canada have rescinded their permission for both the Merriman interviews as well as any filming done on their property. Once again we see corporate muscle being abused to keep the public in the dark so as to perpetuate the corporate story versus the more honest one.

Then in the Woolwich Observer on December 26, 2018 we have a cartoon describing Woolwich Council's "terror" or at least trepidation at the upcoming Election Expense Reports mandated by the province of Ontario. Of course the law means nothing when it is conveniently ignored by the majority and when enforcement is non-existent. Yours truly with help from Rich Clausi and Dr. Dan Holt brought half of Woolwich Council up short at the end of the 2014 municipal elections when three councillors (including mayor) failed grossly to comply with the MEA (Municipal Elections Act. Enforcement entailed a lot of jumping through hoops and loops down at courts in Kitchener which I did including properly going through a Justice of the Peace. Imagine my surprise when an idiot prosecutor (Fraser Kelly) turned around in court and blamed me for errors in the paperwork  that I had vetted at every step of the process. This was nothing but pure, unadulterated political and legal "fixing" in order to protect mayor Shantz's career and future use to those in charge.

TRAC PATIENTLY ? WAITS AND WAITS AND WAITS.

  TRAC and the public should have known decades ago what the MECP and Chemtura/Lanxess plans for the downstream Creek were. No such luck even after the completion of the highly bogus HHERA (Human Health & Ecological Risk Assessment).  Lanxess and the MECP are keeping citizens, the public and most (not all) of TRAC on a string. Vague references to some "hot spot" removal downstream in light of broken promises over the last 3  1/2 decades isn't acceptable.

Then we have suggestions that a new Control Order/ECA or some other instrument will address the failure to achieve drinking water standards for either NDMA or chlorobenzene (and likely lots more) . This new Order from the Ontario Min. of Environment will do little or nothing. We don't even know what the new date for cleanup is supposed to be much less how they are going to achieve it. There are lots of new and old excuses right now suggesting the impossibility of reducing NDMA especially down to it's very low drinking water standard of .009 ppb (parts per billion).  Very little is being said about the chlorobenzene failures in both the Municipal Upper and Municipal Lower Aquifers. This is likely based upon the word DNAPL having been surgically removed from their vocabularies either at birth or upon graduation.

On-site source removal is also very unusual to hear raised or discussed at TRAC meetings. It's almost as if all prospective new members have to give a pledge of allegiance to Lanxess, GHD and the Ministry (MECP).  It really is bizarre how with but one exception (Sebastian) no TRAC members ever raise any of the really touchy, difficult issues. Yes I will concur that they have asked appropriate questions regarding inadequate on and off site pumping rates however they need to get their backs up when the guilty and in charge parties fail to properly answer them.

Then there is the Stroh property/farm. While agreeing after decades of lying that some ground and surface water flowed eastwards onto the Stroh farm, Lanxess and earlier owners did a coverup job along the eastern border between the company and Stroh. Their monitoring whether soil, sediment, or groundwater was pathetic. Picking and choosing your way on a contaminated property to avoid hits is child's play for client driven consultants. Hiding facts and discriminating against citizens wishing to both speak publicly to TRAC and to ask them questions is the behaviour of  undemocratic, dishonest skunks. A superb lack of decency, ethics and morals knowingly aided and abetted by all levels of governance. They made a deal not in the public interest and they are sticking to it until they don't.

POSSIBLY THE ONLY GOOD THING MARK BAUMAN EVER DID REGARDING CPAC?

 

It was a metaphor for the Elmira Aquifers. We called Mark Mr. Flip Flop because his opinions always matched the group he was with at the moment. Nice politics. This was somewhere between 2011 and 2014 that Mark advised us as to his belief in Source Removal. What!!  Or maybe he was beginning to realize that Pump & Treat while less expensive was also decades less timely.  Maybe he really did not understand how anybody could agree to long term (decades) of pumping versus so many other much faster and more effective methodologies. 

Mark suggested that we think about a sandbox in a children's playground. The sandbox has never been covered allowing dogs albeit mostly cats to use it as a litter box. So now for the health of the children you need to remove the cat and dog feces. Would you prefer a concentrated effort involving many people and many scoops going through the sandbox sifting for the cat and dog leftovers?  Or would you like to see a hose inserted at one end of the sandbox which is also slightly elevated at the same end allowing the water to gradually flow through the length of the sandbox while also picking up some of the dog and cat discards? At the downgradient end of the sandbox the hose would poke through and the now contaminated liquid contents could be collected for treatment.

I would think that the sifters with proper effort could likely remove over 90% of the cat and dog crap in a day or two whereas simply pumping water through the sandbox would take weeks or months to actually dissolve the you know what in order to remove 90% of it. The proper choice is obvious to the point that it actually makes the Elmira technology of "Pump & Treat" look stupid. 

ANCIENT ELMIRA HISTORY ALBEIT NOT FROM A SPECIFIC NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

 

Actually I'm going to amend that somewhat.  I fully believe that the Elmira Independent did write an article  specific to this discovery way back in 1992 at a public UPAC meeting. Even then Uniroyal and fellow liars were denying any free phase DNAPL on their site. This of course was an idiotic claim when you looked at the number of chlorinated solvents dissolved in the on-site and off-site groundwater. Clearly significant volumes of numerous chlorinated solvents (chlorobenzene, chlorophenols, trichloroethylene, trichloroethane, chloroform etc.)   had been discharged to the natural environment on the Uniroyal site over a period of decades. 

Bob Hillier, a MOE hydrogeologist, appeared at a UPAC meeting with a small glass jar that appeared to have dirty water in it with about two to three inches of a black goo on the bottom. The black goo was free phase DNAPL which had been extracted from on-site well OW-88  screened in the deeper Municipal Aquifer. This finally shut up the DNAPL deniers at least for a while despite the appearance of Frank Rovers which I wrote here about earlier.  One of the founders of Conestoga Rovers (CRA) he had told UPAC at a public meeting that there were both free phase and residual DNAPL distributed throughout the site. In fact in July 2003 based upon both my research as well as the Soil & Water sub-committee of then CPAC (Crompton Public Advisory Comm.) we submitted a 3-4 page list of where various wastes including DNAPLS (both kinds) were located on the site in various waste pits and ponds. This Soil & Water sub-committee consisted of myself, Dr. Henry Regier, Fred Hager and Susan Bryant.

Since that date both on and off site pumping have caused greater groundwater flow helping in the normally very slow dissolution of free phase DNAPL. It might even be possible in off-site areas of the Elmira Aquifers that smaller deposits of DNAPL have been essentially reduced from free phase to residual DNAPL (i.e. not saturated in the sub-surface but merely filling some pore spaces between soil particles). Of course the professional liars in charge including the now MECP  have kind of shot themselves in the foot as how can they now brag that they've reduced free phase DNAPL mostly off-site with their sometimes very high pumping rates which speed up the DNAPL dissolution process, after having claimed for decades that they never had the DNAPL there in the first place?

These are the very relevant facts and data now totally lost at TRAC as Susan joined the DNAPL Deniers Club early in 1994 as she and a fellow APTE coordinator sought to ingratiate themselves with Uniroyal Chemical. With Susan and Pat M. in charge at CPAC in 2003 this document slowly faded from memory and relevance much to Crompton and following corporate owners appreciation. Now today in 2025 consultants such as Joe Ricker (WSP) are at a loss for very high chlorobenzene concentrations allegedly appearing out of nowhere in several monitoring wells.  This is no more than either free phase or residual DNAPL originally from the area of well OW 57-32 near the former W4 pumping well  on Howard Ave. Different pumping wells today have altered the flow direction of this chlorobenzene as the plume bounces back and forth between the effects of  W4 (then) and W5B and W3R now (or at least when they are up and pumping).     

At this point in time I do not know if Susan is even capable of remembering significant dates, times and events from decades ago. Or if she even wants to.

JOE RICKER (WSP) SAYS THAT THE ELMIRA CONTAMINANT PLUMES HAVE SHOWN "REALLY GOOD PROGRESS"

 

"Joe". Who is this again? Oh right he works full time for a consulting firm by the name of WSP who currently have some contractual obligations to Lanxess Canada. These contractual obligations are to use either Joe's or WSP's credentials in order to publicly gain support for the current non-cleanup of either the Uniroyal Chemical/Lanxess site in Elmira or of the downstream Canagagigue Creek which they have also polluted.

1) There are excellent plans and ideas occasionally used to address non-existent problems. 2) There are also excellent plans and ideas used to address existent problems which regardless do not work. 3) Then there are excellent plans and ideas used to address the symptoms of existent problems which either do or do not succeed. I would put hydraulic containment known as pump & treat technology in the category of both 3) namely plans and ideas used to address the symptoms of existent problems which have both succeeded somewhat AND have failed big time.

How can this be? Well groundwater concentrations of specific contaminants in excess of the Ontario Drinking Water Standards (ODWS) are the symptoms of a long history of dumping toxic wastes both on site, in unlined ponds, later in lined ponds as well as both directly and indirectly into the Canagagigue Creek.  I emphasize that the accompanying groundwater concentrations from toxic waste dumping, with or without government approval, are merely one of the symptoms of this immoral, unethical and only sometimes illegal behaviour. 

I also emphasize that Lanxess/GHD "scoping" of perhaps one hundred different contaminants in the Elmira Aquifers down to two (chlorobenzene, NDMA), courtesy of Uniroyal Chemical, is merely an artifice to assist the polluter not the environment. This is also true for the "scoping" done in the Creek soils and sediments which has reduced hundreds of contaminants down to two as well, albeit DDT and dioxins/furans.  

So if groundwater, soil and sediment concentrations off-site are symptoms then what exactly is the problem? The problem is the refusal by our authorities to acknowledge the severe environmental and human damage done in the past, present and future from on-site toxic chemicals that have not been either nuetralized, removed or remediated. Many years ago Dr. Gail Krantzberg of McMaster University spoke at a public CPAC meeting and her prognosis was grim. Eventually over time everything dumped, spilled, leaked or buried on the Uniroyal property in Elmira would migrate off site whether by evaporation, wind and dust, ground or surface water, soil vapours or other mechanisms physical or chemical. 

The sometimes claims of complete hydraulic containment are a fantasy. Admissions of "minor" groundwater discharges to either the Creek or to the off-site Elmira Aquifers are understated. Yes part of the reason for the failure to reduce NDMA, chlorobenzene and other less carefully monitored contaminants to drinking water standards is due to years/decades of failing to meet the companies own pumping criteria and recommendations. Other reasons include leakage from the former Uniroyal site likely in all aquifers which of course has exacerbated contaminants adhering to soils in the aquitards and then slowly diffusing back into the aquifers as the groundwater concentrations decrease after decades of even sporadic pumping. A lack of source removal on-site as well as source denial, particularly DNAPLS, both on and off site have further made success unlikely.  

So Joe, friends and fellow travellors feel free to keep pumping, stop pumping or do whatever you want as you have for decades but be sure to wait until all your local, citizen opposition are either dead or seriously enfeebled before you declare victory.  New toothless, paper tiger Control Orders, ECAs or other MOE/MECP documents won't be any more effective than they have been in the past. Paperwork only rarely can replace shovel work.  

THIS BLOG DOCUMENTS THE HISTORY OF LOCAL CORRUPTION REGARDING THE 1989 ELMIRA WATER CRISIS

 

 I have sent a copy of my Blog posting dated yesterday and titled "Hadley, Luis & Joe Spreading Bull**it At TRAC Last Thursday" to various disreputable persons around the Region. This includes Woolwich Council, some on Regional Council, Ministry of Environment (MECP) and Lanxess Canada. Now I have also sent a copy to various reputable persons which include local citizens, and possibly even a few local politicians. Dang I forgot the local media which kind of speaks volumes as to their interest generally over the last few years. O.K. yes occasionally the Woolwich Observer publish something on the still contaminated aquifers, Creek and Uniroyal site.

I believe that both history and research will one day look carefully at my Blog postings and realize exactly what they have as a written record of the triumph of corruption, deceit and citizen betrayal by both our local polluter and by pretty much all our local politicians. Once again a few powerful interests including our governments have sat down and privately and secretly negotiated deals that are not in the public interest.  If they were in the public interest all discussions and negotiations would be public. Alleged public consultation has been exactly that: alleged. Whether UPAC, CPAC, RAC/TAG or TRAC they've all been for show. Perhaps most of the TRAC members recognize that which is why nobody gets particularly excited about the nonsense, lies, drivel and gilded lilies  presented at  public TRAC meetings. 

For me it is about much more than unremediated environmental harm .  It is about sacrificing some people for the so called benefit of others. Why should Uniroyal/Lanxess shareholders be more important than Old Order Mennonites farming the lands downstream beside the Canagagigue Creek? Why should Elmira citizens die of cancers related to air and water discharges from Uniroyal Chemical when they could have been stopped, reduced and or mitigated decades earlier? 

HADLEY, LUIS & JOE SPREADING BULL**IT AT TRAC LAST THURSDAY

 

It's a bit of a competition between Luis Almeida and Joe Ricker as to who won first prize in the bull**it department. I listened to the entire video/audio this morning and it is more than an hour and a half that I will never get back. Oh well  at least I continue to fine tune my understanding of the minds and souls (being generous) of people who work for a pollution award winning company. Hadley in a sense was the least asinine among the three but then she led the charge in being a noisy, interruptive pain in the %^&*$# with all her verbal drivel. She just couldn't shut up and let others speak, ask questions or anything else.

Joe Ricker is employed by WSP who apparently have never seen a contamination plume without tons of redeeming features. It could be a plume of liquid manure (& sometimes is) running across the barnyard and their staff would go to a public meeting raving about the symmetry of the plume, its' consistency, its' ability to decrease or increase smoothly and that it had a "strong, stable signature". One of Joe's favourite lines regarding plume concentration was that "the rate of decrease gets less and less" (during pump & treat). Only once did Joe whisper the phrase "asymptotic" behaviour. Maybe he's realizing that all citizens do not enjoy the taste of his bull**it.

No proper explanation has been given as to the high concentrations of NDMA in the ML around CH38A near Oriole Parkway and Industrial Dr. Joe in fact did state that it was right in the core of the plume but did not advise that the highest concentrations should be upgradient closer to the source (Uniroyal) versus that far downgradient with or without the effects of pumping wells.

Regarding Sebastian's questions about the Stroh property to the east we had Luis spewing the pathetic company line about adequate sampling and how the MECP were satisfied with Lanxess's efforts. Big deal I'm sure that Elon Musk will state that he is satisfied with Donald Trump's efforts as if I give a fig about either of their deranged opinions. Luis stated that GHD "...were not seeing any issues." Furthermore he stated that there is "nothing there to consider." and finally that sampling there would be "just adding in zeros.". What an ass you are Luis knowing full well how both the MECP , Lanxess and GHD have so studiously avoided any significant sampling on the Stroh property and or around the Stroh Drain.

The chlorobenzene Municipal Upper (MU) and Municipal Lower (ML) maps really show the higher concentrations downgradient from the Uniroyal site. Again the explanations apparently are enough to keep most of the TRAC members quiet, subdued and deferential. Wells CH75B, OW61-34 and CH68A and CH69A all have surprisingly high chlorobenzene concentrations in their various aquifers. For me it's obvious that Joe, Luis and Hadley have all been trained to not say the word DNAPL!  

Mayor Sandy asked a good question about whether something additional needs to be done to the on-site pumping wells etc. if parts of the off-site Elmira Aquifer were eventually restored to public use. 

Finally there seems to be at this late date some concern that the HHERA was a sham or at least not fully adequate. There will be a peer review done for hire by some friend of Hadley's .  Well a peer review by a " friend" of the proponent's (Lanxess) employee (Hadley) isn't worth the paper that it isn't currently printed on. Unless of course this friend wrote her review a couple of years back sort of on a contingency basis to use if required.

 

SO HARD TO STOMACHE THE COVERUP AND CONSPIRACY VICTIMIZING THE PUBLIC & THE ENVIRONMENT

 

Groups of politicians, bureaucrats, polluters all getting together to conspire how to gild the lily (Elmira Water Crisis), so as to avoid public outrage and reaction, is the very essence of a conspiracy. Merely a small part of the conspiracy is TRAC (Technical Remediation & Advisory Committee).  At least since last fall I have decided to no longer subject myself to their bull**it in person  or via Zoom. Their fewer and fewer meetings are littered with lies, back patting, misdirection and other nonsense. Hence I've been watching all of then on the Township's website for around the last three meetings. Yes it takes a few days to get posted there but it beats having to listen firsthand to either naive but concerned members or even worse professional so called "Qualified Persons". These would be the bought and paid for consultants to Lanxess Canada plus a couple of others.

Via the video I can not only pick out specific falsehoods but I can replay it to confirm exactly what the person may have mumbled. I can also take notes of exactly where in the meeting certain whoppers or fairy tales were trotted out. I also note particular speakers involved. Is it a Region of Waterloo employee or is it Susan Bryant lounging at home (Waterloo) via Zoom? I then follow up with detailed descriptions here concerning significant environmental issues either being addressed or more likely pretend addressed.

Therefore my guess is that I'll be about another six or seven days before you see my April 10/25 TRAC writeup here.

OH WHAT A SURPRISE! GLYPHOSATE IS ROUTINELY SPRAYED ON RAILROAD RIGHT OF WAYS (Tracks)

 

So what's the problem? Well Glyphosate has become ubiquitous in our groundwater. Ubiquitous to the point that the Region of Waterloo now test for it in our Annual Water Reports which show various industrial chemicals at different groundwater wells being used as part of our drinking water. Today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has a Community Notice from Canadian National (CN)  listing all the different retail herbicides and their chemical compounds that they spray along their tracks to reduce weeds and long grass. 

Some of these compounds  have chemical names which I recognize and many do not. One such product is known as "Aspect" and consists of Picloram and 2,4-D both of which I recognize from decades of study regarding  Uniroyal Chemical  in Elmira, Ontario. 2,4-D is known to have small amounts of dioxin in it. Dicamba is used in "Overdrive" which I believe was also used or produced at Uniroyal decades ago. 

Glyphosate is found in three of the products that CN claim they may use namely "Credit Extreme", "Roundup" and "Vision Max". Roundup is likely the best known to non commercial consumers. 

What is very unusual regarding Glyphosate in our drinking wells is the so called concentrations. An old trick amongst water managers and or chemical companies is the use of  terminology such as ND  25 ug/l. Now who the heck knows what that means unless they have some prior training or knowledge? Basically it means that the laboratory could not detect Glyphosate at a Method Detection Limit of 25 parts per billion.  Therefore there may very well be Glyphosate present in the water at 5, 10, or 20 parts per billion but the lab's processes are only capable of detecting it if it is at 25 ug/l or higher.

So ... how significant is that? Well when you read the entire Water Reports and see that the lab involved has no problem detecting concentrations of other chemicals as low as 1 ug/l (i.e. 1 part per billion (ppb)) or even .5 ppb then you start to wonder. Yes high Method Detection Limits are an excellent way to hide detections of toxic chemicals found in our groundwater. 

Thank you CN for being forthcoming but without the rest of the information 99% of our citizens are still in the dark. By the way in the interests of full disclosure let me advise that the drinking standard for Glyphosate in water has been much higher than 25 ppb for years however there is much renewed interest in the compound by the toxicological community and likely the drinking standard will become much lower as further study determines. 

WHAT KIND OF SELF-SERVING IDIOTS TAKE SOIL SAMPLES FROM HIGH GROUND WHEN LOOKING FOR SURFACE FLOWING CONTAMINANTS?

 

Hmm let me see could that be CRA/GHD  and their clients Chemtura/Lanxess? Several years back they sampled down Lanxess's eastern property line testing for DDT and dioxins/furans. Two of their more southern sample areas were called SS20 and SS21. Now just from memory I believe that SS20 was the more southerly of the two. If that is correct then it is the one that certainly mostly is not located in the low lying area just north of the NW to SE diagonal ridge that while mostly on Lanxess's property does cross over to the Stroh property. A very large part of this sample area is actually located on the higher ground of the ridge versus in the low lying gravity flow area  that we are talking about. Also keep in mind the tremendous volumes of liquids day in and day out that were pumped over to the east side pits and then both leaked and overflowed .

This also reminds me of Ramin Ansari's (Lanxess) ridiculous remark to me  back around early 2019 after a TAG meeting  in which he suggested that pouring a pail of water on the ground in the Gap area would indicate flow direction. Beyond asinine! When Lanxess and their consultants cherry pick inappropriate sampling locations it only reduces their credibility even further.

I FOUND THE MINUTES OF TRAC'S DECEMBER 9, 2024 "PUBLIC" MEETING TO BE REPREHENSIBLE!

First of all these Minutes are part of the 465 pages sent out (e-mail) for tomorrow's TRAC meeting. Secondly I am focused on pages 6 - 11 primarily in the Minutes. The good news is that TRAC members clearly have been expressing concerns with a number of items relevant to cleanup etc. The bad news is that Lanxess/GHD are so full of B/S that their eyes are brown. Seriously I can't believe the nerve and the brass they are expressing with their self-serving and nonsensical answers. Some of these answers as far as I am concerned are brazen reinterpretations of facts and data that they seem to think that TRAC or others won't look up and confirm their blatant misrepresentations of.

Issues being discussed and essentially frivolously dismissed include the east side (Stroh) contamination, the "Gap",   on-site pumping reductions, off-site pumping, DNAPLS, losses of containment and residual versus pure phase DNAPLS  found OFF-SITE ! Hmm lots of residual off-site DNAPLS. I wonder where those as*holes think that the residual DNAPL came from originally? It came from free phase DNAPL that has over decades of pumping been reduced to residual DNAPL found in the pore spaces versus free phase that has pooled or saturated parts of the aquifer/aquitard. 

Their arrogance in suggesting that there has already been appropriate sampling of soils and sediments on the Stroh property including in and around the Stroh Drain is just mind blowing.  That is unless they've been doing it secretly and not giving the public the results. Otherwise those are lies. 

SO WHAT NEW NONSENSE DOES LANXESS/MECP WISH TO INFLICT UPON ELMIRA RESIDENTS?

 

Again I'm looking at this Thursday's Agenda and there are likely problems such as Item 5.1.2 in which the MECP appear that they are going to comment upon "Lanxess Proposed Off-Site Groundwater Pumping Study". Here let me save the MECP the work and the taxpayers the money:  When the smoke and B/S clears Lanxess will be doing significantly less off-site pumping and treating and saving themselves money all the while the Elmira Aquifers still are not fit to drink.

Item 5.2.4.1 is titled "Targeted Hot Spot Removal Update".  First of all as I've said many times the alleged "hot spots" are merely a form of scoping or reducing the apparent efforts needed in the downstream Canagagigue Creek.  If soil and sediment sampling had been taken in equal numbers throughout the five mile plus length of the downstream Creek I expect that instead of a possible THREE "hot spots" there would likely be closer to THIRTEEN or more.

I have already commented here about Items 6. , 8.1, and 5.1.1 .  I see no good coming from any of them but lets see exactly what the professionals have in mind. As they are all paid by dishonest brokers I hardly see much benefit to the public interest except by accident. 

"TRUMP AS AN AVATAR WHO FITS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS OF HUGE SWATHS OF ANY POPULATION..."

 

Well that certainly explains a few things such as how could so many U.S. voters be so dumb? The author of this article in today's Record titled "Trump the result of years of waning trust" is Calvin White with a degree in psychology.  

He states that "...we have been betrayed by generations of of leaders in government who have created psychological credibility strain, if not full distrust."  Furthermore he states "The calling card of politicians is to never answer the question, only say what the trainers advise, put on a photo-op face at all times and pretend, pretend, pretend. And all the while, serve their own best electoral interests and the power interests of those they need help from." 

In my opinion this simply reinforces my borrowed motto from Pat Potter namely that "They all lie". In other words they are all crooks of one form or another and I believe that this permeates from the top down throughout our governance.  

For me despite climate change and the bizarre weather we received five days ago, the primary failure of our ruling class (lying politicians) has to be in housing.  By the way last Wednesday's heavy snow followed by heavy rain and damaging winds and then 14 degrees Celsius and sunshine all day on Thursday merely adds to my March 27/25 post about our bizarre weather this year.

Mr. White also suggests that Donald Trump 's time on television as a reality star helped his public persona. "...his appearance as an avatar was grown unconsciously in us over his 14 years as a billionaire TV star accepted for his wisdom and right to fire whomever he chose over and over while all viewers were thus being groomed  to his entitled leadership." 

So does knowing the public rationale for bringing such a first class ass*ole to political prominence ease the pain somewhat? Not really despite at least knowing somewhat how it occurred.  

MORE VIA THE RECENTLY RELEASED TRAC AGENDA

 

There are a couple of interesting topics mentioned in the Agenda for April 10/25. Item 6. is titled "2028 Order Deadline Remediation Frameworks Discussion" and Item 8.1 is titled "MECP Technical memorandum - Dioxins and Furans in Riparian Soil of Agricultural Fields Downstream of Lanxess, Canada, Elmira, Ontario, Canada (2023)".

Gotta give it to the MECP for a long winded title to their very short report consisting of ten sites being sampled for dioxins/furans downstream . This appears to me to be the schizophrenic MECP at their best. Firstly they are willing to rewrite their Control Order simply because the polluter has not complied with most of the conditions required by the earlier ones (Nov. 1991, June 2000 etc.). Then despite lots of data showing creekbank soils, sediments, fish tissue exceedances plus a few floodplain soil samples of  dioxins/furans they've decided to take more samples namely Floodplain  Soils in nine or ten downstream locations. 

Unsurprisingly they found lots of exceedances of various health criteria for dioxins/furans as they always have. So once again we see more health risks whether for human beings or for wild or domesticated New Guinea fowl.

Same old, same old including the world class applications of sample and test forever or until the problem (contaminants) have all moved far enough downstream that you don't have to sample at Uniroyal/Lanxess any longer. This avoids actually ever having to do the real work of remediation, excavation and cleanup.

NEXT THURSDAY'S TRAC AGENDA IS OUT - IS IT 465 PAGES OF UNADULTERATED BULL**IT?

 

Well it's been my experience that even world class liars can't produce 465 pages that have absolutely no social redeeming value. The trick of course is sifting through most of the crap looking for the rare nugget. I've literally spent decades doing that for free and while there are various scars of various natures for my efforts, I don't regret any of the major facts and issues that I have uncovered. 

First of all waiting four months between public meetings is par for the hypocritical course.  Chemtura and the M.O.E. without ever declaring a boycott began missing CPAC meetings in late 2014. Allegedly (according to Sandy & Mark) they were upset with how they were being treated.  Chairman Dr. Dan Holt did an excellent job under difficult circumstances running those meetings properly and professionally. Yes CPAC members including myself took no crap, guff or blatant lying from the M.O.E. and Chemtura without calling them on it. Boiled down that was their biggest whine in that people around the table no longer would compliment the polluter and their regulator about how sweet their horse apples smelled. Hence Chemtura and the M.O.E. knowing a new Council/mayor were on the way simply bailed. Well they got everything they wanted and they still don't seem keen on attending meetings filled with their acolytes, fellow travellors and others in way over their heads.

With the Ministry and Lanxess monopolizing the propaganda, unsuspecting citizens will hear lies about  asymptotic behaviour (again), followed by more lies about new directions in handling the groundwater remediation failures, followed by how the HHERA states that no downstream remediation is required, followed by more nonsense gilded with the patina of independent professional experts merely searching for the truth. 

It will be a highly entertaining, albeit somewhat incomprehensible, dog and pony show that we taxpayers are paying for one way or the other. 

 

HOW CULPABLE IS SUSAN BRYANT?

Was sha a fifth columnist right from the beginning? Or did she sincerely believe that polluting companies including chemical companies had an inherent right to make money and sell their products to willing customers? Did she possibly feel that the rhetoric coming from APTE members and co0ordinators was too much?

For years I thought that Susan and Sylvia's position on DNAPLS was basically the kiss of death regarding ever cleaning up the site. However I did not even begin to fathom the depth and width of their betrayal of Elmira citizens and their fellow APTE members until late in 2007 when I saw the lying and manoeuvering within CPAC to avoid bringing Drs. Cherry and Parker's DNAPL revelations to CPAC by Susan and Pat McLean. Until 2007 I had become aware of more and more contradictions in their behaviour versus their words. I also had long been concerned with Susan's allegiance with Pat Mclean who in my eyes had never shown much knowledge or care for the natural environment. I also had concerns with hydrogeologist Wilf Ruland who while ostensibly working for CPAC was in fact taking all direction from Pat and Susan. He was also way too deferential to CRA literally on all their hydrogeological pronouncements constantly favouring their client Uniroyal/Chemtura etc. . 

Is it conceivable that a master manipulator like Susan was actually so ill informed  that she embraced Uniroyal's often outrageous claims concerning cleaning their site, the Creek and Elmira's groundwater? I find that hard to believe. I also note that she stuck to her guns regarding the lack of shallow aquifer containment plus maintaining proper on-site Municipal Aquifer pumping in the early days. Yes she did give concessions to the polluter far too often for my liking regarding number of monitoring wells and timing of their sampling 

She and Sylvia worked hard to remove Richard, Esther and I from APTE. She did something similar with Dr. Regier  who was heads and shoulders more knowledgeable than Darryl & Susan multiplied by 100. It was that totally unnecessary behaviour combined with her enjoyment of private meetings with Uniroyal that finally got through to me. Susan and Pat led UPAC and CPAC for many years. Even the M.O.E. occasionally bragged about how CPAC was the best citizens committee in the province. I found that pronouncement bizarre as so very little was actually getting done. Frankly none of it made any sense and then the gross DNAPL behaviour after the two world experts (Cherry & Parker) clarified what should be done about it was the final straw.  Keep in mind that McLean, Bryant, myself and Ruland all attended that meeting at the U. of Waterloo and I was the only happy one of the four afterwards. Clearly McLean and Bryant saw the writing on the wall and eliminated me from CPAC as fast as their wagging tongues were able. 

Recently I've said shame on the APTE co-ordinators' 1994 DNAPL failure and now I say shame on CPAC in 2007 and 2008 for their stupidity and willingness to blindly follow Susan and Pat.  Clearly an inappropriate deal was made with two APTE co-ordinators in 1994 and renewed again in 2007 and 2008 at CPAC.  Apparently as long as polluters can convince the local politicians that their plans can save everybody money then honesty and ethics are out the door.   

LESSONS LEARNED FROM DEALING WITH WOOLWICH, RMOW, GRCA, POLLUTING COMPANIES, THEIR CONSULTANTS, MECP, THIRD PARTY CONSULTANTS HIRED BY THE POLLUTER

 

1)  "They all lie."   This is a quote emblazoned on T-shirts/pullovers by environmentalist Pat Potter.

2)  Their promises are wind.  Meaningless doesn't even come close to describing their promises.

3)   They are incestuous.    In other words getting a request turned down by a municipal Council almost                                              guarantees it will be turned down by the Region and the GRCA. Way too much                                            overlap in membership.

4)  Never accept their dates for delays.  Almost always these parties interpret a "delay" as meaning for                                                                       forever.

5)  If you ask a question assume their answer will be a lie.  This prevents disappointment as well as future                                                               expectations of good behaviour on their part.

6)  Make these "lessons" available to the parties listed above.  Let them know that you appropriately have                                                                zero confidence in them. 

7)  Let the parties know that despite these "lessons" you will keep track of future promises, statements,                                                               lies  delays and commitments.

8)  Never apologize for any of these lessons.    Thirty plus years of despicable behaviour can not be                                                                   undone by a future few years of good behaviour.

9)  Laugh at their outlandish claims and junk science regularly.

10)  Never feel the need to prove them wrong.   Yes it is satisfying but it only encourages even more lying                                                           from them.

THE 2024 ANNUAL MONITORING REPORT (AMR) HAS BEEN RELEASED

 

As usual it's a bit of a stinker with lots of back patting at every opportunity combined with professional explanations (excuses) each time hydraulic containment fails. Combined with this is the liberal use of statistics such as those over 90% to describe up times for various pumps and wells. Those with up times however of only 55% seem to get short shrift in the explanation department. 

We are also advised that the Ontario MECP has given  "temporary" relief to Lanxess in regards to their Bio-monitoring program. Apparently bringing in clams etc. from Balsam Lake has been a no-no for a long time that was conveniently ignored. Now it is being enforced hence Lanxess asked and received permission from the MECP for the "temporary" delay.  

I find as usual the Executive Summary to be an exercise in self-serving gratuitous bravado. Everything is good, trust us we are professionals, nothing really exceptional to see here folks kind of nonsense. To date I have seen no honest or legitimate explanations of decreasing on-site pumping while the off-site generally remains around 52 litres per second. When the off-site rises the odd month I see no explanation as to why the on-site pumping is also not rising to ensure hydraulic containment of contaminants so that they are not drawn off site by the higher off-site pumping.

This AMR appears to be the usual bought and paid for good news that Ontario polluters and their captured regulator (MECP) strive for.