The first report I am aware of was the 1966 Ontario Water Resources Commission (OWRC) report on the Canagagigue Creek. It painted a very serious situation detailing dioxins/furans, DDT, DDD, DDE, Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), mercury, PCBs etc in the Creek. Next there was a Ministry of Environment (M.O.E.) 1996 report by R. Jaagumagi and D. Bedard that likely shocked the M.O.E. who in hindsight I expect had been hoping for "improvements" over time as the contamination in soils and sediments eroded and were washed downstream. Then we had the 2012 study initiated by George Karlos (M.O.E.) who stated that he hoped that study would put citizens fears to rest. Clearly he too thought that these Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) would have kindly moved along and enhanced the living experiences of downstream wildlife in the Grand River into which the Canagagigue empties. He was likely correct in that some did erode and migrate downstream during high flows and especially seasonal floods.
So what has been happening? The only logical conclusion is that much of these contaminants are still coming off the former Uniroyal Chemical site. Whether by solvent enhanced groundwater dissolution or by surface water /stormwater flow or even by air migration all of these POPs are mobile by a multitude of methodologies. Further sampling in 2013 and 2014 only made it clearer and clearer. Finally there were two major investigations in 2017 and 2020 both of which painted a bleak picture. Besides creekbank soils, some floodplain soils and bottom of the Creek sediments there was even fish tissue sampling much of which exceeded provincial or federal health guidelines, some by smaller amounts and some by huge amounts. So we all thought action and cleanup will finally come!
It did ! Lanxess and the now MECP (former M.O.E.) announced that they would be doing a state of the art HHERA or Human Health & Ecological Risk Assessment. The only thing state of art about that bought and paid for result of "no unacceptable risks" in the downstream Creek was the verbiage, the mealy mouthed excuses, the puffery as to how wonderful all the participants were etc. Obviously health criteria and scientific knowledge can be manipulated and defeated through many forms of green washing including environmental assessments as well as risk assessments. Oh and to top off the insult the results of both the 2017 and 2020 "investigations" were undermined by often using laboratory Method Detection Limits that exceeded the health criteria producing a plethora of semi phony Non-Detects. Also the use of shovels to sample sediments versus proper core samplers also reduced the concentrations of detected toxic contaminants. All in all a total crock. Thank you Ontario MECP for holding Lanxess's hands throughout and providing cheerleading instead of honest criticism.
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