Plus the irony is not lost on me that Uniroyal kicked our butts from the inside. They had APTE under control from very early on. I suppose it's debatable as to whether there were some good intentions in the beginning which simply went awry after enough compromises and private deals were made . It's even possible that to this very day Susan Bryant still hopes to see at least a token amount of cleanup at a "hot spot" or two. I do kind of wonder however what the former APTE coordinators are thinking now when they realize the wasted opportunities that their group has had. APTE actually had serious influence for the first few years but as soon as the coordinators backed away and let first Susan and Sylvia run the show followed in 2000 by Susan and Pat; then the jig was up. Here we are in 2025 and the drinking water is no where near being restored to drinking water standards for either NDMA or chlorobenzene not to mention all the other chemical toxins that got "scoped". Plus the cleanup of the Creek hasn't even been started. Same with any cleanup of the former Uniroyal site itself.
APTE of course are not the only reason that Uniroyal prevailed. Inherently guilty and corrupt governance really sank the ship. The Ministry of Environment was only initiated by our provincial government as a public pleasing, vote getting attempt by politicians and their lobbyists to convince the public that their government gave a hoot about the environment. Perhaps as the mounting costs of Climate Change, polluted air and water rise governments are beginning to see the light. The trouble is their financial backers still want to make more money. They think that they can take it with them when they die. They think that their money will immunize them from cancers and other diseases that are a direct result of the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink.
No comments:
Post a Comment