January 2007 : I've forgotten the exact date but have no doubt about the year and month. I was invited along with Susan Bryant, Pat McLean and Wilf Ruland to a chat with Drs. John Cherry and Beth Parker at their offices at the University of Waterloo to discuss DNAPLS which was their specialty to say the least. In hindsight especially it is amazing how little the groundwater contamination expertise at the University was called upon by anybody whether polluter or citizens such as Susan with close ties to the University.
We all travelled in the same car and of course the talk was all about DNAPLS and how the current thinking favoured leaving them in place at contaminated sites despite their known long term negative effects on groundwater quality. Various reasons were given to me by all three of my colleagues as to why little or nothing could or should be done about them at Uniroyal/Chemtura.
Besides discussions we were given a number of copies of Bulletins that the two Doctors had published in recent years. Surprisingly when they were all passed to me and I tried to distribute them equally to the four of us, the other three all declined. The suggestion was that I could read them all first and then pass them along to whomever wanted them. That turned out to be nobody, never. I have them to this day and reference them occasionally still.
The two Doctors who were world class experts in the field had made amazing progress in their knowledge and understanding of these highly toxic and dangerous compounds in recent years. Concerns about further spreading them through the subsurface accidentally while in the process of removing or containing them were apparently overstated. Yes care was required when excavating or drilling in search of them but it was quite achievable. I was so engrossed in what I was hearing that it wasn't until the return trip in the car with the other three that I realized how quiet and possibly sullen they were. What the heck I said why so glum. This is all good news.
Seriously you would have thought that somebody died. It was only then or a little later that I figured out what was going on. I was the only one at CPAC still pushing hard for DNAPL (Free phase & residual) removal from the Uniroyal site in Elmira. It seemed to me that everybody else had somehow signed off on actually doing anything about them. Over the years the denials of their presence had waxed and waned by the parties always with the attitude it's best to leave them alone. Well that plan sure got shot out of the water by Drs. Cherry & Parker. Or at least so I thought. I had been brought along to this meeting for the express purpose of having my mind and position to remove DNAPLS reversed by the two Doctors which clearly did not happen. They were not part of the plan nor was I.
Back at CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) NOTHING happened. I asked when the meeting with the two experts would be put on the Agenda. Delay after delay and excuse after excuse it did not happen. I was finally beginning to sniff out the fact that I had a lot fewer friends and supporters at CPAC than I thought. Then of course the two pieces of crap backstabbed me over a non issue that would and did eventually work itself out namely the Ammonia Treatment System. Despite it's flaws that I pointed out it's construction proceeded without any delay remotely due to my criticisms (later proven accurate by the ERT) of some of the conditions surrounding it.
The DNAPL meeting at the University of Waterloo has NEVER been referenced or put on the Agenda by Susan Bryant or Pat McLean since. They covered it up in order to help Chemtura and to continue APTE's shameful dereliction of duty way back in 1994. I say APTE's dereliction of duty when in fact while they were uninformed, it was Sylvia who led that charge.
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