THIRTY-SIX YEARS OF DNAPL EMBARASSMENT & FACE SAVING

 

It sure looks that way. Way back when Joe Ricker on behalf of Lanxess was shilling his plume configuration creds and extrapolating them to encompass some theory of diminishing returns (asymptotic behaviour) when treating contaminated aquifers; I was struck by some very strange concentration numbers. Here was good old Joe, man or suit splaining  why NDMA concentrations could never be reduced to zero as if that ever was anybody's goal which it never was. The goal was and is nine parts per trillion (ppt.) and we are nowhere close. 

But here's what's weird. Barely a word about chlorobenzene whose average concentration in the Municipal Lower Aquifer is 163 parts per billion (ppb.) with a drinking water standard of 80 ppb. Chlorobenzene in the Municipal Upper Aquifer is around 91 parts per billion (ppb). So chlorobenzene after decades of pump & treat also has NOT achieved drinking water standards in Either drinking aquifer. Isn't that just a grand success now if you listen to the heavy duty bull*hit peddled by various credentialed "talking heads" shoved into our faces by the polluter and his corporate successors. Oh and note that chlorobenzene concentrations are literally thousands of times greater than NDMA concentrations ( ppb. versus ppt.) 

Is this indeed why Uniroyal, the M.O.E., Woolwich and the Region of Waterloo, in the understatement of the century, have never been keen on seriously investigating much less remediating either residual or free phase DNAPLS on and off the Uniroyal Chemical site? Is the DNAPL presence the single limiting factor to a cost effective (i.e. cheap) remediation to drinking water standards but nobody in authority (i.e. politicians) back in the early 1990s or since have had the courage or honesty to admit it?

Except of course for myself and a very few close colleagues. Wow! So now all those dishonest dickheads are just too damn embarrassed to ever admit that a layperson with a strong interest and even stronger stubbornness has been right all along while they and all the guilty parties have been lying like dogs.