Why not? Most likely because Susan B. along with Sylvia Berg had rolled over thirteen plus years previously and privately did what they and later Susan B. and Pat McLean did which was negotiate away items of which they had no clue as to the environmental or other significance of. I further believe that Susan B. was told by Uniroyal that in exchange for APTE dropping DNAPLS as an issue, they Uniroyal would guarantee her that in good time they would clean up the downstream Canagagigue Creek. Also remember that neither Susan Bryant nor Pat or Sylvia had the slightest science backgrounds and most certainly zero chemistry backgrounds . This was a big reason why I picked up the organic chemistry lessons so quickly as I did have not only Grade 13 chemistry but also took and passed first year Chemistry at the U. of Waterloo in their Co-op Chemistry program. Another reason for Susan B.s and Pat McLean's behaviour likely was Pat's penchant for being a "control freak" as Susan B. had earlier advised me. Quite frankly APTE's influence as representatives of the public was compromised very early on after Susan Rupert had departed Elmira and the leadership of APTE.
Yesterday here I mentioned the 1985 excavations beside the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant. According to internal M.O.E. documents the removal of long buried drums did not go as well as hoped. Many of the drums split or collapsed as they were being lifted out of the hole they were buried in and their liquid contents fell back into the pit/ground. No mention is made of vacuum hoses or other emergency equipment having been mobilized ahead of time. Furthermore it appears as if the liquid contents were off spec components of Agent Orange such as 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Keep in mind that despite all Uniroyal claims to the contrary over many decades, in fact DNAPLS did migrate (gravity flow) off their site and those DNAPLS carried other solvents as well as DDT and dioxins along with them. These DNAPLS certainly went westwards both onto the Nutrite/Yara property as well as along First St. towards the Howard St. Water Tower as recently admitted by Lanxess Canada and their consultants. The DDT and dioxins would have ended up attached to subsurface soils and in regular contact with flowing groundwater. Most likely the dioxins for certain and the DDT perhaps would exceed the Ontario drinking water standards (ODWS) which are set at 15 parts per quadrillion (ppq). The toxicity of dioxins is so great that the drinking water health standard is 1,000 times smaller than even the standard for highly toxic NDMA (9 parts per trillion).
Finally overflowing east side pits and ponds also contained both DNAPLS and DDT and dioxins dissolved in solvents which would have flowed and indeed did flow onto the Stroh farm next door. A tiny proportion of these were excavated in 2019 along the property line albeit on the Stroh property. The excavations went an astounding 15 cm. or 5.9 inches in depth. This was but one more token "cleanup" effort that literally barely scratched the surface. If left as is these dioxins and DDT will slowly dissolve ( at low concentrations albeit higher than the ODWS) into the groundwater and continue on towards the Canagagigue Creek. Clearly our authorities have known this for many decades and decided that slow poisoning of life forms including human beings either directly or indirectly through contaminated milk, beef , fish, soybeans or corn crops is O.K. with them.
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