OH BOY HAS LUISA D'AMATO (K-W Record) GIVEN IT TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE WRDSB AGAIN!

 

You gotta love it when those self-serving, self-entitled sh*heads get called out publicly. When are they going to learn that the more they try to insulate themselves from criticism the more that comes their way?  The answer appears to be never. They have absolute confidence that the Board and all their lawyers will protect them. Well let's see if that works out for Scot Piatkowski the former Board Chair who improperly shut down Caroline Burjowski's Delegation to the Waterloo Region & District School Board over two (3?) years ago. Without referring to that case, Ms. D'Amato slow roasted the Trustees' unfortunate penchant for non-transparency and secrecy. This of course includes not allowing non believers (in the WRDSB) to speak freely to them. 

Once again it appears that the good guys on the Trustees consist of Cindy Watson, Mike Ramsay and Bill Cody. They have long all tried to promote more openness and ability of parents, citizens and stakeholders to speak to the Trustees without facing restrictive and ridiculous legal threats and or threats of being cut off if they don't stay within the Trustees' narrow guidelines as to what is and isn't "appropriate" or O.K. Apparently it's just fine for Trustees and the WRDSB to behave poorly but heaven forbid any stakeholders should criticize them for it.

Ms. D'Amato has long advocated for a more open, honest and transparent WRDSB as have the three Trustees mentioned.  While I don't expect our current provincial government to do their job education wise, nevertheless they do have the legal right to step in when things get too ridiculous. Wouldn't that be just incredible if it was the Doug Ford government that said enough of this crap  and stepped in and took over from the WRDSB. I don't know when or if was the last time that the provincial government did such a thing but if this is a first it couldn't look better than on the WRDSB.  

  

A "SOFT" TAKEOVER IN EUROPE & THE MIDDLE EAST IT IS NOT

Or at least if after three years of murder, mayhem and war Ukraine ends up negotiating away some of their natural resources (rare minerals) I suppose that some would call that a "soft" takeover of another country's resources. My understanding in Africa is that developed nations around the world have swept in and bought up leases and properties in order to gain access and control to other country's natural resources. It appears that in the Ukraine both the U.S. and Russia are so interested.

The Middle East however confuses me. At one point D. Trump was talking about removing 2 million people from the Gaza Strip and redeveloping it as a tourist destination. Good Lord  are they going to have historical plaques every 100 metres stating that so many hundreds (or thousands) of men, women and children died here whether from aerial bombardment, bullets, starvation or disease? The only positive from Donald Trump's hot air so far has been the lack of snow and warm temperatures for the first three weeks of March here in Ontario. We'll see how long that lasts.

2025 and we think that the world is such a better place than it used to be. Every country in the world has greedy men and women who always want more. They will never be satisfied hence they are always pushing to change the rules to their benefit. More for them could be status, power, prestige, fame, multiple homes, world travel, planes, cars and toys in general plus of course money. These people even within the bounds and rules of civilized societies are dangerous because the world has finite resources and not every greedy piece of crap in the world will ever have enough. Hence whether in Africa or Canada these people learn how to lobby, how to organize and how to get power and authority way beyond what they should considering their moral and ethical considerations.  Generally speaking democracies inhibit their worst behaviour but only somewhat. It is also very possible to have a highly corrupt democracy and perhaps only a marginally corrupt other form of government. 

Democracies need more work but elected politicians are loath to interrupt their personal gravy trains. Even within political parties the infighting can be brutal as ambitious people jockey for position. Just watch what happens every time a party leader loses an election, resigns or gets caught unawares in a crisis . As often or not it is his "friends and colleagues" who plunge the knife into him.

NEXT MOSTLY USELESS TRAC MEETING - THURSDAY APRIL 10/25 AT 6:00 P.M.

 

This date is of course subject to immediate change without notice at the whim of Lanxess and likely even the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MECP).  As usual recently I have no intentions of wasting my time attending and being muted by lickspittles, incompetents and Lanxess fellow travellors. The meeting is video taped and is put on the Woolwich Township website a few days afterwards. That way I can watch the nonsense without either breaking out in tears or erupting in laughter publicly over their asinine assumptions, comments or self-serving fantasies they call facts. 

 The so called technical folks on TRAC have little or no history of what has come before.  At one point in time Susan Bryant could offer her biased recollections of past events but she's pretty well lost that ability. It really isn't that much of a loss however as her past recollections rarely coincided with the public interest much to Lanxess's benefit. 

My expectations are that TRAC will begin the countdown to shutdown. This April meeting is the first in 2025 and Lanxess and friends (MECP) clearly prefer fewer meetings over regular ones. Mayor Sandy Shantz jumped through their hoops and loops to bring them back to the table in September 2015 yet they have rewarded her with fewer face to face meetings with Elmira citizens ever since. For them having to explain their cleanup failures will not be at the top of their Agenda. I'm sure that their new media savvy consultants will have a path forward emphasizing effort, intention and hope for the future . Actually honestly explaining their multiple cleanup failures will never cross their minds.

MOST RECENT E-MAIL COMMUNICATIONS WITH HOPELESS LOCAL POLITICIANS

 

Since Christmas I might guess that I've sent a dozen different e-mails to both Woolwich councillors and Region of Waterloo councillors. It could be more or it could be less. Regardless the subject matter has been about the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis and the failed cleanup(s).  Yesterday I sent both Monday and Tuesday's Blog posting to them. They are titled "  The Human Condition - Lying Has Been Raised To An Art Form By Politicians "  and  " !) The Elmira Groundwater Cleanup  2) The Canagagigue  Cleanup  3) The On-Site (Uniroyal Chemical)  Cleanup As Per March 2025 ". 

As I've stated in the past my purpose has been to ignore the gilded lily interpretation of the failed cleanups by all the guilty parties  in favour of the blunt and indisputable facts.  It has also been an attempt to draw out surely at least the few councillors (municipal or regional)  who do not like drinking the Kool Aid. i.e. those who can think for themselves and no matter how smooth the untruthful road has become want to know which "facts" are truthful and which are simply self-serving fantasies. 

It is even possible that a few of these more honest and intelligent councillors can see what the future is going to bring if they don't step up and demand a real cleanup versus the polluter driven efforts to date.

THE HUMAN CONDITION - LYING HAS BEEN RAISED TO AN ART FORM BY POLITICIANS

 

1) The Wilmot Land Grab  2) The $14 Million AMAZON screw up  3) The Elmira Water Crisis

1) Secrecy and non-disclosure agreements signed by our Regional Chair - seriously all to amass 770 acres for allegedly some unknown future industrial development. Meanwhile destroy productive food producing farmland and threaten our water supply.

2)  So our regional government made an oopsie...a $14 million oopsie by undercharging the new Amazon warehouse in Cambridge (Blair) on their development fees. Oh and one of the alleged reasons for the oopsie is the secrecy whereby the City of Cambridge didn't get around to telling the Region who the new owner of the warehouse was thus the Region undercharged them. (Wholesale versus retail development).

3)  Thirty-five years plus since the Elmira wells were shut down in November 1989.  As per yesterday's post here nothing has been brought to a successful conclusion.  The Elmira Aquifers remain polluted, the Canagagigue Creek remains polluted and the former Uniroyal Chemical site is a toxic time bomb. 

All three of these crises indicate bad governance at both the municipal and regional level. Bad governance specifically includes lying to citizens and electors in order to get your way. Citizens for the love of God throw ALL these bums out in the next election (2026). 

1) ELMIRA GROUNDWATER CLEANUP 2) CANAGAGIGUE CLEANUP 3) ON-SITE (UNIROYAL CHEMICAL) CLEANUP AS PER MARCH 2025

 

Three possible cleanups: 1) Elmira groundwater is an abject failure. Neither NDMA  nor chlorobenzene nor likely benzene, toluene, MBT, chlorophenols etc. have been reduced to drinking water standards much less zero.  2) The downstream Canagagigue Creek cleanup after more than fifty years of study and research hasn't even started.  3)  On-site i.e. the former Uniroyal site remains a toxic pigpen. DNAPLS both free phase and residual remain. Both liquid and solid wastes permeate the soils and groundwater in places fifty to seventy-five feet deep.  Some former waste pits and ponds were removed but not excavated below where the waste sat in unlined pits and ponds .  Even later on lined pits leaked downwards estimated at 3,400 litres per day by CH2MHILL,  the Region's consultants. All of this crap eventually (centuries?) will migrate off site into our aquifers, soils and Creek and Grand River.

Thank you Ontario MECP, Uniroyal/Lanxess, Woolwich Township and Region of Waterloo for your decades of whitewash and greenwash.  

 

SCAM IN THE CREEK JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER "CLEANUP" SCAMS

 

Allegedly there are three or four "hot spots" in the downstream Canagagigue Creek. That is the intentional lie to justify yet one more scoping/minimizing of the severity of the contamination problems in the Creek.  Think about it. When you scope everything possible to allegedly focus on the most serious stuff what you are really doing is trimming most of the rot and corruption away  for your own self-serving purposes. Take likely fifty or more different toxic contaminants in the Creek soils and sediments and pretend that only two count namely dioxins and DDT.  Then only sample the soils and sediments to a certain depth and pretend that just because you haven't sampled deeper that they aren't there. Then do your sampling along access roads such as the New Jerusalem Rd., Northfield Dr., and Jigs Hollow Rd. just outside West Montrose. The fact is that these access roads have nothing to do with where all the contaminants are much less even most of them. They are simply very easy access points to bring equipment and personnel to the Creek via car and truck versus on their backs.

Finally after analyzing your data you proudly tell UPAC, CPAC, TRAC, MECP etc. that the data you have clearly indicates that there are only two or three highly contaminated areas downstream in the Creek. That Creek runs for five miles from Uniroyal/Lanxess all the way to the Grand River just south of West Montrose. Your data meanwhile covers exactly how much of the Creek soils and sediments? Maybe 5%? Maybe 1%. It is all royal bulls*it  disguising the fact that the polluter has via locational sampling biases decided not where the Creek needs the most cleanup but where it is easiest and most convenient for him to dip his toes in the water and remove (maybe) a shovel full of highly contaminated sediments etc. Meanwhile the self-serving idiots at Woolwich Township gobble up this crap because it tastes so much better than admitting the truth and reality of how badly the Creek is still polluted.