LOTS OF TURNOVER ON RAC, TAG, AND THE RAGTAG TRAC

 RAC - Rotten And Corrupt

TAG - Totally Asinine Garbage

TRAC - Totally Rotten And Corrupt  

MECP - Ministry of Expanded Corporate Pollution

These acronyms will help you identify the players and their motivations. Wilson Lau has departed which I find peculiar. His expertise in Risk Assessment seemed apparent yet dare I think, hint or suggest that maybe, just maybe he found his expertise being used to support an unlikely supposition namely that there are no unacceptable risks in the downstream Canagagigue Creek? I do not know for sure but I feel better about him thinking this.

TAG lost Bill Barr, Joe Kelly and Katarina Richter over the years. Also Pat McLean departed but that was no loss whatsoever. Sebastian has stated his desire to resign numerous times over the years but to date still hasn't done it. Hydrogeologist Dustin Martin also walked a while back. I think others have also departed but I can't recall their names at the moment. Susan Bryant is neither a Canadian citizen nor a Woolwich Township resident but has brought credibility to TAG etc. to the point that she has received appropriate compensation for her long complicity. Eric Hodgins (former RMOW) is back after a long absence and seems intent upon maintaining the status quo.

I may not live long enough to see it but nevertheless am confident that eventually history will get it right. The above groups including mayor Sandy Shantz and CAO Brenneman will not be regarded well in long term hindsight. Their collegiality with the MECP, Lanxess, Chemtura, Crompton and Uniroyal Chemical will eventually be their undoing. The failures to protect the health of all Elmira and Woolwich residents and citizens as well that of the natural environment will be exposed and obvious. 

CLOSING THE GATE AFTER THE HORSE HAS BOLTED

 

In this case it's after the contaminated groundwater has left the property.  Yes it is the solvent contaminated groundwater including trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride , 1,4 dioxane and more beneath the Erb St. Landfill in Waterloo.  This contamination has been in the ground and groundwater literally for many decades.  It has also been denied for most of that time so what has changed? Politics and our population keeps skyrocketing mostly from students and immigrants hence the need for more drinking water. The Region of Waterloo have a well deserved reputation as leaders in groundwater protection. May I just add a small addendum to that? They are leaders in groundwater protection "after the horse has bolted".

Two problems. There are many known "windows" beneath the Erb St. Landfill allowing  both municipal leachate as well as industrial solvents to flow downwards past the natural clay barrier into our regional drinking water aquifer. There are also likely more unknown "windows".

Secondly "management practices" required to stickhandle, delay and minimize the negative effects are already being used by the Region to protect the St. Agatha Wellfield just west of the Landfill. They are being used and strongly being recommended to keep on using them which includes limiting the volume of pumping at the nearby St. Agatha Wellfield in order to reduce the water flow from beneath the landfill towards the wellfield. 

The three solvents listed above have all been found in Elmira's groundwater courtesy of both Uniroyal Chemical and Varnicolor Chemical. Back in the day both these companies and others used each and every landfill they could to dispose of their toxic wastes. 1,4 dioxane was unknown to me back in 1990 when it was identified in shallow soils on the Varnicolor site along with perhaps 100 other chemicals.  It has since been identified beneath the Ottawa St. Landfill and necessitated improved treatment at the Greenbrook Wellfield after it migrated to there.

Good news however. Many of the players involved in the decades long cleanup failure in Elmira, Ontario are also involved in protecting the Erb St. Landfill's reputation (& the Region's?). This would include the Region themselves, consultants CRA, GHD, Wilf Ruland, and Stantec. Now keep in mind Stantec's efforts have primarily been in regards to their very problematic claim that there are no unacceptable risks in the downstream Canagagigue Creek. Oh and of course our very own and highly unesteemed Ontario Ministry of Environment clearly have some jurisdiction and interest in protecting the provincial government from more bad publicity.

Maybe the guilty parties have decided it's almost soon enough to break the bad news to Waterloo Region residents that a Lake Erie Pipeline is about to be moved to the front burner.        

SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THE FAILURE TO ACHIEVE GROUNDWATER CLEANUP IN ELMIRA, ONTARIO

 

NOT!

The pumping Target Rates have been in front of our eyes since 1998. These off-site Target Rates were to achieve BOTH hydraulic containment of the contaminant plumes hence preventing them from spreading in area as well as to slowly reduce the concentrations of the various toxic chemicals to below Ontario Drinking Water Standards. The on the Uniroyal site Target Rates were intended solely to contain the contaminant plumes on site. 

Consistency and reliability in pumping and treatment were required to achieve these goals. Uniroyal, Crompton, Chemtura , Lanxess, CRA and GHD have been totally incapable of keeping the systems up and running to their own Target Rates over the last 26 years hence the failure. The Ontario Ministry of Environment have rarely and barely even said "Tsk Tsk".  RAC, TAG and now TRAC will also do their best to ignore these failures and point their fingers elsewhere. TRAC members (i.e. RAC & TAG) rebranded  will go about business as usual begging for cleanup scraps along the Creek and  justifying the aquifer cleanup failure with a new "deadline" plus lots of rah, rah look how many kilograms of chemicals we removed from the aquifers last year. There will be no word as to how much new contamination has leaked off the former Uniroyal site into the aquifers beneath Elmira. 

Off-site Target pumping Rates  were approximately 53 litres per second in 2012. Currently they are  at 63.8  l/sec.  The total off-site pumping for the last four months (Dec.2023, Jan., Feb., March 2024) has been a ridiculous 42.4, 37.4, 28.5 and 44.9 litres per second.  GHD recommends in writing that actual pumping rates equal or exceed  their Target Rates.  

Hydraulic Containment also known as Pump & Treat or Pump & Dump is the cheapest and least effective remediation possible for contaminated sites.  These never ending pumping failures have been going on since the beginning. I no longer believe that they are unintentional. Lanxess are saving money every month that this crap goes on.  Woolwich Township and TRAC will serve as their cheerleaders.  

IS THE REGION'S PUBLIC DISHONESTY ABOUT OUR GROUNDWATER GOING TO CHANGE ?

 "Source water protection" has a nice ring to it. As does "Country side line".  Also "aquifer recharge areas" and the provincially mandated, several years old now, long term planning to protect the Region of Waterloo's groundwater. I suggest that just as the "Country side line" has been exposed as a fraud in Wilmot Township, the other terms are also mostly smoke and mirrors.

The Region of Waterloo have been playing musical chairs with our drinking water wells for decades now. Cambridge in particular has a number of  industrially contaminated sites that have adversely affected their groundwater. Hence drinking water wells when pumping draw in groundwater from great distances away including changing the natural groundwater flow direction. This "management practice" of operating pumping wells for short periods of time (eg. six months) and then shutting them down and restarting another well has even been admitted to at public CPAC meetings in the past.

  In other words our regional authorities have been knowingly pumping from industrially contaminated aquifers for decades. Early on (late 70s & early 1980s) there was concern in Elmira when it was admitted that yes the regional aquifer supplying drinking water from the north and south wellfields was located directly under the Uniroyal Chemical plant. Now of course all our politicians and fellow travellors jumped in to Uniroyal's defence  with a myriad of lies and falsehoods such as there is an impenetrable clay layer between the aquifer and the ground surface as well as well the south wellfield is far too distant from Uniroyal for any contaminants to travel that far.

Thirty-four years ago there was a public scandal regarding liquid chemical wastes as well as semi solid wastes being sent to the regional landfill in K-W from Varnicolor Chemical via fraudulent lab reports showing that they were non-hazardous. Yours truly had tipped off both the Region as well as the media. So embarrassing  for the Region. That is the reality likely of all our former landfills as industries paid both above and below the table including bottles of whiskey to MOE officers as well as landfill supervisors. 

Right now as we speak the Erb St. Landfill is leaking leachate into the regional aquifer right beneath them that supplies drinking water to the St. Agatha wells as well as to downgradient wells in Waterloo and Kitchener at various wellfields. The Region of Waterloo are also using "management" practices to attempt to mitigate the extent of contamination in our drinking water wells caused by the Erb St. Landfill. Claims that nobody knew better than to locate that landfill directly above the regional aquifer in 1972 are ludicrous. Further claims that nobody knew anything about leachate collection in 1972 are also ludicrous.  Our municipal and regional politicians have always cheaped out on the important stuff such as sewage treatment and clean drinking water in favour of grandiose projects to attach their names and reputations to such as the LRT.  

WHAT COSTS DO TAXPAYERS FACE BECAUSE OF POOR ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL DECISION MAKING?

 Hmm let's see. Canada Mortgage & Housing on the hook for millions of dollars in abandoned townhouses due to methane intrusion beside the Ottawa St. Landfill in Kitchener. How about the private wells on Sandy Hills Dr. contaminated with solvents courtesy of the Woolwich Landfill (Seiling Dr. in Woolwich Twn.). A new water pipeline plus never ending aquifer pump & treat costs in Elmira, Ontario. The Middleton Wellfield in Cambridge has the second highest per unit  water treatments costs (only behind the Grand River & Hidden Valley) due to Trichloroethylene (TCE) throughout the groundwater. Oh and of course the Erb St. Landfill in Waterloo has cost millions of dollars in consulting fees alone I expect. Then there are the trucking and treatment costs sending the leachate to the Sewage Treatment Plant. There are also hydro costs pumping groundwater either to waste or to a treatment centre if they even bother to do that. What is the cost of destroying our drinking water wellfields? What is the cost of building a water pipeline to Lake Erie for Waterloo Region? 

Rest easy, the only costs we don't know are for the Lake Erie Pipeline but we will very soon know those costs only too well. 

HAS THE BIAS IN FAVOUR OF POLICE SWUNG WAY TOO FAR?

 George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are two well known American citizens who paid the ultimate price for police misbehaviour and violence.  One was murder by a police officer and the other criminal negligence in my opinion. Here in Waterloo Region a few years back we had a burglary suspect fired at multiple times by Officer Darling while running AWAY from the officer. Running away not attacking! The suspect was hit by one or two of seven bullets fired and the officer was later cleared of any criminal wrong doing.  Any ordinary citizen "defending" their home by shooting a suspect running away would have been convicted and incarcerated.

Today's Waterloo Region Record ("I just wish it didn't happen") advises us that a brown skinned citizen (relevant??) ran over and killed an undercover Toronto police officer three years ago.  The officer and his partner were both undercover i.e. in civilian clothing as they attempted to stop and remove him from his car in an underground parking garage beneath Toronto City Hall. Here's the kicker. The man was with his eight month pregnant wife AND his two year old son. Oddly (?) he was not cooperative in the attempt by two unknown and unidentified aggressive individuals to stop him and remove him from his car. 

The two undercover police officers were allegedly investigating a stabbing at the time and clearly felt that that permitted them to behave aggressively with the unarmed man and his family. They had the wrong person and one of them paid for their aggression with his life. As bad as that is, now the innocent individual protecting himself and his family is charged with causing the officer's death in his attempt to escape the confrontation and the area. 

Police make mistakes just like we all do. Honest citizens should not be punished for resisting illegal or mistaken aggression aimed at them, regardless of the other parties state of mind. Our idiot politicians need to stop backing police carte blanche and pretending that citizens do not have the absolute right to defend themselves and loved ones from ALL threats and hostilities including government sanctioned ones.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FINALLY TAKES SOME CRITICISM REGARDING ELMIRA CLEANUP

 May 2, 2016 the Waterloo Region Record published a story titled  "Town pushes feds on creek water". Way back in 2004 Dr. Henry Regier also tried to get the federal government involved. They were not interested . This time both TAG Chair Dr. Richard Jackson as well as mayor Sandy Shantz were trying to get some action (i.e. help) from our federal government but they are again playing hard to get. Keep in mind the feds were involved both in studying the grossly contaminated Uniroyal site around 1988 as well as in decisions around supplying war material to the U.S. military for use in Vietnam. I'm speaking of course about the use of defoliant Agent Orange which was produced here and elsewhere during the late 1960s. The unwanted by-product was dioxin which has done serious damage around the world. 

For Dr. Jackson and others the shocking aspect is Canada's help in assisting the Vietnamese people who have suffered greatly from exposure to products produced by Uniroyal Chemical (& others) that were sold to the U.S. military. While that help is appropriate the Canadian government's see no evil, hear no evil attitude to Elmira's related problems are reprehensible. 

It is very clear that our governments cherry pick the issues that they will address. Apparently a group of pacifist Mennonites in Elmira, Ontario are not worthy of protection much less even basic assistance from our federal government. Also to their shame our local councils have joined hands with our provincial government in coddling Uniroyal Chemical and their corporate successors. Neither laws nor morality have been able to budge the dirty, corporate polluters in our midst.