IS THERE ANY CHANCE OF WOOLWICH CHANGING COLOURS POST THE SHANTZ DEBACLE?

 

There has been one major reversal only in Woolwich Township's behaviour and attitudes towards the Elmira Water Crisis since the crisis began in November 1989. Even prior to the crisis Woolwich Township councils seemed more than willing and eager to leave everything in the hands of Uniroyal Chemical and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (M.O.E.). This neglect caused multiple health issues among local residents from air emissions, destroyed the Canagagigue Creek and polluted both the groundwater and drinking water for Elmira residents. It seems clear to me that drilling two new wells further away from Uniroyal Chemical (E7, E9) in the south end of Elmira was a feeble attempt to isolate our drinking water from Uniroyal's on-site dumped and buried toxic liquid wastes. The north wellfield consisting of at least E2, E3, E5, E6 was slightly upgradient and mostly cross gradient from the natural groundwater flow from Northeast to Southwest. Of course as any first year hydrogeology student can tell you  pumping wells (drinking water) can readily reverse natural groundwater flows. Hence the north wellfield was by no means isolated from Uniroyal's contamination. In fact by installing pumping wells south-west of Uniroyal our erudite councillors merely accelerated the contaminated natural groundwater flow into our drinking water system via the 1970 new south wellfield (E7, E9).

To date I believe that two councillors have thrown their hats into the ring for position of mayor. The possibly unfortunate result is that we are likely to lose one reasonably good councillor who loses his council seat at the same time as they lose the mayoral race. Unfortunately I do not know either candidate well enough at this point in time to have a favoutrite. For decades Woolwich residents have been dealt a series of crappy mayors and numerous councillors hell bent on pleasing local, influential big shots. The divine right of kings has long been transformed into the divine right of the monied class to rule the rest of us. The one mayoral exception I mentioned in the first sentence was Todd Cowan in October 2014. Sandy Shantz was incredibly lucky that he self-destructed and basically handed the mayor's job to her. Yes it also helped that she was an attractive female with a Mennonite last name and a background as a church volunteer.  Other than that she was hopelessly unqualified other than being appointed Chair of the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) around 1997 or 1998. I and many others are pleased that the moral and ethical behaviour of that school board has been exposed through various crises over the decades including the Caroline Burjowski public relations disaster for the Board as well as various attempts to silence trustees such as Mike Ramsey.

The Todd Cowan council (Oct. 2010-Oct. 2014) made serious moves to transform CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) into a legitimate, citizens run committee both asking tough questions and demanding honest answers from those unwilling to do so. Ms. Shantz unravelled that committee by removing all but one member and bringing in initially some of her curling friends from the local curling club if you can believe it. Unfrigging unbelieveable but that was her solution albeit pressed upon her by likely the CAO as well as Uniroyal/Chemtura and the Ont. M.O.E. Todd Cowan's weaknesses and failures doomed his future prospects electorally and otherwise as well as killed the likely last chance to turn around the environmental "cleanup" into a real cleanup.

UNIROYAL, CROMPTON, CHEMTURA & LANXESS HAVE A 100% FAILURE RATE

 

NDMA has not been reduced to drinking water standards. Chlorobenzene has not been reduced to drinking water standards. Ammonia has not been reduced to drinking water standards. How many other dissolved solvents, pesticides, rubber additives and agricultural chemicals are still in our groundwater? How many of them are above their drinking water standards? These dissolved chemicals by the way are not in just one of our drinking water aquifers but in both the Municipal Upper (MU) and the Municipal Lower (ML) aquifers. Merely as an aside what is the drinking water standard for water with multiple toxins in it? Is it higher or lower than with only one toxin in it? What about water with two or three toxins above drinking water standards and with another dozen or more toxic chemicals that however are below their drinking water standards? As of this point in time science can not answer those questions. Common sense fortunately can despite all attempts to prohibit it by guilty parties and replace it with bought and paid for by the polluter opinionated suits. 

 Then of course there is the Canagagigue Creek. There has been decades of sampling and discovering DDT, dioxins/furans, PCBs, mercury and PAHs the entire length of the downstream Creek from Uniroyal/Lanxess. All of these over the years have exceeded various government health standards for decades yet not one shovelful has been permanently removed. We are talking health standards for benthic communities living in the sediments, creekbank soils, floodplain soils, the sediments in the bottom of the Creek as well as fish tissues that have bioaccumulated the toxins. The failure to date to clean up these toxins from the Creek has negatively affected wildlife, the environment and human beings living and farming along the Creek. I believe that some day Woolwich Township's abandonment of the Old Order Mennonite farmers along the Creek will be viewed as potentially criminal behaviour. 

Meanwhile TRAC will continue to be both the centerpiece of the cheerleading brigade as well as the scapegoat when it all hits the fan. I will enjoy watching Sandy Shantz, Susan Bryant, Nathan Cadeau, Tiffany Svensson and others twist in the wind as they are abandoned by Lanxess, Waterloo Region, the Ontario MECP and the other fellow travellors. 

THE COST OF IGNORING DNAPLS, DIOXINS, DDT (INCLUDING DDD & DDE), PCBs & MERCURY

 

Hindsight allegedly being 20/20 I believe the reason that our so called authorities have studiously ignored, minimized and silenced discussion around these highly toxic, persistent and mostly organic pollutants (POPs) is their tacit belief from the beginning that the Elmira Aquifers would not/could not ever be remediated to drinking water standards. At the very least all parties way back in the early 1990s after the EAB (Environmental Appeal Board) was bilaterally shut down were committed to NOT publicly criticizing and disparaging each other. They knew that the magnitude of their misbehaviour and negligence was such that it could permanently rupture public confidence in our entire political/judicial/economic systems.

Hence the big LIE began. Yes we can do it! Yes using the "cheapest and least effective" remediation method of Pump & Treat (hydraulic containment) we will restore the Elmira Aquifers to drinking water standards by 2028. This lie was LOUDLY proclaimed for twenty-five years by Uniroyal Chemical, Crompton & Knowles and Chemtura even years after CPAC, myself and numerous colleagues all said otherwise.in the spring of 2012.  

In reality I am an optimist who believes that with proper, professional and unbiased study, effort and expenditure of resources the groundwater resource could have been saved. That likelihood now, decades later, is greatly diminished thanks to the efforts of Sandy Shantz, Susan Bryant, the Ontario MECP, Woolwich Township, Lanxess (& predecessors) and Waterloo Region. Yes I believe that the dissolved NDMA, chlorobenzene, ammonia and so much more can eventually be reduced considerably more. It is the list of POPs plus mercury above that likely will be the toxic sticking point. As our authorities and others have lied to us for so many decades they have wasted opportunities to find and remove them throughout the past 36 years. However much they were diffused and entrenched into low permeability soils and aquitards, time has only increased the removal difficulties and costs.      

Penny wise and pound foolish is an old English saying. In this context if Uniroyal and our governments had spent less time and money on face saving, public relations and gamesmanship and done the right thing from the beginning as many citizens so advised, we would be so much closer to restoring our aquifers to clean, potable water. 

 

ANOTHER MOSTLY USELESS TRAC MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY JUNE 18/26

 

When I say "useless" I guess I had better be more specific. The TRAC meeting is "useless" from the point of view of the public interest. It is however highly useful from the point of view of Lanxess, the MECP, Woolwich Township and all the other "fellow travellors" who feel that it is in their best interests to keep the public in the dark and to support plans that have guaranteed groundwater remediation failure. Pump & Treat aka Pump & Dump has always been known as the "...cheapest, least effective" groundwater remediation methodology which apparently is why it was so embraced by Uniroyal Chemical way back in the early 1990s.

The other reason that it has been both embraced and supported by Woolwich, Waterloo Region, the MECP (Ministry of Environment, Conservation & Parks), GRCA etc. is because mud slinging between all the guilty parties just listed was ended and has remained so by agreements from the dirty polluter (Uniroyal), their successors (Crompton, Chemtura, Lanxess) as well as the political bodies listed. 

TRAC (Technical Remediation & Advisory Committee) aka Thoughtfully Rotten & Corrupt has been extremely helpful in selling the sham "cleanup" to the public. Even now it has  a place in the propaganda put out by our mayor and the MECP claiming some kind of moral victory over NDMA, chlorobenzene, ammonia and all the other long unnamed and ignored contaminants including DNAPLS, dioxins and DDT.  

Now the guiltiest of the government bodies certainly is the MECP formerly MOE. Once again however municipal and regional woosies...oops I mean politicians know their place and are not going to want to ever be seen as at odds with the higher tier levels of government whether provincial or federal. It is the great weakness of democracy in that we do not generally attract the best and brightest so much as the laziest but most power hungry individuals to run for office. Sometimes we the public get lucky but not nearly often enough as the gross failures of the Elmira Water Crisis indicate locally and as Ukraine, Sudan and the Middle East indicate internationally. 

For the record I believe that it is more accurate to refer to the MECP  not as it has been in the second paragraph above but as the Ministry of Expanded Corporate Pollution. They are particularly large polluters best friends. Little polluters they will bash hard if it suits them.

Undemocratic twits and idiots like Donald Trump presiding over the most powerful nation on earth are so stupid that they actually lecture other countries about not being democracies like the ones that they are currently ruining. 

PRECISELY WHO AT WATERLOO REGION DELAYED THE OBVIOUS FIX FOR WILMOT RESIDENTS?

 

Who exactly? Was it staff or was it elected councillors?  If councillors, who were the ringleaders who made Wilmot residents wait six months and longer for emergency water supplies? Record reporter Luisa D'Amato in today's paper seems pleased and satisfied that the Region are now offering immediate hookups to large tanks of water placed outside homes with water shortages in Wilmot Township. Yes that solution which was also used decades ago when the Region first started pumping water from Wilmot to serve the thirsty and growing cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, appears to be a good one. Who were the twits and twerps in any way at all blocking, forgetting or dragging their feet on this emergency solution to serious water shortages for numerous Wilmot residents? They need to be identified and shown the door, elected or otherwise. Ms. D'Amato is correct when she states that it is no fun to balance powerful competing interests however I see the powerful interests all on one side and that is the developers and builders. Sure as hell the residents and voters in Wilmot have been studiously ignored and treated with disdain throughout by the other parties including Waterloo Region councillors.

Today's K-W Record has Ms. D'Amato's article titled "One bright spot in a sea of problems" on the front page.

TOO MANY REGIONAL COUNCILLORS WORK FOR WEALTHY BIGSHOTS AND NOT FOR ALL THE CITIZENS

 

Those councillors  do their best work behind the scenes. Generally speaking public council meetings are not places for the truth to emerge as much as for slogans and mom and apple pie statements to be made. Even when councillors vote against doing the right thing they never have the honesty or guts to say outright that they want their campaign donations to continue hence they sure as heck aren't going to offend builders or developers by publicly calling them leeches or parasites grossly profiting from people's desires to own their own home for themselves and to raise their children. If smaller, modestly priced homes in subdivisions are less profitable to develop and build then without sweeteners or government subsidies they will stick to the bigger, more profitable builds. 

At the regional council meeting two days ago councillors voted in favour of pumping another 15 litres per second of water from Wilmot Township wellfields. At the same time they verbally advise that they are in the process of updating and improving their well interference processes and protocols. Too little too late you twits. Being "in the process of updating" does not allow some residents to do their laundry today. It does not allow multiple family members to take showers and wash dishes for example on the same day. Flushing toilets is now on the "If it's yellow let it mellow and if it's brown flush it down" system. "  Seeing that sign at a cottage with a very shallow well in a dry August might be tolerable but in your full time home with multiple family members it's not. 

I know what I would like to advise Wilmot Council and residents but I think it would get me into trouble. Let's just say that some well thought out civil disobedience might get the Region's attention and loosen their wallets to permit immediate funds to be available for drilling either new private wells or deeper wells for residents long experiencing water shortages that will only get worse with the Region's increased pumping of their water. Holding back on tax payments might actually be merely the tip of the iceberg necessary to get action versus mere attention from them.

Today's K-W Record article is titled "Water rationing for new builds to begin" by Bill Jackson.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MISSTEPS NEED CORRECTION

 

I've been watching the ongoing online and elsewhere arguments and discussion regarding the federal government's proposed firearms confiscation program. I will not call it a "buyback" for two reasons. One the government never owned those firearms in the first place and secondly a proposed "buyback" that refuses to guarantee payment, whether full or partial value, is not a "buyback", it's a perverse lottery with one heck of a high ticket price that you are paying.  Some citizens receiving compensation (full value or partial)  and others not. I equate that with some kind of pyramid scheme and shame on our government for playing games with our legally purchased, legally possessed and legally used firearms.

There is also the issue of private property. Today the government wants to either forcibly physically  or by  threat  take rifles and even some shotguns that they deem "assault style".  I also do not agree or acknowledge that the majority of firearms on their #hit list are any such thing. In fact I am going to name them ..."asphalt style" because some of them are black in colour. Various different characteristics including colour, grip style, magazine type, caliber and method of operation  are used to justify lumping around 2,500 makes and models as "asphalt style". I mean hey I've got just as much right to make up names for guns that our politicians do and in fact so do you. The difference is that I admit my name is ridiculous whereas Liberal politicians with a straight face will not.

I acknowledge the trauma, the stress, the abhorrence of violence and the anger that survivors of shootings have. I too, just like 99.5%  of the rest of us, probably find it difficult to fully comprehend the depth of those understandable emotions. The issue I have is this. I have never shot anyone and hope to God that I never am put in the position to have to do so. That said literally half a century ago I worked part time as an armed Brink's guard and not to protect bags of money but to protect my partner actually had to unholster that gun (revolver) in public in the line of duty. It turned out to be a false alarm as two young and immature but adult males thought that intentionally faking a robbery would be funny. It was not and believe it or not they actually were shocked to be looking down the business end of a firearm. I too was shocked but followed my limited training and the situation was resolved without violence or injury.

 Many thousands to millions of Canadian citizens are now being cast as potential murderers by our own government who know full well that that is ridiculous. I could understand our government tightening both training and supervision of hunters, target shooters, collectors etc. Just like having older seniors take bi-annual exams to ensure their safety behind the wheel of a car it should not offend  them to be asked to prove safety competency and understanding on the firearms range. That makes sense but stealing Canadians' guns under the guise of public safety is insulting, disrespectful and dishonest. It may yet even prove to be unlawful.