WALKERTON GOT A PUBLIC INQUIRY, WHY NOT ELMIRA?

Justice Dennis O'Connor carefully examined all the Walkerton wells as well as numerous other possible entry points to the Walkerton water supply. His conclusion that while there were indeed other possible threats, the actual sole cause of the May 2000 disaster was the mobilization of cattle manure from heavy rains flowing into well #5 and contaminating it with E-coli bacteria. At the same time the town treatment system was and had been improperly and incompetently managed for years. The result was a disaster. In Elmira the M.O.E. did the original survey and investigation. Later on a consulting firm , on behalf of the Region of Waterloo also concluded that Uniroyal Chemical were the sole cause. Varnicolor Chemical were at least looked at by the consulting firm and dismissed . The firm which should have been front and centre with Uniroyal was essentially ignored. This was Borg Textiles. I am flabbergasted by the amount of data on the Internet describing textile mill wastes. Both NDMA and Chlorobenzene are mentioned prominently in the literature as either being part of the makeup of textile dyes or as carriers for the dyes. Chlorobenzene is also used in the textile industry as a fibre swelling agent. Textile mill effluents were a world wide problem and should not have been dismissed so readily. Clearly the authoritys of the day wished to lay all the blame on Uniroyal and clearly Uniroyal knew the facts and managed to pin the Ministry of the Environment into submission with the truth. The public were then the losers as Uniroyal had leverage on the M.O.E. and this leverage grossly watered down the cleanup.