DOGPOOP AND SANDBOX METAPHOR

A Woolwich Councillor came up with this metaphor a year and a half ago. Essentially you've seen a large dog poop in a child's sandbox. In order to clean this up (for health reasons) you cover the poop with sand and then you shove a few hoses into the sandbox. By ensuring that the sand box is uncovered , rainfall will percolate into the sand and slowly overtime dissolve the dog poop in the rainwater. The contaminated water will then slowly drain from the sandbox via the hoses. You carefully collect this contaminated water in order to treat it. Undoubtedly given enough time you will eventually have a perfectly clean sandbox for children to again play in. OR YOU COULD TAKE A SHOVEL & REMOVE THE DOG POOP ASAP. The first method is the one Uniroyal/Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E. have chosen.

The town of Elmira is the sandbox. Hydraulic containment otherwise known as pump and treat is represented by the hoses. NDMA, DDT, DIOXINS, CHLOROBENZENE, AMMONIA, TOLUENE, XYLENE, ANILINE, TRICHLOROETHYLENE and a hundred more are the dog poop. You get the picture. The key to the real cleanup is to put the shovel where the pumping wells are. Both on site and off site these wells are located closest to the sources. The shovel of course represents source removal.

The cleanup of the Elmira Aquifer was predicated on the big lie that the only sources were at Uniroyal. The off site wells in reality were located next to the sources which Uniroyal, the Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) and probably the Region of Waterloo already knew. W5A/B were located next to the former First St. Landfill and downgradient of Nutrite (Yara). W4 by the water tower was to capture the dissolved constituents including Chlorobenzene, of the Free Phase DNAPL (dense non aqueous phase liquid) 100 feet below ground behind Varnicolor and across from Borg. W3 was located at Oriole Parkway and Industrial Dr. on the Sanyo Canadian property. Here the NDMA concentrations have always been much higher than anywhere else in Elmira with the exception of on site at Uniroyal or just barely off site.

Mixing my metaphors, Elmira has been the sandbox in which the children (politicians) have been playing for the last 22 years.