CPAC SHOULD NOT BE A COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL

The Chemtura (formerly Uniroyal) Public Advisory Committee currently is an embarassing puppet of Council. For many years it was a much more subtle puppet of Council as the Chair (a former Councillor) was on the same page as the former Mayor. In a nutshell CPAC and the former UPAC have been nothing but an arm's length extension of Woolwich Council's intent to do little or nothing while giving the appearance of solving a problem. This is precisely why the new Mayor was able to campaign on the need to reform CPAC, as the toxins including DNAPL and Dioxins are still in the ground and the Elmira Aquifer is going nowhere fast cleanup wise.

Hence I have sent an APPLICATION FOR REVIEW to the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO). The new Mayor talked a good cleanup but his actions have been to date the exact opposite. When I say I have sent this Application to the ECO, in fact Ken Driedger and I together have done so. Ken is a former member of CPAC who withdrew his membership application to CPAC last March. Ken took his time and spoke to a number of people including myself prior to his carefully determined decision. In fact I had at that time been trying very hard to keep his membership application in, as I still felt that the Mayor was going to honour his promises to me and to CPAC. The final straw for Ken I believe were the new Terms of Reference. Again in fact the only persons who spoke at Woolwich Council with concerns over these proposed Terms of Reference were Ken and I. He was the more critical of the two of us and in hindsight he was correct.

This REVIEW is a request to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) through the ECO to examine and review legal and binding Control Orders laid upon Uniroyal/Chemtura regarding the cleanup of their contaminated propoerty. The review is to focus on the absence in these Control Orders of mandated public consultation through a public advisory committee or a citizens advisory panel. This is a huge gap or absence in the process and should have been put in these Control Orders from day one. If the M.O.E. review and agree then this will permanently enshrine the rights of local citizens to have an independent public advisory committee to push Chemtura into complying with their Control Orders. No longer will the citizens be ruled (and removed) arbitrarily by the Council of the day. No longer will Council appoint voting members who have financial considerations and duties to Council that could cloud their independent judgement of the right thing to do. No longer will CPAC through Council follow the golden rule of municipal politicians which is to never annoy the upper tiers of government, namely the province.

This REVIEW is not automatic and it is not guaranteed. Nevertheless the M.O.E. if they turn it down will have to respond to the ECO who themselves are an independent body with considerable influence, prestige and clout. It is my hope that the M.O.E. will seriously examine this REVIEW and decide that it is indeed appropriate to have these public consultaion rights enshrined in the Control Order(s).