LAST THURSDAY'S CPAC MEETING

The overall time was monopolized by Chemtura's Orientation Session which essentially was their sugarcoated version of the "cleanup" of their site. Thay are still relying on reduced concentrations of DISSOLVED chemicals in their groundwater as proof of cleanup. This is nonsense as all their remaining buried wastes and contaminated soil will continue to pollute the groundwater, if not forever, then for centuries. Disappointingly we did not receive the promised update on the staus of the July 2003 CPAC Request For Action in time for this meeting. I have it now and it is a litany of excuses. Numerous aspects of it are blatantly false such as numbers 3, 4 and 7 dealing with areas RPW1 & 2, P1 and RPW 6, 7 & 8. Other aspects claim that the old CPAC "concurred" with various changes or downgrades in status. If this is true first of all it was done privately and not at public CPAC meetings and secondly if it is true then shame on the old CPAC.

I am just barely going to scratch the surface of the misinformation given to CPAC by Chemtura at last Thursday's meeting. Chemtura claimed that burying wastes in the ground was accepted practice between the 1940's and 1960. Last November 29/10 I presented and distributed a report to the old CPAC which gave references to a July 29/10 study called the Travis-Agardy Report. This on-line report gives a historical review of synthetic organic chemicals, their fate and transport in the environment. It makes perfectly clear that as early as the 1880's, in Europe, there had been numerous cases of poisonings and deaths associated with in ground burials of chemical wastes. At that point industry began dumping their untreated wastes directly into rivers and creeks for dilution and downstream dispersal. That Chemtura now says that the authorities approved their similar behaviour merely advises us of the collegial if not corrupt state of the authorities at that time. Unfortunately I was cut off by the CPAC Chair and unable to finish my Public Forum comments on this item last Thursday.

Overall, nevertheless I see reason for optimism. Dan, Vivienne, and Sebastian are nobody's fools. They ask good, tough questions and if the responses from either the M.O.E. or Chemtura are nonsense, then they pursue further. David Marks also asked some good questions both of Chemtura and of myself. Richard Clausi, my co-founder of the Elmira EH-Team and a teacher at Elmira District Secondary School has been approached to be on CPAC. He is carefully considering because he does have a couple of issues that need resolving first.