SKEPTICS OF TWENTY YEARS OF UPAC/CPAC PLEASE READ THIS (You will like it)

Two days ago I received an answer from the Ministry of the Environment (Environmental Bill of Rights office) regarding the Application for Review filed by myself and former CPAC member Ken Driedger. As expected with the fox firmly in charge of the henhouse they said no they would not review the state of public consultation here in Elmira dealing with Uniroyal/Chemtura. Following is my response to them also sent to the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario and others.

RESPONSE TO M.O.E. DECISION SUMMARY of July 26, 2011
August 11, 2011 EBR # 11 EBR004.R

One major point needs to be made up front in regards to public consultation here in Elmira over the last twenty years plus. It has been an intentional sham riddled with deceit and manipulation by both the Provincial and Municipal governments. For example only recently have I or the general public been made aware of the allegation on page 2 of the Decision Summary that “….CPAC was formed as a committee of the township council…” in 1992. I would dismiss this allegation out of hand as simply one more in a long list of prevarications that the Elmira public have been subjected to except that recently a former township councillor has told me the very same thing. Imagine my surprise as I’ve been continuously involved since day one and a member of UPAC/CPAC from 1992-94 and 2000-2007. Furthermore in 1999-2000 we had a major debate at CPAC as to whether we should BECOME a committee of council. This has been for me one of the overarching themes of this version of public consultation here in Elmira. Deals are made first and privately and then later if the wish or need arises they are discussed as if they are a current, new issue.
A second example of the foregoing reprehensible behaviour is the June 21, 2000 Amending order itself. It was only in 2007 during my Leave to Appeal a Certificate of Approval to the Environmental Review Tribunal that I and the general public became aware that this Order even existed. Both the Chair of CPAC (Pat McLean) and other long time CPAC members claimed they had no knowledge of this Amending order and publicly said so. Furthermore over the time frame of 2000-20007 the issue of full hydraulic containment was raised and argued literally dozens of times in the presence of the M.O.E. and Chemtura, yet NOT ONCE did either of them say : Oh don’t you remember, we amended that order (1991) in 2000. Once again the Order (1991) was amended first quietly and THEN CPAC literally spent the next 3-4 years arguing, discussing and debating whether this should ever come about. I personally thought that it had died a natural and appropriate death after we learned that the hydraulic high just off the west side of Chemtura was in fact a “phantom” mound that simply did not exist. Yours truly found this fact neatly buried in a monthly Progress Report. It had been a huge issue for years yet ZERO mention was made publicly and or at CPAC when the experts determined it was an artifice.

On page two the Decision Summary states: “Furthermore, the ministry cannot order a company to form a township committee.” No one has suggested that you should. What has been suggested is that the ministry CAN order honest, INDEPENDENT public consultation. To date you have not and it appears that now you are blatantly refusing to do so.

The M.O.E. are now suggesting that a private group of citizens (Apte-Chemtura) meeting in private, who are obviously very amenable to the polluter (Chemtura) are now representing the citizens of Elmira : “…in essence providing two avenues of public consultation.”. This is outrageous and total nonsense.
In regards to my allegations that the current CPAC is a puppet of the local council let me say this. The curent, new Council made the appointments from a list which included all the old CPAC members. None of them were wanted by the new Council with the possible exception of Ken Driedger and that was by my lobbying on his behalf. This same new Council delayed appointments to the new CPAC for a ridiculous length of time and then they further delayed calling any public meetings for another ridiculous length of time. Finally when the new CPAC members which included yours truly started to push hard for some action/meetings the new Council with five minutes in camera discussion decided to kick me off, prior to even the first public meeting. Yet again just yesterday the Mayor who replaced the Council member originally appointed as chair of CPAC appears to have unilaterally postponed the CPAC meeting scheduled for August 25/11.
So with the benefit of hindsight I would clearly state that this version of CPAC is completely controlled by Woolwich Council. The Council can “hire & fire”, controls the Agenda (so far) and the meeting dates (so far). The hindsight relates to the specific members of this new CPAC. They have impressed me with their seriousness, general knowledge and ability and most importantly with their honesty. In brackets above I have put the words “so far”. It is my hope that these members can impress the Mayor (Chair) and Council that they will do a better job and be recognized by the general public as their legitimate representatives if they have at least a modicum of independence and democratic control over their own process.
In regards to “independent” public consultation, let me say this. There is no independence when the membership, agenda and scheduling of meetings are controlled outside of the public advisory committee. This is one reason why we have made such little progress in an actual cleanup of the Uniroyal/Chemtura site. Again in hindsight I am seeing a much greener more environmentally conscious Woolwich Council than I have ever seen before. That being said while I will continue to assist CPAC members on technical issues, and continue to remain involved (21 years and counting) , it is very clear to me that this model of public consultation is inherently designed to be controlled by those in authority.

Alan Marshall Elmira Environmental Hazards Team