VARNICOLOR CHEMICAL: THE SAGA NEVER ENDS

The big mistake we made twenty years ago was in thinking that we had fixed everything. The M.O.E.'s District office got back to me yesterday and their final story is reasonably close to the one I received from a person close to the company and site last Friday. Both those stories however are significantly different than the original one I was told from third parties last Thursday. The M.O.E.'s position is that the excavation is a proponent driven attempt to improve/increase the number and length of lateral pipes used in the collection of groundwater for treatment on this site. The M.O.E. also states that there was "hardpan" below the surface which was blocking flow of groundwater into the collection pipes and thus was removed.

These following questions and comments will be sent by me back to the Guelph District office of the Ministry of the Environment.
1) The Remedial Action Plan of 1991 (Golder & Assoc.) claimed that the site would be clean within five to ten years. What happened?

2) The current excavation is located directly above the former leaking Tank farm #1.

3) The original hydrogeological investigations intentionally ignored the promises and Control Order demanding deep boreholes and monitoring wells on this site. There were two deeper monitoring wells put in in 1994 and despite ongoing requests from myself I have yet to receive any data from them.

4) The only "deep" well originally installed in 1986 (M2-1) into the Upper Aquifer versus the Surficial aquifer only had groundwater readings taken in 1986 and 1987. Indeed Varnicolor's chemicals were found in this "deeper" aquifer at that time.

5) Other Upper Aquifer wells in the area but offsite including CH43 and CH68 and CH69 immediately across Union St. from Varnicolor have also had solvents found in them. They could not have come from Uniroyal as theirs discharge into the Canagagigue Creek.

6) The current owners of the site are attempting to obtain a Record of Site Condition. I do not know what the criteria are however clearly this document can not claim that the site is "clean" down to and including the Municipal drinking water aquifer which exists below the site. This is because this aquifer is contaminated with NDMA (& lots more) above the drinking water standards and the best case scenario, unlikely as it is, is that it will be contaminated until 2028.

7) Almost last but not least this pit was allegedly dug to give access to installing more lateral collection pipes. Fine but this hole has been open for more than three weeks and NOTHING is happening. If the reason was as we have been told then why hasn't it happened? When will it happen? Will it ever happen?

8) There were odour complaints in the neighbourhood weeks ago. I'm attempting to talk to more local folks to see how extensive these odours were. Any further info will be shared here.