CHEMTURA NOVEMBER 2011 "non" PROGRESS REPORT

Last Monday and Tuesday (Dec. 26 & 27) I wrote about the horrendous state of off-site groundwater pumping as well as the unsurprising discovery of more DNAPL (dense non aqueous phase liquid) on the Chemtura (Uniroyal) site. Off-site of course means off the Chemtura site and basically throughout the town of Elmira.

Today I'm going to try and finish this report. There are five drains named 0200, 0400, 0800, 1100 and SWS for surface water system. The first four are also called part of the MISA (Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement) system. These first four are all subsurface drains with manholes at the surface to collect rainwater which lands on this industrial site. The problem over the decades is that all these drains deposit chemically contaminated water directly into the Canagagigue Creek. Again unsurprisingly, all these chemicals are ubiquitous to Chemtura's soil and groundwater and routinely contain lindane, aniline, carboxin and NDPA. For twenty years Chemtura and their consultants have tried to convince us that these drains are isolated from groundwater infiltration. At the same time they deny that any of their chemicals are sitting loose on the surface. This is simply one more reason why they have no credibility with informed persons. Their excuses have ranged from off site airborne deposition to blaming the nearby railroad tracks for the contamination of their chemical plant.

Table C.2 lists surface water concentrations of various chemicals in Canagagigue Creek. Chemtura have a program which magically replaces common sense to allegedly advise us if there is a statistically significant difference between upstream and downstream chemical concentrations in the creek as it passes through the Chemtura property. Simply looking at the values in this Table advises us that the arithmetic mean of numerous samples is higher downstream for NDMA, NMOR, Ethyl Benzene and Toluene. Amazingly enough all of these chemicals are in Chemtura's soil and groundwater and any belief that this causes their appearance in the creek as it passes through their contaminated property is merely the ravings of uninformed, biased activists "out to get" Chemtura.

Appendix E deals with on-site groundwater readings at Chemtura in either UA1 (Upper Aquifer 1), UA3 or the MU (Municipal Upper aquifer). Literally dozens of toxic chemicals are found in all these aquifers despite on-site pumping started TWENTY YEARS ago. That's right the on-site pumping started in January 1992. Most amazing to me is not the wells located near the pumping wells which have had reductions over two decades but the massive concentrations still appearing throughout the site. Also interesting are the Method Detection Limits (MDL) in use in some of the more contaminated areas. This is typical for grossly contaminated sites. Essentially there are so many different chemicals present that the labs can no longer readily distinguish chemicals with lesser concentrations in the groundwater. For example on pg. 6 (of 30) Table E.1 there are MDL's of 30,000 and even 50,000 parts per billion. This means that "hits" of 10 or 20 thousand parts per billion aren't even found or recognized.

Appendix F deals with groundwater concentrations off site throughout Elmira. Again particular wells located next to off site pumping wells may have their concentrations reduced as long as those wells are pumping. As soon as the wells stop pumping or slow down, the concentrations rise again as the off site wells are all located close to subsurface chemical waste, whether in solid or liquid form. The number and concentration of toxic chemicals under Elmira is still unbelievably high and the current plans to achive drinking water standards by 2028 are nothing but "factually flexible fictions".