IT WAS A SWEETHEART DEAL TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO AND IT STILL IS

Well this story continues to unfold. I have been talking to, e-mailing and phoning all kinds of individuals with both current and past knowledge of the Elmira water crisis which started in November 1989. As is usual after the passage of twenty years there are different memories from honest people of various events which transpired. The words "sweetheart deal" were used in newspaper reports twenty years ago, although extraordinarily infrequently. The criticism of the agreement between the M.O.E. and Uniroyal was harsh, angry and reasonably detailed. The focus, and this is based upon my review over the last nineteen hours of old newspaper reports, was upon the lack of an alternate water supply for Elmira and the simplistic solutions to clean up the Elmira Aquifers. Keep in mind that it was only yesterday that all of us were reminded by one of our local papers that yes afterall this Settlement Agreement was made public twenty-one years ago. What to date I am still pursuing is why there appears to be so little notice of page #15 of this "Settlement Agreement" between the two guilty parties. Page #15 is titled " 16.0 Releases". Yes Woolwich Observer it is the smoking gun! It is the Indemnity or waiver of legal and financial responsibity given to Uniroyal by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. It is a despicable and contemptible piece of work by our provincial government.

I have been keeping the CPAC members up to date with all unfolding information that I am aware of. This includes my reading of the old Control Order of August 28, 1990, the "Settlement Agreement" of October 7, 1991 and the immediately following Amended Control Order of November 4, 1991. I have to date carefully compared the differences between the two Control Orders which of course are due to the Sweetheart Deal ie. Settlement Agreement which was consumated between them timewise. Yes I think the word consumated is a good one as the public got s...... . The M.O.E. for various reasons, mostly for their own self interest, totally sold the farm. The public were grossly sold out and the repercusions of that deal haunt us to this day and explain why we still don't have readily accessible DNAPLS removed from beneath the west side operating ponds at Uniroyal/Chemtura.