MAYOR COWAN RESIGNS

AS CPAC CHAIR...O.K. I admit I'm having way too much fun with the headline above. It is misleading and deceptive and I apologize. However at Thursday nite's first public CPAC meeting since last November, Mayor Cowan did the right thing and resigned as CPAC Interim Chair. He will be replaced as a CPAC member by Councillor Mark Bauman. The Chair's position was decided publicly by vote the way it should have been from the start. Dan Holt by concensus of the CPAC members is the new Chair. This sets an enormous and appropriate precedent for this new CPAC as they slowly gain control over their own process. Electing their own member to be Chair is a major step. I have had the privelege of getting to know Dan over the last year and have high hopes for his vision and understanding.

Most of the three hour CPAC meeting was a dog and pony show. By this I mean that Chemtura and the M.O.E. did their best to stall, bafflegab and run out the clock. They knew and were prepared for major battle in regards to the October 7, 1991 Settlement Agreement (sweetheart deal). This is especially interesting when you realize that this bilateral agreement between the M.O.E. and Uniroyal Chemical was not on the Agenda. The CPAC members patiently waited out the verbal trots until they came to New Business and then they struck. My hat is off to all of them. Also interestingly, for the first time since the new CPAC was chosen without a single member from the old CPAC, Susan Bryant was present as a member of the public. She was called upon by CPAC member Sebastian to assist with her recollection of the Settlement Agreement from twenty-one years ago. Although she expressed difficulties remembering much, she was sure that comments from the senior M.O.E. member present were not accurate. He had claimed that there were 28 meetings between the six parties to the ongoing Environmental Appeal Board hearings prior to Uniroyal and the M.O.E. signing their bilateral deal. Indeed this made no sense at all especially with the outrage expressed by the four other parties immediately after the M.O.E. and Uniroyal announced they'd come to an agreement. Susan categorically stated that APTE had not been present at any private group meetings with the parties to discuss a Settlement between Uniroyal and the M.O.E.. The M.O.E. then backed off and suggested that what they'd really meant was that there were 28 meetings, mostly individually not as a group and maybe there were two group meetings. Nice try M.O.E.. There were a number of other misleading comments and statements by the M.O.E. which I quite enjoyed deflating shortly afterwards.

Further to my dog and pony show comment I also spoke harshly to both Chemtura and the M.O.E. about their extreme discourtesy and disrespect towards the public and CPAC. They falsely claimed that they had distributed three reports perhaps a couple of hundred pages in length to CPAC and stakeholders on February 29/12. In reality I and others received these reports on March 21/12, eight days prior to the CPAC meeting. To have these Annual Monitoring Reports on the Agenda for discussion was beyond stupid. Chemtura also have been promising a report and a public meeting concerning the fugitive emissions of BLE-25 eighteen months ago (Sept./10). Well we got the report last night, out of the blue. Too little too late. The most disgusting and bizarre scenario however had to be the long overdue production of the GP1 and GP2 Dioxin Report. That came at 9:15 pm. after the meeting was over and after Chemtura had their consultants CRA do a presentation on their recommended remediation method. Outrageous and disgusting and I let them know that in no uncertain terms. This I will say about Chemtura and their buddies the Ontario M.O.E.. Through their condescending, disrespectful and arrogant behaviour, including not providing promised data and reports in a timely fashion, they have suceeded in revealing to CPAC their true character in a very short time frame.

There was more from last night including details of what CPAC member Sebastian suggested was Chemtura's choice of the cheapest Dioxin cleanup method. Vivienne was assertive and persistent as was Dan. Both Ron Campbell and David Marks provided excellent technical support. Special kudos to David Marks for attending shortly after sufferring a serious skiing accident. More to come in upcoming days on this public meeting.