CHEMTURA PROMISES TO BE GOOD

The front page story in today's Woolwich Observer is titled "Chemtura pledges to meet 2028 cleanup deadline". The focus of the story appears to be CPAC's pushing for SOURCE REMOVAL. This is the actual removal/destruction/elimination of subsurface sources of contamination. This would include buried wastes, buried tars and sludges, heavily contaminated soils and DNAPLS. The lack of DNAPL removal can be laid squarely not only at the feet of Chemtura and the M.O.E. but also at the feet of the leadership of APT Environment. The former Chair of the old CPAC also was directly involved in assisting her with covering up and minimizing the need for DNAPL removal. Hindsight being 20-20 it now is rather obvious that their sharing in secret knowledge of the sweetheart deal between Uniroyal and Chemtura since 1991 has coloured their behviour not only towards source removal of known contamination (DNAPLS) at that time but also coloured their dealings with their colleagues and fellow environmental activists.

Quoting Dan Holt in the Observer article "...we are only treating the symptoms; we need to remove the cancer.". Councillor and CPAC member Mark Bauman said ""Don't put all your eggs in one basket," he said of simply sticking with the pump-and-treat process." Councillor Baumann also suggested that there should be more cooperation and less of an adversarial relationship between all the parties. While this is a mom and apple pie as well as a Christian outlook on how things should be; the reality is much different. A truly responsible, community minded or ethical corporation does not behave as badly as Chemtura/Uniroyal have for the last twenty-three years. Unlike their Mennonite neighbours and community they have shown themselves cheerfully willing to take anything and everything to court. They have surrounded themselves with lawyers and consultants to fight any and all attempts to properly clean up their property and the damage they've done to their neighbours. Now they are back to hiring big shot media and public relations experts to polish their public image. None of this speaks to a corporation looking for a non adversarial relationship.