FURTHER TO TUESDAY'S COUNCIL MEETING

First bit of news is this. Apparently Chemtura feel the need for professional first rate public relations advisers. They have hired a well known firm and indeed they were present Tuesday night in Council Chambers. I've been verbally advised by two persons that the firm's name is Sussex or possibly SSG (Sussex Strategic Group ?) . In the past Uniroyal/Chemtura have hired both outside firms as well as internal media/public relations people. Robert McBain was the man back in the early days of the Elmira water crisis and since then Chemtura have had two ladies intermittently, namely a Stacy and a Karen working for them. The only comment I have is that you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time. Bring on the heavyweights. If that's the best they can do to respond to legitmate public concerns about Elmira's water then further shame on them.

A number of people have commented on the apparent perceived chumminess going on with former CPAC members and Chemtura personnel. At Tuesday evening's Woolwich Council meeting they were looking even grimmer than Chemtura folks were. You'd almost think that the old CPAC folks were personally offended by the new CPAC and Council's initiative to get the groundwater cleanup going. After the decision was made by Council to support CPAC's Resolution, the old CPAC members and Chemtura staff ended up both outside Council Chambers as well as later in the parking lot, with heads together. The appearance being given is that they were plotting strategy together. Let me be very clear here. I am the blunt one who calls a spade a spade. The new CPAC as well as Council have extended olive branches to the old CPAC members who were not automatically reappointed to CPAC as they so obviously expected/demanded to be. The new CPAC have been concilatory if not outright friendly with the old CPAC. They have been respectful of the knowledge the old CPAC have. The old CPAC have absolutely not returned that courtesy or respect. Far from it in fact. I repeat the new CPAC have NEVER criticized or disrespected the old CPAC.

Josef the General Manager of Chemtura made the claim in his presentation that NDMA "...does not continue..." at Chemtura. He suggested that there were no soil deposits on or offsite of NDMA. This is a very dubious claim and frankly unsupportable. Chemtura do not have knowledge of shallow soil samples on the Borg, Sanyo or old Shirt Factory site in Elmira. If they as I have knowledge of soil samples taken at Varnicolor Chemical then they know that there is indeed NDMA in the soil there. As far as on-site NDMA in the soil, possibly bound up in tars or with other sludges, again I believe that Josef is blowing smoke. Yes NDMA is readily soluble. If however it wasn't still on site bound to soil or mixed in with other contaminants it would have all been dissolved in the groundwater decades ago and no longer be on site. It is however as well as in nearby off-site areas such as the old Nutrite/Yara property in horrendous concentrations. Finally Josef claimed that their off-site pumping made it's target pumping rate in 2009 and 2010. This is true but it failed to achive the necessary pumping rates from 1998-2008 as well as 2011 and so far in 2012. In a nutshell Chemtura's pump and treat has failed miserably by most if not all empirical measures.