CHEMTURA JUNE 2012 PROGRESS REPORT

The devil is in the details. My first glance showed what Jeff Merriman of Chemtura told us at last month's public CPAC meeting namely that the off-site pumping rates are being restored at long last. Also as usual there are some chemical detections downstream of Chemtura in the Canagagigue that aren't upstream. This would include NDMA, NMOR (nitrosomorpholine) and Toluene. Missing this month is Ethylbenzene.

The following sentence on page 2 caught my eye: "Groundwater from CH70D was sampled in response to a petroleun hydrocarbon (PHC) detection in a groundwater sample collected by another consultant from this location." Firstly CH70D is screened in the Municipal Upper Aquifer (MU) and the well is located about 3 metres due west of the old Varnicolor Chemical site on Union St. Secondly the consultant at a guess would be the ongoing consultant for the new owners of the site, Elmira Pump. Their consultant is a Mr. Keith Metzger. I have only heard positive things about his skills and expertise. I checked Attachment E and the results for this well are 1900 parts per billion (ppb.) Chlorobenzene, 1.1 ppb NDMA and indeed 1100 ppb for C6-C10 petroleum hydrocarbons. Strangely there is a second result for PHC's namely 1100 ppb. C6-C10 petroleum hydrocarbons -less BTEX. Also the Method detection Limits (MDL) are extremely high for another fourty plus volatile organic chemicals. Ususally very high MDL's are due to contaminated groundwater with numerous high concentrations of chemicals in it. While these fourty others are labelled Non Detect (ND) having MDL's for common solvents as high as 1300 and 2500 ppb. can hide a lot of detections.

The 1100 ppb C6-C10 petroleum hydrocarbons-less BTEX is interesting as there was a major plume of free phase LNAPL on the Varnicolor site consisting of BTEX chemicals which are Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylenes. My interpretation is that these PHC's are above and beyond the already known petroleum hydrocarbons (BTEX) and are probably from Varnicolor and are in the drinking water aquifer (MU). The complete lack of any explanation or interpretation by Conestoga Rovers would tend to make me think that the news is not supportive of the position of their paying client, namely Chemtura.