TO DATE 45 CHEMICALS FOUND IN ELMIRA"S GROUNDWATER

I mentioned two days ago here in the Advocate that I would be sending a report on to CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee), listing numerous industrial chemicals in Elmira's drinking water aquifers, above and beyond the three that Uniroyal/Chemtura are focused on. Chemtura's favourite three are of course NDMA, Chlorobenzene and Ammonia. The two page report I e-mailed yesterday to all the CPAC members lists fourty-five different chemicals from their Annual Monitoring Report No. 11 dated January 30, 1993. Just one of my concerns is that the full extent of the Elmira groundwater contamination is being minimized or lost by this determined focus on only three chemicals. Allegedly in 2028 Chemtura will have reduced the chemical cocktail to below drinking water standards for at least three major contaminants. I guess my question to all Elmira residents is this: How confident will you be to drink Elmira's water way down the road if you suspect/believe that there are still dozens of toxic contaminants in it, albeit maybe below drinking water standards? You are correct to be concerned. Each and every individual chemical's drinking standard is set and based upon the totally ridiculous and inaccurate assumption that that chemical is alone and by itself in a liter of otherwise pristine water. Horse manure! Benzene at 5 parts per billion is the drinking standard. Nobody however knows what the standard is for Benzene mixed with low levels of five, ten or dozens of other toxic chemicals. That is the reality in Elmira and at many other contaminated sites. Polluters are not so neat and tidy that they have only one spill of one chemical although many have tried to sell that crap right here in Waterloo Region.

One hundred and eleven chemicals were tested for and fourty-five had positive detections, some high and some low. The off-site well with the largest number of chemicals was MOE1A due west of the Chemtura site with 22 different chemicals detected . Numerous other wells had ten or more chemicals in them above and beyond Chemtura's favourite three. The most common detections were benzene, toluene, benzothiazole, phenol, 2-chlorophenol, vinyl chloride, 1,1 dichloroethane, vinyl chloride, dichloromethane, carboxin and ethyl benzene. As can be seen when comparing to Jeff Merriman's (Chemtura) June 22/12, seven page report submitted to CPAC, there are some commonalities and similarities between our two reports. He has listed the testing done for four off-site pumping wells (W3, W4, W5A, W5B). As is to be expected in the case of gentle massage, manipulation and qualifications versus outright blatant bullcrap; there are numerous chemicals in my most common detections which match what he has listed as having been tested for past and present. What is needed now and in the future are regular updates with honest testing for at least the same 111 chemicals .