THICKER & DEEPER- BREAK OUT THE RUBBER BOOTS

SUBTITLE: OOPSY!

I'm almost speechless. Last night's public Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) hit all kinds of highs and all kinds of lows. Some of the highs include the Ministry of the Environment taking considerable time to verbally answer numerous written questions put to them by CPAC over the last several CPAC meetings. Some of the answers were weak but nevertheless there was efort and thought put into several others. Other highs were CPAC members including Councillor Mark Bauman stating that there were other sources of contamination to the drinking water aquifers in Elmira. Ron Campbell's comments that the GRCA had advised CPAC that Elmira was not being addressed under the provincial Source Water Protection Plans because they were outside the Municipal Wellhead protection Areas was a stunner. Here we are trying to restore our drinking water and the province clearly has written us off contrary to their public position.

Chemtura presented a six page report written by their long time consultants Conestoga Rovers. It was the first response to questions I've been publicly asking for three years about a discovery by CRA FOURTEEN years ago. Sebastian, Chair Dan Holt, Vivienne and Ron all asked questions after Chemtura's presentation. In my opinion they were expressing shock and some disbelief at what they had been told.

I have written here in the Advocate many times about the probable free phase DNAPL found by CRA just west of the old Varnicolor Chemical site in May 1998 and reported in both the May and June 1998 Uniroyal monthly Progress Reports. CRA had muddied the waters at that time by testing deep groundwater upgradient and cross gradient of the location where the DNAPL was brought to the surface from 32 metres underground. CRA also tested soil samples ten metres above the location of the apparent DNAPL and finally they analysed the drilling mud used at well OW57-32R . They admitted that the drilling mud concentrations were not accurate due to the potable water used to make the drilling mud in the first place. They detected in this mud an even dozen different contaminants commonly found in either Chemtura's groundwater and or in Varnicolor's groundwater. This included petroleum hydrocarbons .

Here is the punchline in this joke. They claimed wrongly that TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbons) are not widespread in the groundwater. They based this blatant error upon not detecting purgeable petroleum hydrocarbons in a couple of wells with extremely high MDL's (method detection limits) in the case of OW57-32R and OW69-13. The MDL's were 7,300 and 11,000 ppb. which means any concentration below that won't be detected. Also I see no analyses being done for nearby wells CH70 and CH43. The Varnicolor site is riddled with petroleum hydrocarbons at high concentrations (see my Aug. 6/12 posting). Also petroleum hydrocarbons can include Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylenes which are ubiquitous throughout both sites in huge quantities. CRA further argue that because petroleum hydrocarbons were found in the drilling mud and allegedly not in nearby wells therefore ...WAIT FOR IT... "The possibility that a petroleum product could have been inadvertently introduced into the drilling fluid cannot be ruled out.".

So FOURTEEN years later the answer is OOPSY! We spilled something. Possibly. There still has been ZERO real investigation of what CRA called DNAPL in 1998. In fact while not seriously investigating in 1998 they had a different story namely: "The iridescent sheen observed on the drilling mud is possibly associated with elevated levels of chlorobenzene dissolved in MA groundwater although this has not been conclusively determined.". So without a serious investigation of an issue with huge impact upon the restoration of the Elmira Aquifers; our authorities are going to settle for either it's dissolved chlorobenzene or OOPSY it's spilled oil?

Maybe not. Steve Martindale of the M.O.E. with the Acting Assistant Director (George Karlos) of the West Central Region beside him, has promised to examine this issue. Well that's a relief. I was afraid that there might be a coverup going on here.