CONESTOGA ROVERS DOG & PONY SHOWS CONTINUE

Whatever the unofficial bounty is on my hide, I expect it may have risen last night. Item 4. on the CPAC Agenda is Delegations and yours truly spoke to Conestoga Rovers incredibly error ridden May/June 1998 Progress Reports as well as their recent August 29/12 Memorandum. I went into great lengths describing typographical errors and much worse as well as what clearly appears to be a serious attempt to cover up the existence of petroleum hydrocarbons throughout the Elmira Aquifers. CRA (Conestoga Rovers) are trying to suggest that that which they called DNAPL in 1998 has been found to be an accidental spill of oil into the drilling fluid recirculation tank. HOGWASH & HOOEY!

Literally at 6:02 pm. Jeff Merriman provided me with CRA's latest attempt at bolstering their so far pathetic attempts to coverup the discovery of probable DNAPL in the middle of the Elmira Aquifers. Most likely I will read it later today and most likely report on it shortly thereafter. As hopelessly boring and monotonous as CRA's 2011 Annual Monitoring Report was, at least they showed up. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment continue to reinforce their show up in body only status. CPAC and the public were promised a response from the M.O.E. for last night's meeting concerning those same DNAPL's found fourteen years ago behind Varnicolor Chemical and beside the Elmira water tower. Again they've publicly promised to respond at the next meeting on November 1/12.

Alan Deal of CRA presented the 2011 AMR. He got burned badly by both myself and Ron Campbell of CPAC on a few occasions. Alan's focus was on the CPAC & Woolwich Council discredited pump and treat system his company has promoted for the last twenty plus years in Elmira. He made controversial claims such as visible NAPL at OW10-5 being at best residual NAPL (non aqueous phase liquid) although that in itself is extremely serious and should have been removed decades ago. Further he referred to the high NDMA readings around OW60 north and west of Chemtura as being a "relic plume". Far more likely is it is an indication of another source area. Mr. Deal to my surprise was correct in stating that NDMA has been in the Bedrock Aquifer within Elmira for over twenty years. I looked that up and it has been there although I very clearly recall its' presence being denied over the years. That will take some more digging on my part.

Mr. Deal got burned big time on three matters. I suggest that any of the three speak to his overall veracity but that is for you the reader to decide. Ron Campbell and myself both took Mr. Deal to task for a pretty blatant attempt at making the off-site cleanup look sucessful. He kept repeating the number of wells with decreasing concentration trends of contaminants versus the very few with increasing trends. What he failed to point out, until called upon it, was the overwhelming number of off-site wells with no trends indicated.

Secondly his slides indicated that there was no Chlorobenzene in the Bedrock Aquifer in 2011. I asked him if there had ever been Chlorobenzene detected in the deepest aquifer namely the Bedrock Aquifer. He clearly stated that Chlorobenzene had never been found in the Bedrock Aquifer at which point I pointed out to him two wells in the 2011 Annual Monitoring Report which had had Chlorobenzene detected in them. He was not amused.

Mr. Deal also suggested that there were no detections of contaminants in the Canagagigue Creek in 2011. I pointed out to him Fig. 5.5 in the 2011 AMR which showed a very significant increase in NDMA in the "gig" for 2011. His response was that he hadn't written that section.

Sebastan (CPAC) raised some excellent questions in regards to a Figure in a recent report which shows the inability of Chemtura & CRA to maintain the off-site pumping wells to their targeted pumping rates.

One interesting moment came from George Karlos of the M.O.E.. Essentially he is asking CPAC for input as to whether they feel downstream testing in the Canagagigue Creek for Dioxins and DDT would be useful and if so he would like some specifics as to where exactly. Councillor & CPAC member Mark Bauman is strongly in favour of doing this but local resident Susan Bryant spoke against it. Funny but after you've been burned and lied to repeatedly over the years, you begin to ask yourself what exactly is going on here. Is this a worthwhile exercise or is it one more delaying tactic? Is one party attempting to set up CPAC to look bad or are everybody's motives sincere? Richard Clausi both of the EH-Team and the SWAT sub-committee of CPAC pointed out some inaccurate information which had been provided. It had been suggested by both George and Susan that there weren't sediments in the Canagagigue creek below Chemtura. Richard made it very clear that that was nonsense. The creek is neither on top of Bedrock nor is the bottom paved with asphalt or concrete. It's a rural creek with lots of surface discharge from fields and open areas.

Mark Bauman does have a point in that doing no testing downstream does create doubt in citizens minds. Further Susan Bryant raised an extremely important point dealing with a local farmer who has a swimming pond downgradient of GP1 & GP2; the location of ridiculously high concentrations of Dioxins and DDT on the Chemtura site. Allegedly the Grand River Conservation Authority are dragging their feet in giving approvals to Chemtura for their mickey mouse "cleanup" of GP1 & GP2. This could be true or simply an excuse for more delay. It is an interesting coincidence that Chemtura's partners in pollution, the M.O.E., are now deciding that with CPAC approval they could do some downstream testing. The timing is equisite and takes the heat off Chemtura for their foot dragging and obstensibly puts it on CPAC waiting for their input to testing.

David Marks (CPAC) crafted an excellent Resolution which was passed concerning the peer review of chemtura's site wide AIR, ECA (certificate of approval). Basically CPAC agree that all the technical hoops and loops have been attended to however further study is needed regarding multiple issues dealing with odours, air health effects and synergistic effects of multiple air contaminants despite each individual toxin being below provincial requirements and standards.

Lastly CPAC were treated to a most weird and disturbing series of comments from hydrogeologist Eric Hodgins of the Region of Waterloo. He kept emphasizing that the Region of Waterloo have no responsibility for nor apparent interest in the Elmira Wellfield, which is under remediation. Further he indicated that the rules around the ongoing Source Protection Plans mandated by the province and being implemented by the GRCA completely precluded the Elmira north and south wellfields from being included. SAY WHAT? CPAC members as well as myself were quite perplexed by these comments. Eric kept repeating that Chemtura had purchased the south wellfield wells from the Region and thus the Region had no further concerns/input. I am confident that what Eric refused to specifically say, but what I interpret, is shared by others at last night's meeting. I believe that the Region of Waterloo are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They are publicly proclaiming that the Elmira wellfields will be restored to drinking water standards by 2028 while making absolutely no plans or provisions for the likelihood of it happening. This includes no comments on gas stations and car dealerships being built next to the south wellfield in contravention of any and all source protection plans for municipal wells.