HOW HAVE THEY GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT FOR SO LONG?

Public CPAC Meeting Tonite 6 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers, Church St. Elmira


The Elmira south wellfield was shut down in November 1989. The north wellfield was shut down a few months later. Twenty-three years later and the authorities are still bafflegabbing and bullshitting the public. It started with a five man M.O.E. team allegedly looking for the sources of NDMA (& more) in the south wellfield. It escalated with an October 7, 1991 Settlement Agreement a.k.a. "Sweetheart deal" between the Ministry of the Environment and Uniroyal Chemical. Six parties to the Environmental Appeal Board hearings received copies of that disgusting document. The public did not until this past spring when Woolwich Council released it to the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC).

How have the company and M.O.E. avoided being run out of town on a rail? Firstly by nature Canadians tend to be more prone to ask questions first rather than rush to judgement. Secondly all the authorities at the time held private meetings, out of the public view, and came up with a deal. Keep in mind that all the authorities by definition shared at least some of the massive blame and guilt arising out of permitting a for profit company to grossly pollute both the Canagagigue Creek and all the local groundwater. This took decades of serious mismanagement and negligence by Uniroyal and others hiding under their umbrella. It took an abdication of responsibility by both the M.O.E., GRCA, Waterloo Region and successive Woolwich Councils.

After half the cat was out of the bag the serious bullshit began. In order to sell a non sensical cleanup the M.O.E. decided to ostensibly involve the public via some sort of public advisory committee. This PAC would have literally no resources, no technical expertise, no authority and would be tightly controlled if at all possible. Woolwich Council took the lead in organizing and running the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee including the Chairmanship etc.. It was much looser in the early days because the citizens through APT Environment were very active and appropriately suspicious. Indeed there had been serious consideration by APTE not to participate in what they rightly viewed as an attempt to co-opt them and water down their voices. It wasn't until 2000 that Chair and Councillor Pat Mclean went through a mock debate about having CPAC become a committee of Woolwich Council.

All the full time technical expertise was provided by Uniroyal/Chemtura via their consultants. Occasionally UPAC/CPAC would be graced by the M.O.E's hydrogeologist. Although hydrogeology is not rocket science nevertheless any "profession" worth it's salt develops insider's acronyms and complicating language intentionally. Hydrogeology is all about interpretations of usually incomplete data. Combine this with a system of literally inundating citizens with neverending, often unecessary reports and it's not difficult to get their eyes to glaze over. This is how Chemtura and their full time paid allies have run UPAC/CPAC in circles for over two decades. With co-opted insiders on CPAC it also was not too difficult to marginalize the very few citizens who knew what was truly going on.

This set up is currently in jeopardy for Chemtura and the M.O.E.. Astounding as it seems the wholesale massacre of the old CPAC has brought in fresh blood, open minds and some limited technical expertise to CPAC. There still is the spectre of Woolwich Council attempting to control things but the volunteer citizens on CPAC are not prepared to roll over at the first signs of trouble. They have a mandate and they have ethics and morals which they aren't prepared to throw down the tubes blindly following either politicians or government bureaucrats. They are their own persons.