"PUSHBACK" FROM THE UNHOLY TRINITY CONTINUES

It's been a terrible year for Chemtura/CRA/M.O.E. . Since last spring their expertise, professionalism and credibility have been under polite but serious attack. It seems as if the price of horse manure has plummeted leaving them holding vast stocks of a greatly undervalued commodity. So sad. I've been advising CPAC that some form of "pushback" was inevitable. CPAC's Resolution followed by Woolwich Council's endorsement has emasculated literally decades of carefully orchestrated junk science and misinformation surrounding the cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers.

Chemtura have started the "pushback" with their pre-Christmas attack on the CPAC Chair, Dr. Dan Holt. Their bizarre verbal diatribe to Woolwich Council suggesting that Dr. Dan had "breached confidentiality" in regards to the *Responsible Care verification was complete hooey. The decision was made for good reason that Chemtura had failed again. Now the Chemistry Institute Assoc'n of Canada (CIAC) in conjunction with Chemtura are trying to get that decision reversed. Our Ontario Ministry of the Environment have just informed CPAC that they can't attend the public CPAC meeting of Monday January 28/13. This is the first meeting in two months and six or seven days notice after agreeing to the date is nonsense. They have had as many as five reps attend in the past and if there was a major provincial environmental disaster underway, it might be understandable. My interpretation is that they are as usual simply running defence for Chemtura who are trying to buy time as they work on getting verified .

Back on January 5/13 I posted an article suggesting why Chemtura do not deserve verifcation. Two points need to be added. The CIAC and *Responsible Care focus on many things but communication with the host community is a major one. In any sane world that would imply HONEST communications. Thus Chemtura are completely buggered. The CPAC Resolution of last spring, politely but firmly told the universe (& hopefully the CIAC) that over two decades of spin, propaganda and junk science promulgated by Chemtura and fellow travellors was exactly that. It was totally unscientific, inaccurate nonsense. A totally different path was required and should have been followed for the past twenty years plus. The second point is this: Jeff Merriman of Chemtura has repeatedly falsely advised CPAC that they Chemtura will remove any buried wastes or serious contamination as they come across it. Either this is a blatant fib or it is Jeff and company being cute and intentionally deceiving CPAC and the public. In the last several years many new boreholes and monitoring wells have been drilled. Some are on Chemtura's own property, others are on neighbours' property. These borehole logs show subsurface staining of soil, strong odours and high photo ionization detector readings. Some of these discoveries are shallow and some are very deep. To date they have not been addressed much less acknowledged by Chemtura. This is not honest communications with either CPAC or the public.