MORE ON LAST THURSDAY'S CPAC MEETING

First of all there was less tension in the room than in the previous month. I expect this had to do with CPAC & SWAT members knowing that *RC verification was a done deal. Not much point in continuing to beat a dead horse. Similarily Chemtura personnel seemed much calmer, more relaxed and less defensive than usual.

I went first with the Delegations and was pleased to actually have four people ask me questions afterwards. All questions were relevant and worthwhile and included Sebastian and Mark from CPAC, Jeff M. from Chemtura and George Karlos from the Ministry of the Environment.

Councillor Mark Bauman of CPAC did his politician's best of trying to appease everybody. Nevertheless he did make one wonderful statement to the fact that the M.O.E. accept Conestoga Rovers reports at face value. Mark also gently prodded Chemtura to pony up money to pay for peer reviews of their technical reports done by Conestoga Rovers (CRA).

Again CPAC members by asking followup questions were able to clarify that despite Jeff Merriman's original comments about empty drums and "rusty remnants" as well as non detect levels of soil contamination; that indeed chemical wastes were found and removed. These wastes were black, tarry globs. Steve Quigley of CRA also added to the overall knowledge by advising CPAC that Chemtura's former tarpits (TPW1 & TPW2) were excavated when full in the past and deposited within the former municipal landfill (M2) which they now own. Susanna, the latest addition to the SWAT team combined with Sebastian did a bit of a back and forth questioning of Chemtura as to the comparison in excavation depths for GP1 & GP2 on the east side (1 metre) versus the 1-3 metre excavation on the west side (M2) to remove drums and waste materials.

We were advised by George Karlos of the M.O.E. that the downstream monitoring in the Canagagigue was complete and the report should be coming to CPAC prior to its' public presentation at CPAC. Personally due to the lack of a presented work plan up front, I am doubtful that the M.O.E. obtained information that can be clearly compared with past information. For example which parameters, which locations, what depths etc.. Regardless I'm always interested in new data and will see what can be determined from this latest effort.