DNAPLS AND THE 2012 ANNUAL MONITORING REPORT

It's taken awhile for me to fully understand the mindset. Corporate headquarters has taken a position and the locals must follow suit. It matters not one whit that the locals have lost all credibility due to forever defending the indefensible. Until or unless corporate in Waterbury Connecticut give the go ahead, our local Chemtura reps dare not deviate one inch from the company (U.S.) line.

This of course tends to discourage in depth study and research on various local environmental issues. Afterall if science, logic and truth are given short shrift in favour of blind obedience to corporate masters then local citizens quite frankly are wasting their time trying to politely debate, convince and shift Chemtura management towards source removal of contaminants such as free phase DNAPL which they hotly deny up to and including each and every time they stumble across more on their site.

Pages 74 to 83 in Volume 1 of the most recent Annual Monitoring Report deal with NAPLS on the Uniroyal/Chemtura site. While they have been found both as free phase and as residual throughout the site (east & west), nevertheless the tortured logic to deny free phase continues. In the terms of the U.S. CIA it's all about plausible deniability. In Chemtura's case the plausibilty is however beyond thin and weak. Knowledge of the principles of DNAPL mobility and subsurface existence are ignored. Numerous criteria to delineate DNAPL existence and location are ignored or else twisted and subverted to "prove" exactly what Chemtura U.S. have dictated. Any attempt by the young CPAC to hire experts to peer review Chemtura/CRA junk science are rebuffed. The past Woolwich Council paid for a hydrogeologist acceptable to Chemtura to examine parts of their "science". That is exactly what we don't need right now. CPAC requires a truely independent, honest hydrogeologist with strong character to overcome "professional courtesies" .

Just one more item needs to be mentioned regarding the 2012 Annual Monitoring Report. Back in 1993 the excavation and removal of free phase DNAPL from TPW2 (tar pit west) ended at the border between TPW2 and M2 the former municipal landfill. We were advised that Uniroyal/Chemtura refused to continue chasing and removing the visible free phase DNAPL as it went into what Chemtura claimed was an area that they weren't responsible for, namely M2. That the Ontario M.O.E. allowed this at the time was a travesty. Lo and behold Chemtura were back in the same location last December removing drum carcasses from M2. Not one word has been mentioned about the free phase DNAPL which existed at that location twenty years ago. Did they ignore it for the second time while it was right in front of them? Or in the alternative, contrary to Chemtura's claims has it contined flowing westward off-site onto either Yara or Sulco's property? A third option would be that they actually removed it this time but are much too modest to take credit for it.