TECHNICAL TRAINING FOR CITIZENS COURTESY OF CHEMTURA & FELLOW TRAVELLORS

Over the decades I've learned to read and understand the data including figures, tables, appendices and even the text. I have been regularily surprised by not being able to find or prove blatant fudging of test results, concentrations of contaminants etc.. What I have found however is the ability over time for Chemtura friends and colleagues to be able to focus their testing with parameters of their choice as well as locations of their choice. In other words a prime example is the failure to do shallow testing of soil and groundwater throughout Elmira. As it now stands everything found deeper in the Municipal and Bedrock aquifers is automatically chalked up to Chemtura (Yara only if it's Ammonia). If however significant concentrations of toluene, xylenes, benzene were found at the surface near the south wellfield it would clearly indicate other sources of contamination than Chemtura. These chemicals are routinely introduced via gas station leaking gas and diesel tanks such as those found at the old Beckers, Voisin Motors, Gord's Service station etc.. There are others that simply have slipped past scrutiny to date but with redevelopment will eventually be "discovered".

What one particularily learns to do is to ignore the Conclusions sections in both M.O.E. reports as well as in Chemtura's consultants reports. These Conclusions are highly imaginative and always self serving. If one looks carefully at a number of Figures in Chemtura's 2012 Annual Monitoring Report Volume 1, much can be learned. Figures 4.5 through to 4.9 are very interesting. They show plumes of NDMA and Chlorobenzene in the Municipal Upper, Lower and Bedrock aquifers throughout Elmira. It would have been helpful to see Ammonia plumes among others (benzene, toluene, xylenes etc.) but refer back to the first paragraph and you'll understand why these aren't included. Now these Figures that I've mentioned need the reader to draw in both the current off-site wells (W5A/B, W4, W3, E7) and the proposed new off-site wells namely W6A/B, W7, W8 and W9. These new wells allegedly will end up tripling the amount of off-site pumping without dewatering the aquifers and without destroying on-site hydraulic containment.

When you draw in all these off-site pumping wells you will see the pattern. Chemtura and colleagues call them "hot spots". What they are in actuality are source zones. All the off-site wells to date are in source zones other than Uniroyal/Chemtura and all the new ones are as well. Some of the off-site wells will be located on the downgradient end of the source zone but that makes practical sense. This understanding is courtesy of the training provided by Uniroyal/Chemtura over the decades. In other words look at what they are doing, not what they are saying.