CPAC ARE GROWING

The god awful and soon to be discussed Terms of Reference for the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) indicate that up to twelve members are acceptable for this committee. Like any committee there is a tradeoff between being unwieldy and having too few members. CPAC over the years has been between six and nine members and whatever their past issues, being unwieldy or difficult for all members to participate has not been one of them. Our current "young" CPAC started with seven members over two years ago. There have been resignations, dismissals, replacements and additions. Nevertheless for the last few months there have been but five voting CPAC members. Last week CPAC took appropriate steps to remedy that shortfall.

Three excellent nominations have been put forward by CPAC. All three have expressed their delight at this nomination. The appropriate persons at Woolwich Township have been informed and formal Applications for (CPAC) membership on a committee of Council have been sent out. This committee of council matter has been discussed briefly and despite what the Municipal Act states, CPAC have been assurred by Woolwich Township that they are indeed a committee of council. Interestingly it was Chemtura who opened this can of worms. I have no idea whether Chemtura are planning on pursuing the issue or letting it drop. The one thing that is certain is that Chemtura's decision will rest solely on what's good for them. The public interest is not part of their mandate or behaviour.

One little hint as to who the nominees may be. There are currently six SWAT (soil, water. air, technical) team members namely David Marks, Dr.Henry Regier, Richard Clausi, Susanna Meteer, Graham Chevreaux and yours truly, Alan Marshall. The SWAT team are under the chairmanship of CPAC member Ron Campbell. Each and every SWAT team member is highly qualified in one way or another. Not all six have expressed an interest in being formal, voting CPAC members and for the moment I will leave it at that. It is my understanding that council will shortly be approached by the CPAC Chair, Dr. Dan Holt in order to move this forward.