THERE ARE AT LEAST FOUR SIGNIFICANT OFF-SITE AREAS IN ELMIRA AFFECTING THE FINAL CLEANUP

To date Chemtura/CRA are only publicly recognizing two of the historically high contamination, off-site areas. The two they are acknowledging are the north-west high NDMA contamination around well OW60 near Park St. and the other is the Yara (Nutrite) site on their western property boundary. It has high chlorobenzene in the Municipal Lower (ML) Aquifer. The two that they are doing their best to publicly ignore are the chlorobenzene contaminated ML aquifer beneath the old Varnicolor Chemical site on Union St. as well as the high NDMA readings near Industrial Dr. and Oriole Parkway beside the Sanyo property (CH38).

Keep in mind that in the case of most contaminated sites the highest dissolved concentrations start in the source areas on site and as the various plumes move farther from the site, the concentrations decrease. This is the norm. In the case of Elmira however despite the sweetheart deal concluded between the M.O.E. and Uniroyal on October 7, 1991 which saved Uniroyal millions of dollars in cleanup costs and which assigned all blame to Uniroyal for the destruction of the Elmira Aquifers; it just wasn't so. Nutrite had a hand as did Varnicolor Chemical, numerous gas stations and most probably two other sources. The M.O.E. certainly didn't want their incompetence with multiple polluters public knowledge hence they hid and lied about the truth. It was in Uniroyal's self-interest to do the same. Now twenty-five years later it's getting harder to keep up the facade as one informed citizen who reads and understands all the technical reports is slowly putting all the pieces together.

The two unacknowledged to date other source areas have had much higher than appropriate chlorobenzene and or NDMA concentrations for over two decades. Pumping wells W4 and W3 were located beside them in order to quickly reduce their concentrations and slowly decrease their contaminant mass. They have been but partially sucessful to date. Chemtura's newest "cleanup" plans involving tripling their off-site pumping rates as well as using in situ chemical oxidation will assist with the two acknowledged other areas. Until Chemtura/CRA acknowledge the two more southern source areas and address them appropriately; then their latest cleanup plan is doomed to failure.