TONITE'S CHEMTURA PUBLIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

Earlier this week, CPAC & SWAT were informed of Chemtura's timetable in regards to their half assed cleanup of Dioxins and DDT in their south-east corner. Two former gravel pits (GP1 & GP2) were the overflow area for the east side pits decades ago. Steve Quigley of Conestoga Rovers (CRA) claimed at the last CPAC meeting in June that Dioxins are not liquids and hence couldn't flow. This is typical mealymouthed nonsense. The Dioxins and DDT were mixed in with LIQUID solvents as well as rainwater and indeed did flow as liquids from the uphill former east side ponds down to their south-east corner where they slowly soaked into the ground. From there they were spread far and wide to be shared with the Downriver Grand River watershed.

Jaimie Connolly M.O.E. hydrogeologist also shared some doozies with CPAC at the June meeting. When answering my question about free phase DNAPL possibly being a reason for unaccounted mass of chlorobenzene in the aquifers and aquitards he stated that oh no any DNAPL would have immediately dissolved into the groundwater. This was at the top of page 8 in the Minutes of the meeting and Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids by definition do NOT readily dissolve in groundwater. Jaimie also inexplicably stated that (pg. 8) he knew of no issue with chlorobenzene in the Municipal Lower (ML) Aquifer beneath and near the old Varnicolor Chemical on Union St. That was a bizarre answer because only two pages earlier in the Minutes (pg. 6) both in the middle of the page and near the bottom Jaimie explains that there is a modelling issue due to high chlorobenzene in the ML aquifer.

There will probably be discussion around the M.O.E.'s downstream testing for Dioxins and DDT. At the moment it appears that at least two sets of data have not been handed out to CPAC/SWAT. This data concerns a swimming pond and soil tests done by it as well as further downstream testing to clarify the increased DDT results found in one of the 2012 sample locations. Strangely the M.O.E. seem to be awaiting some sort of go ahead from CPAC before doing more testing. This is weird on many levels. A year ago plus they refused to share their workplan with CPAC ahead of time. Their partial and limited data to date was presented pretty well verbally but very badly in writing. Quite frankly I found their written report confusing and downright deceptive in it's wording. These wording issues have been somewhat verbally sorted out but the written report is still very badly written. Yes the verbal clarifications helped but it's the written report that is the history. It needs fixing. As far as some kind of blessing from CPAC before the M.O.E. proceeds, that is just plain nuts under all the circumstances.