CHEMTURA DISHONESTY EXPOSED AGAIN

I left out my formal ten minute Delegation to CPAC in yesterday's posting here about the public CPAC meeting Thursday evening in Woolwich Council Chambers. Jeff Merriman of Chemtura and I have had numerous arguments relating to contaminated soil and the presence of solvents subsurface on their south-east corner, below GP1 & 2. On page 5 of last month's (Aug.29/13) CPAC Minutes Jeff asks the question as to which particular solvents I am referring to. Well Thursday night I answered his question for him as well as CPAC.

Using an overhead projector I showed on-site plume maps for NDMA, Ammonia, Chlorobenzene, Carboxin, Aniline and 2-MBT (mercaptobenzothiazole). All of these chemicals showed very low to zero presence in the Upper Aquifer 1 (UA1) as Jeff has long stated. However the situation reverses when we look at the next two aquifers underneath. Upper Aquifer 3 (UA3) is still seriously contaminated as is the Municipal Upper Aquifer (MU) below it. The difficulty of disproving Chemtura's nonsense that there are not Dioxins and DDT at depth below GP1 & GP2 arises from a lack of data. Put another way you will never find what you don't test for. Not only do they refuse to test for Dioxins and DDT at depth they've even quit routinely looking for ubiquitous solvents on their site. Thay have for many years focused on only three namely Ammonia, NDMA and Chlorobenzene. Allegedly these three are representative samples. Regardless you can't then turn around and make broad statements such as there aren't solvents present in the south-east corner that could have mobilized the usually hydrophobic Dioxins and DDT.

There is one more quite astounding revelation Thursday evening. While I strongly suspect that the Ministry of the Environment's claim by their hydrogeologist that acetone in the aquifer increased the solubility of chlorobenzene in the off-site groundwater is wishful thinking/junk science; it seems that their hydrogeologist couldn't make Thursday's meeting to back up his story. That being so I added one more technical question to his list and to my surprise and joy Steve Martindale of the M.O.E. gave his opinion and understanding. We have long been told by the likes of Jeff (environmental engineer) that Dioxins and DDT partition strongly onto soil particles. Therefore those two compounds are hydrophobic and preferentially do not dissolve and flow readily in groundwater. That being said over the last twenty-four years we have had numerous instances of Dioxins tested for and found in groundwater as well as their having been found in soils and sediments downstream of the site in the Canagagigue. Clearly they can flow via solvent contaminated groundwater as well as by being flushed by surface water.

The question I asked Steve Martindale (M.O.E.) was if Dioxins and DDT also adhered/bound etc. to either sand or gravel as in aquifer materials versus topsoil/soil. I already was pretty darn sure of the answer and Steve confirmed that his understanding was that Dioxins and DDT did not adhere or bind to the larger particles in sand and gravel and that they would flow through the pore spaces along with groundwater. As the south-east corner has the Upper Aquifer 1 present right up to the surface in most areas (heck it was a former gravel pit) clearly those two compounds had no problem moving downwards as well as horizantly through the aquifer. Chemtura busted again!