FRESH EYES ENVIRONMENTALLY

I've always liked the idea of any group being a mixture of experience combined with intelligence and inexperience. The inexperienced tend to look at old problems and issues in a totally different light. They also can pick up on anomolies that the older hands have simply taken for granted. Something along those lines has just occurred at CPAC.

Currently CPAC are working hard on a number of fronts. These would include examination of Conestoga Rovers updated (Nov. 2012) plans for remediation of the off-site aquifers in Elmira, Chemtura on-site source removal including Dioxins, DDT and DNAPLS as well as at downstream monitoring (Dioxins/DDT) of the Canagagigue Creek. Public education is also coming to the forefront this year. Above and beyond these concerns one of CPAC's newest members has noticed something peculiar, an anomoly if you will. The Ministry of the Environment's Control Orders (1984, 90, 91 & 2000) are addressed to Uniroyal Chemical. Now that was certainly appropriate at the time. Since then however the corporation has been purchased and the name changed, firstly to Crompton and then to Chemtura. No one at CPAC has seen any amendment or revised Control Order addressed to Uniroyal Chemical's current name ie. Chemtura.

Is this an oversight? Is this irrelevant? Has it been changed and CPAC simply not circulated with the new Order? Or horror of horrors is this yet another disgusting betrayal of the public and CPAC by the Ontario M.O.E.? Is it even possible that the M.O.E. simply let the old Control Orders expire with the new corporate takeover, without advising all the stakeholders? The answer to the last question is a resounding yes. Anything is possible from our Ministry of the Environment. Blatant lies, errors of omission, writing Orders first and then having pretend public consultation about them afterwards, sweetheart deals, looking the other way and feigning ignorance about technical DNAPL and or groundwater issues are all in a days work for our M.O.E.. Maybe there is absolutely nothing nefarious about this lack of a name change on supposedly binding Control Orders. The Minstry's rep however would make even the naive suspicious.