DID CONESTOGA ROVERS DEFRAUD THE PUBLIC?

Good question under the circumstances. Have they crossed some imaginary ethical line that either their professional body or someone else would find abhorrent? I haven't the foggiest because in twenty-five years I've never seen anything even remotely approaching an ethos or a moral imperative that they must follow. I contrast this with for example the *Responsible Care program of the Chemical Industry Association of Canada (CIAC). Heaven forbid has the company crossed a legal line regarding this exposure of creative hydrogeology at last night's Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) meeting? Again I'm not a lawyer hence it's pretty difficult for me to say. I may well think that they have committed a fraud upon the public with their misinformation and deception but is that by definition legal fraud?

Figure 4.10 in the 2013 Annual Monitoring Report is a stinker. It is titled 2013 Chlorobenzene Concentrations Bedrock Aquifer. If perhaps the company just put this diagram of their site and the rest of Elmira into their report without comment, I wouldn't have been so offended by their misrepresentation. Instead they have flatly stated that there is "No chlorobenzene plume in the Bedrock". Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull. As I explained to CPAC, the public and the media present last night, Conestoga Rovers position on chlorobenzene in the Bedrock aquifer goes beyond amateur hour. I compare what they have done intellectually with the "salting" of gold mines in ages past.

They have presented monitoring data mostly eight and nine years old and in fact in most instances fourteen years old as representing the current status of one of the major Chemtura signature contaminants, in this the deepest aquifer on the site. While both in the text and in other Figures they admit and confirm the presence of both NDMA and Ammonia in the Bedrock, they are refusing to do the obvious with Chlorobenzene. Even if that was all they had done, their unethical behaviour is disappointing. Instead their deception is much greater. All appearances and common sense point to them as having intentionally positioned Bedrock monitoring wells in locations so as to avoid discovering chlorobenzene. Their on-site Bedrock wells are positioned where there is no overlying Municipal Lower Aquifer (ML). What there is however is a substantial clay aquitard which protects the underlying Bedrock Aquifer from contamination. Reversely off their site is a large open area just north of First St. and ending south of Oriole Parkway in which they do not have a single Bedrock well. Why not you ask? This area exactly corresponds to the overlying highly contaminated Municipal Lower Aquifer without any clay aquitard between the two. In other words high concentrations of dissolved chlorobenzene are in direct contact with the underlying Bedrock Aquifer. And we are supposed to believe the Bedrock doesn't have chlorobenzene in it?

The ramifications of this suppressed information are overwhelming. Chlorobenzene is a DNAPL chemical. Are they afraid of even more damning information surfacing regarding free phase Dense Non-aqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL) on their site? Has the free phase DNAPL found in OW57-32R in this open area between First and Howard Ave. possibly moved not only through the window in the Municipal aquitard (MAT) but then gravity flowed downwards into the Bedrock? If this is the case then the cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers is doomed categorically. Chlorinated solvents in the tiny fractures in bedrock are nearly impossible to remove. Unlike Cambridge where the bedrock is near the surface, in Elmira it is over 100 feet down in most areas.

Another possible ramification is this. Has Conestoga Rovers vaunted hydraulic containment merely drawn contaminants constantly deeper into the subsurface? There were concerns by CEAC (Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee) in the 80's that pumping the Municpal Upper Aquifer (MU) would draw shallow contaminants deeper. Since then not only has MU pumping been ongoing but so has major pumping in the Municipal Lower Aquifer (ML). I have recently seen an example where the highest concentration of NDMA is not in either the overlying MU or ML but instead in the Bedrock. This is not good.

More on last night's meeting will be forthcoming.