LOCAL PAPERS REPORT ON CPAC CHAIR'S DELEGATION

The Woolwich Observer yesterday reported on last week's televised Woolwich Council meeting with the following story "Change of tactics needed to clean Elmira aquifers, CPAC argues". The day before the Elmira Independent published their story titled "CPAC expresses frustration over DDT study". While Gail Martin and the Independent focused on off-site transport and deposition of Dioxins and DDT both in the Canagagigue Creek as well as onto a neighbour's property; Steve Kannon and the Observer took a broader view and described source removal versus hydraulic containment, Wilf and Jaimie's DNAPL letters and the M.O.E.'s lack of an action plan to deal with downstream Dioxins and DDT.

Susan Bryant appropriately criticized the M.O.E.'s approach of long on study and testing while very short on action (remediation) in the Independent article. She also advised that years ago local families knew to keep themselves and their children out of the creek due to its horrible chemical smells whereas today while the creek doesn't smell so bad it is still highly polluted with Dioxins and DDT. Thus children could well be attracted back into the creek. Gail Martin also described CPAC's desire to expand testing to include both runoff areas from GP1 and GP2 as well as onto the neighbour's property where ground surface contours indicate the probable destination of overland flow from Chemtura's east side pits (RPE1-5).

Steve Kannon quotes Chairman Dr. Dan stating that the Elmira Aquifers may well take another 25 years or more to be cleaned up rather than the alleged 2028 date, only fourteen years away. Dr. Dan is also quoted regarding source removal of buried contaminants on site including DNAPLS as described in the May 2 and May 15, 2008 letters written by Jaimie Connelly and Wilf Ruland. Both these letters are gamechangers and were deliberately witheld from stakeholders six years ago including myself as well as some CPAC members. They unequivocally advise removal of known areas of subsurface contamination with Wilf's letter specifically naming TPW2 and downgradient (towards the creek) from both RPE4 and RPE5. Steve Kannon states further that both these letters assert that pump and treat (hydraulic containment) is unlikely to sucessfully remediate the Elmira Aquifers by 2028. Lastly the comments by Dr. Dan Holt regarding the Ministry of Environment's lack of plans to take action (remediate) downstream in the Canagagigue Creek are reported.