CHEMTURA CANADA PROGRESS REPORT - JUNE 2014

First and foremost Chemtura Elmira's off-site pumping is back in the crapper. I know, I know, Jeff Merriman of Chemtura warned us ahead of time that there would be pumping slowdowns allegedly as part of the process of speeding things up. The trouble is when you are years behind schedule in your off-site pumping for a myriad of creative reasons, slowing down in order to allegedly triple your off-site pumping is hard to take. Also after twenty-five years of brazen horse manure, excuses, truth massaging, factual fictions, alternative realities and going in circles while allegedly "progressing", their promises mean absolutely zilch. Last month well W3 averaged 1.6 litres per second with a minimum target average required of 11.4 l/s. Well W4 which just a few months ago had its' minimum target reduced from 11.4 to 3.5 managed a paltry 3.3 ll/s. Dress it up any way you want Jeff.

There was a loss of hydraulic containment in the highly contaminated Upper Aquifer on Chemtura's south-west corner. Again it's the same old excuse about "bank storage effects". Apparently when the creek runs high after the spring melt or even after a significant thunderstorm, the shallow aquifer near the creek rises as well. Then apparently the creek level drops faster than the shallow aquifer thus causing a lack of hydraulic containment as the contaminated shallow aquifer then discharges back into the creek. This happens every spring and every thunderstorm but apparently the solution of increasing the pumping rates of the 10 or 11 UA wells isn't implemented until after the loss of containment occurs. Here's just a wild guess. I'll bet it's cheaper for the company to allow a "temporary" loss of containment and then increase pumping versus the other way around.

The MISA (municipal industrial strategy for abatement) outlets into the Canagagigue Creek from Chemtura continue to bleed small quantities of pesticides. Lindane (insecticide) discharged last month from Misa outlet 0400, 0800 and the SWS outlet. Tolune discharfed from the SWS at 3.5 parts per billion as well. There is so much ongoing leakage from this site that these MISA outlets might even be some of the smaller ones.

Three parameters were discharged into the Canagagigue Creek above their treatment objectives albeit below their treatment limits. This would be toluene, nitrosomorpholine (NMOR) and bis(ethylhexyl)phthalate. The last one also known as BEHP has again been found upstream in the "Gig" as well as being discharged in low quantities by Chemtura.

The "cleanup" continues.