SOME REMINDERS OF YET UNEXPLAINED & UNREMEDIATED ELMIRA/CHEMTURA HOTSPOTS

I have here over the last few years mentioned unusually high NDMA readings in wells near Arthur St., Industrial Dr. and Oriole Parkway. Well CH38 is located beside Sanyo Canada across the street from Perk's coffee shop. Some old readings in private wells have recently come to my attention again namely the Soehner and Hackert private residences. I know Harry Soehner lived right on the west side of Arthur St. and the north side of Oriole Parkway. Mr. Hackert also lived on the west side of Arthur but the south side of Oriole . Both these residences two decades ago plus were on private wells and they had the dubious distiction of having the highest readings of NDMA found in all of Elmira with the possible exception of one or two on the Uniroyal property. The drinking water standard for NDMA currently is .009 parts per billion (ppb) and their wells were measured at greater than 40 ppb. which is approximately 4,000times higher.

Of late CPAC & SWAT have been focusing on large unremediated areas of Chemtura including a nearby off-site (east) area. Today I will remind readers of two further on-site unremediated areas namely IR-1 and IR-2. These areas are both on the east side of the creek at the extreme northern end by Church St.). The Environmental Audit stated that they had been filled with iron oxide sludges, chlorobenzene and DPA (diphenylamine) tars. They remain unremediated to this day although currently the Envirodome (Toxidome/Mausoleum) is sitting on top of part of IR-2.

Years ago the M.O.E. insisted upon measuring concentrations of contaminants in nearby groundwater wells. Not so much in the last decade plus however. The old readings near OW1 included benzene, toluene, trichloroethylene, chlorobenzene, diethyl ether, aniline, nitrobenzene and get this over twenty unidentified chemicals many in the 100 to 200 ppb. range. Apparently Elmira neither need updates on how these toxic compounds are being remediated nor do they need any form of source removal to get them out of the ground. After all if you can't trust politicians, Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment, who can you trust?