PERSPECTIVE ON CHEMTURA'S OFF-SITE ELMIRA PUMPING

In November 2012 as a direct result of CPAC's Resolution in the spring, which was later endorsed by Woolwich Township, Chemtura and CRA announced new cleanup plans for the Elmira Aquifers. They included a tripling of the volume of off-site groundwater pumping and treating as well as some source removal via In Situ Chemical Oxidation. Work has been done allegedly towards this goal however promises from CRA/Chemtura have in the past proven to be elusive in reality. It's heading towards two years since their promises were made and to date both proposed and appropriate ISCO locations allegedly have been unsucessful. As far as the off-site pumping goes I wonder when they talk about tripling it whether they are talking about tripling their original computer generated Target pumping rate or their continually being reduced Target rates?

The original target Rates for the five off-site wells was based upon the following pumping rates in litres per second ie. l/s . E7 - 26.5 , W3 - 11.4 , W4 - 11.4 , W5A - 7.6 , W5B - 7.6 . These pumping rates (total 64.5 l/s) were determined allegedly by a computer program based upon pumping these wells for thirty years ie. from August 1998 until August 2028. The fact that they rarely met these pumping rates for many years only added to the lack of confidence in them and in CRA/Chemtura. In response did they increase their capacity? Hell no they took a page from the M.O.E. and reduced their target pumping rates to 53.5 l/sec a few years back. About fourteen months ago they reduced it again when they stopped pumping the Municipal Upper Aquifer at W4. This well had a wellscreen in both the Upper and Lower Municipal Aquifer and CRA/Chemtura decided that the Lower aquifer required more attention than the Upper. Their current Target Rates for the five wells are now 45.6 l/sec. So this begs the question: Are they allegedly tripling their pumping rates from their original computer generated requirements of 64.5 l/s or from their current 45.6 l/s?

Whatever they intend to do the fact is that there is a huge, years long deficit in pumping based upon their own numbers. Last month (July) they achieved their greatly reduced Target pumping rate. The previous month (June) they did not. Prior to that their off-site pumping had been reasonably consistent for a little over a year achieving even their 53.1 former Target rate via greatly increased pumping at W3. Quite frankly their off-site pumping has been up and down like a toilet seat. I'm not exactly holding my breathe in anticipation of a tripling of their off-site pumping. Their talk is even cheaper than most.