ARE THE ONTARIO MOECC INCOMPETENT OR CORRUPT?

If you guessed both then you are the grand prize winner. I've been spending my free time lately playing much less squash and doing much more reading through Ministry of the Environment reports dealing with Elmira, Ontario. God they are so hopeless it's embarassing. Today's reading focused on downstream studies of the Canagagigue Creek done in 1996, 2012 and 2013. These studies were focused on Dioxins and DDT in the creek sediments and floodplain. The 1996 report in my opinion was professionally done from start to finish. The last two were not.

The followup 2012 and 2013 reports were done to allegedly "...provide the community a level of comfort regarding contaminant trends". Boy did they screw that up royally. Therein lies the incompetence. The corruption appears to be in either the direction or lack of direction given to the authors of the last two reports. It's almost as if they were instructed to do their very best to make these followup reports difficult to read and especially difficult to compare to either each other or the original 1996 report. Whether units of measure as in ug/g versus pg/g or the calculation of Total DDT with or without metabolites or even the locations of the various sampling locations, it is extremely difficult to make valid comparisons. Add to this the fact they even have changed the time of the year in which they did their testing. This is very important when you consider that erosion and deposition of sediments with associated contaminants are a function of stream flow and velocity.

Despite these drawbacks either professionals with time on their hands or extremely well versed amateurs can decipher the results. For the majority of well intentioned and well educated citizens it is much more difficult, unecessarily. Dioxin results appear not to have changed dramatically one way or the other. This is bad news as it indicates to me ongoing sources of contamination leaving Chemtura and vicinity via spring flooding as well as via heavy rainstorms. In other words solvent contaminated groundwater (partially) has mobilized persistent organic compounds such as DDT and Dioxins and deposited them into surface water bodies. From here whether in sediments, floodplain soils or creekbanks they continue to be sources to the downstream creeks. DDT however is even worse. In 2012 and 2013 we have seen a few of the highest readings in the Canagagigue Creek to date. These readings are what have shocked the M.O.E. into further studies which samples were taken this summer. 2012 was the prizewinner but 2013 also had extremely high readings downstream at two locations. Considering how reduced the sampling locations are this is very troublesome. My best guess is that DDT and Dioxins have left and are leaving the Chemtura site on the east side and moving down the manmade surface water drain that I discovered last May. This is why despite work done both stabilizing creekbanks and removing contaminated soils on the west side of the creek in the late 90's and early to mid 2000's; the downstream creek is still in terrible shape. Despite this the MOECC continue to run interference for Chemtura when we ask for more cleanup.