THE HORRIBLE EXTENT OF CHEMTURA & M.O.E. LYING & DECEPTION

To date more than 150 million pounds (77,000 tonnes) of formerly buried chemical sludges and solid wastes have been removed from the Chemtura site in Elmira. That figure is courtesy of Jeff Merriman, environmental engineer at Chemtura. That is but a small fraction of what has been dumped, leaked, spilled and overflowed on the site. The truly horrific damage has been done by the to date untotalled liquid chemical wastes disposed of in both lined and unlined pits and ponds on the site. Even the lined ponds had been estimated to leak 3,400 litres per day through the bottom. Last evening we were advised that the north eastern pits would be filled up one day and be empty the next as everything had gone through the bottom.

Two Ministry of Environment employees and one GRCA employee wrote a document in 1985 titled "A History of Uniroyal Waste Management at Elmira". There are two Tables outlining per building and even per specific Uniroyal product (rubber additives, herbicides & pesticides) the volumes of liquid chemical wastes per average production day. The total chemical production wastes averaged in the late 1960's, 173,800 Imperial gallons per day (IGPD). On a five day work week that is a little less than a million gallons per week being disposed of over decades into unlined pits and ponds. The lining took place in 1970 after Uniroyal wastes were still being pretreated in ponds prior to being pumped to the new Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant.

Last evening at the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) public meeting a total of three Woolwich Councillors were present namely Mark Bauman, also a CPAC member, as well as Mayor-elect Sandy Shantz and Councillor-elect Larry Shantz. That is an overdue scenario and quite frankly if there had been more councillors present, even intermittently, over the last couple of decades, Elmira and Woolwich would be much further down the road to a cleanup than we are.

After indicating the volumes of liquid chemical waste produced on a daily basis I explained via a two foot by four foot map where the overflowing eastern pits had been directed, on their west side at least, not by 'furrows" but by a swale southwards into the Chemtura wetlands. The overflowing eastern pits also discharged easterly onto the Stroh farm according to both Peter Gray (MTE) and other sources. From the top (north end) of the wetlands the surface flow of chemical wastes went three directions namely south-west into one wetland, south-east into another and finally nearly due south into GP1. In GP1 there is a low lying area which would have filled first prior to the surface flow continuing on southwestwards and off site onto both the Stroh and Martin property. Basically once the chemical wastes entered Chemtura's (Uniroyal's) south-east corner it was essentially funnelled off-site (south-east) via two higher elevation structures. The one is a topographical high or ridge on the north-east side of GP1 (gravel pit 1) and the other is the manmade gravel road on the south-west side of GP1.

Not only does the Conestoga Rovers topographical map prove where the surface liquid wastes flowed but the satellite photos presented on the Council Chambers screen also assist. Finally last May Dr. Dan, Viv and I walked the property and we came across another swale running south-east from the Chemtura south-east corner into a small stream that discharges firstly into the Stroh Drain and then into the Canagagigue Creek.

CPAC, Woolwich Council and the public have been lied to for decades by both the M.O.E. and Chemtura. The east side has never been hydraulically contained; liquid wastes have been intentionally diverted off-site (illegally) and allowed to drain further downstream into the Canagagigue Creek and from there into the Grand River. More will come tomorrow from last night's CPAC meeting.