WAYNE GRETZKY, INTERCEPTOR TRENCHES & STICKHANDLING

Interceptor trenches can also be known as collector trenches. They are excavated to a specific desired depth anywhere from a couple of feet to twenty-five feet (7 metres) below ground surface. They are then filled with highly permeable gravels which intercept groundwater flow and either collect it or redirect it. Usually they are used for shallow aquifers and can be as stated simply filled with gravel giving the groundwater a preferential flow path. They can however also be built with a pipe on the bottom of them with holes in the top to allow this groundwater to seep through a geotextile fabric into the pipe. This collected groundwater depending on circumstances can be gravity flowed away from for example a nearby creek or river or it can be collected via sumps and pumped to either a private treatment system or even into a municipal sewage treatment plant.

To date the only answer we've received from Chemtura and Conestoga Rovers is that the line, scar, trench visible from Google earth is really just a post and wire fence. I am confident that they can and will do better next Monday at CPAC. That said there is more evidence that a subsurface structure exists that they do not wish to damage or disturb hence the fence still sitting there twenty-one years after pits RPE4 & 5 were excavated and 75 years or more since cattle or sheep roamed the area.

Prior to the 1993 excavation of RPE4 & 5 a number of monitoring wells were constructed in the area of the line, scar, trench. OW3, OW4, OW42, OW43, OW37 and OW8s and OW8-4 were mostly built between 1981 and 1984. Approximately fifteen years after the December 1993 excavations, following on concerns raised by Wilf Ruland in his suppressed May 15, 2008 DNAPL Report, Conestoga Rovers did a test pit excavation around OW42 which is perhaps fifteen to twenty metres due west of RPE5. These excavations included multiple test pits (10) as well as multiple Boreholes (10). The highly visible line, scar, trench approaches OW42 on a diagonal from the North-west and passes by within 9-10 metres. It then turns and continues due south to the bottom of RPE5 where it again turns and heads south-east neatly encompassing RPE5, BAE1, and the two reburied drum pits RB1 & 2. Therefore we have multiple well nests built before the likely 1994 construction date of a possible interceptor trench plus twenty testpits and boreholes constucted in 2009 after the likely 1994 date. Amazingly each and every one has been located on both sides, within mere feet or a few metres of this line, scar, trench. That is a feat of stickhandling of which even Wayne Gretzky would be proud. Surely a redundant, easily removable ground surface fence would not determine where multiple test pits and boreholes should be located. A fence delineating subsurface pipes and drainage is another matter entirely.