CHEMTURA'S HARDBALL TACTICS ARE TO BE EXPECTED

To suggest that Chemtura's credibility is getting killed at public CPAC meetings is to state the obvious. While it is always nice to have an independent third party opinion (MTE Consultants) supporting your own, nevertheless as I preached to Susan and Pat for years you need to have confidence in your opinions provided they are based upon your own personal research, reading, listening and hard work. That pair constantly wanted to hide behind an occasionally uninformed hydrogeologist whom they parachuted in every few years. They also apparently didn't have the courage of their convictions to confront Chemtura's consultants, Conestoga Rovers. Or perhaps in hindsight it wasn't so much their courage as it was the sincereity of their convictions.

I've just reviewed the newspaper articles from this past year. The Waterloo Region Record, Woolwich Observer and Elmira Independent have all reported on the current goings on. Obviously the Elmira Independent are front and centre as they regularily attend and report on CPAC meetings. Kudos to Gail Martin.

Today's Elmira Independent has reported both the $10,000 grant that Woolwich Council gave to CPAC last Thursday nite as well as having an announcement about next week's CPAC meeting (Jan. 29 6 pm.) in Council Chambers. Both the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) and Chemtura are between a rock and a hard place. CPAC have made it clear that they want input and feedback on three huge issues. Chemtura and the M.O.E. have been playing hookey from public CPAC meetings with virtually last minute non-excuses.

The three issues are Peter Gray's MTE Report, the excavation of the wrong GP1 and the lines, scars and trenches showing up in satellite photos of their property. Chemtura seem to have no problem crying to the Township privately about the first and last issues. Therefore they are in trouble right now. After their private whining and receiving assurances that things at CPAC would change to their benefit how could they possibly boycott next week's meeting? That said they don't have a leg to stand on and they know it. The uncontested evidence to date (MTE Report) indicates off-site flow of both groundwater and toxic liquid wastes to the east and to the south (Stroh property). The evidence, including GP1, which has been made both public and to CPAC & SWAT is very damning regarding off-site flow to the south-east into the Stroh Drain.
The weakest evidence to date, but most incredibly charged item are the lines, scars and trenches showing up on the surface of their property. To call their response weak is an understatement. Verbal statements of either livestock fences or wildlife fences are simply ridiculous without some kind of serious evidence included. Logic, timing and common sense indicate the strong possibility that these lines or scars on the surface of their property are from a secret groundwater collection trench delivering their contaminated groundwater onto their neighbour's property (Stroh). There are other possibilities but Chemtura's non-response to date speaks volumes.

CPAC & SWAT are looking forward to next week's meeting. That is unless the two guilty parties over the last twenty-five years decide to cut and run again. That can be accomplished by a couple of methods but either one should make it obvious to the public that Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E. are finally well and truly caught in their decades long web of lies. Again I ask our new Woolwich Council to show your commitment to transparency and public comment by attending next Thursday's meeting.