CHEMTURA CONTINUES TO POISON FISH, WILDLIFE & HUMANS

Last week (Wed.) at the RAC meeting we were not presented with the copy of the most recent study of Canagagigue Creek. A M.O.E. tech person raced through a presentation while we strained to see what was on the overhead screen. Last Friday we received via e-mail the actual report for the 2014 study, dated September 30/15. It is not good news for the environment in general nor especially for life in and around Canagagigue Creek. It also adds to the growing body of evidence that a disproportionate quantity of the Dioxins/Furans and DDT ending up in Lake Erie sediments and fish are courtesy of Uniroyal Chemical aka Chemtura Canada.

This study confirms the very bad news from the 2013 study and the particularily nasty news from the 2012 Canagagigue Creek study. These three confirm that the remediation done on the Uniroyal site after the groundbreaking Jaagumagi & Bedard M.O.E. study of 1995-96 was inadequate. Inadequate but not unnecessary. In fact if anything all three studies clearly show that excavation and removal of contaminated creek sediments and creekbanks are indeed worthwhile in the long run. They do remove the source areas. The problem of course is that you need to remove all the source areas not just some of them.

I have criticized the last two studies (2012 & 2013) for not being scientifically rigorous. While the nature of sediment deposition and erosion is inherently variable over time based upon volume of water in the creek (ie. rainfall), severity of weather, soil types, livestock breaking down the creekbanks etc.; nevertheless certain variables could have been avoided and were not. For example time of year is huge. Having some of these multiple reports done in April, others in Novemeber and finally in June is frankly ridiculous. If you are testing sediment from year to year then at least do it at the same time relevant to the spring flooding. Secondly location in the creek is also a huge factor. From the photographs given it again looks as if the specific and exact locations of the sediment testing are inconsistent from year to year. We also appear to have varying depths of sediments being compared to each other. The original studies referred to 0-10, 10-20 cm. etc. The 2014 one talks about top, mid and bottom core samples. Meanwhile the guidelines are all in reference to surface sediments only.

There is also some weird discussion around an alleged pond in the floodplain. It almost appears as if the M.O.E. are setting up a red herring for remediation. This pond allegedly is upgradient from the highest contaminated sediment area. One can not have any trust in longterm proven liars like the Ontario M.O.E..

There no longer is any process for concerned, honest and informed citizens to even ask questions of the M.O.E.. TAG consists of the mayor's curling buddies plus a pair of proven Chemtura sympathizers. The public can neither give a Delegation nor ask questions publicly of the M.O.E.. What a disgrace. Woolwich residents this is your council who are in bed with Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E..