WOOLWICH HYPOCRISY RULES

Well last night can certainly be described as informative and entertaining. As usual Chemtura were nowhere to be found whereas the Ontario M.O.E. showed up and gave us their version of reality. Apparently Chemtura while privately whining to Mark and Sandy about boycotting CPAC were being somewhat disingenuous. Turns out they have little interest in attending public meetings even those attended by their colleagues, fellow travellors and other nice people. CPAC had ten public meetings a year while RAC have but four. That's much more to Chemtura's liking.

It turns out that while Dr. Dick Jackson leaves everybody else in his wake intellectually, technically and by every other measure, he is indeed human. His frustration with Ministry of the Environment bafflegab and lies bubbled over. While Terri Buhlman is no shrinking violet and gave as good as she got nevertheless Dr. Jackson had little time for the M.O.E.'s excuses and bullshit last night. While Dr. Jackson was correct in his assessments of the Ministry's fish presentation last evening I did feel a little sorry for Saloni and the gentleman assisting her. Those two scientists were presenting the results of fish sampling for contaminants over the last thirty years and their work and analysis was reasonably cut and dried. The problem was everything including the approved methodology which I gleefully like to refer to as "field filtering" of the fish. This is a shot at Conestoga Rovers decades old method of removing sediments from groundwater samples in order to pretend that Dioxins and DDT can not be transported in either ground or surface water.

Without criticizing Saloni and her colleague I am going to criticize Terri Buhlman and the M.O.E.. We were advised of both the obvious warnings and advisories in the Ministry's Fish Guide as well as more subtle warnings regarding children under 15 years of age and women of child bearing age not consuming any fish from the Canagagigue Creek. That and there being no restrictions on consumption if less than eight meals per month of fish are eaten are in fact in and of themselves restrictions. Ms. Buhlman advised that there are lots of other sites in Ontario with adviserys more restrictive than those in the Canagagigue Creek. Dr. Jackson insisted that TAG required a list of those sites from the M.O.E.. Pat Mclean and other TAG members asked about the fact that there are a number of chemical compounds in the creek and the fish such as mercury, DDT, P.C.B.s and Dioxins/Furans. It was admitted by Saloni's colleague (Siderow??? apologies re spelling) that the science was not clear on whether or not there were synergistic effects that would multiply the toxicity of exposure to several compounds simultaneously.

My metaphor on this matter is as follows. If a deranged and armed indiviual was in a school would the police issue bullet proof vests to students and then send them in to go about their business? Hardly. The police at some risk to themselves granted would go in and remove the threat to others health and safety. What I see the M.O.E. doing is simply mitigating the risk via "management" methods. Their Fish Guide is not adequate considering the risks that Dioxins and everything else presents to both humans and wildlife.

A number of other TAG members were also not happy with the M.O.E.'s position last evening including Bill Barr, David Hofbauer, Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach and Susan Bryant. That said they were more restrained in the expression of their frustration with the heavy duty B/S being peddled by Terri B. last evening. This is not remotely a criticism of Dr. Jackson. With his greater understanding and expertise of Dioxin issues throughout North America and much further (Vietnam), only a robot would be totally unaffected and unemotional on this matter.