IT'S ALL BEEN A LIE RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING

"NDMA is not in our vocabulary". Thus spoke Wally Ruck, General Manager of Uniroyal Chemical in 1990. That whopper was debunked eventually as it turned out that a decade prior a couple of Uniroyal scientists had been expressing concerns with NDMA air emissions in and around the Uniroyal plant in Elmira, Ontario.

As I sometimes do to keep my perspective clear in regards to the big picture, I will go back and reread important reports from one, two or three decades earlier. Often I am able to confirm facts I have long known but have forgotten the report, author and chapter that they are from. Sometimes I will reread an issue or fact in the hindsight of many years, plus much more knowledge and have a eureka moment. One of the four volume CH2M HILL Engineering reports done on behalf of the Region of Waterloo, is the latest such reread.

"In April and May, 1977, MOE collected a number of samples of wastewater from Uniroyal and the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). NDMA was found in very high concentrations in the samples as shown in Table 6.2 (Sakuma et al, 1977).".

This Table has samples taken from eleven different points in the treatment processes at the STP and at Uniroyal. NDMA concentrations are 1,300 parts per billion (ppb) at both the Elmira STP Influent and Effluent. The real shockers are two Uniroyal Holding Lagoons with concentrations of 90,000 and 130,000 ppb of NDMA in 1977, twelve years prior to the shutdown of the Elmira wellfields due to the "discovery" of NDMA in the drinking water.

The prizewinner however is the result from the TUEX (a Uniroyal brand name) Manufacturing Process Waste. NDMA was found at a concentration of 340,000 ppb. in 1977.

So NDMA was not only in Uniroyal Chemical's vocabulary in 1989 it was in their waste waters, their in ground leaking lagoons and throughout their chemical processes likely for decades and they knew about it since at least 1977.

But, but, but didn't the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) tell us that they "discovered" NDMA in Elmira's drinking water in November 1989, the very first time ever that they had tested for it? So in fact did they know about it being throughout Uniroyal's wastewaters as well as having been released to the natural environment both from the STP to the Canagagigue Creek as well as into the groundwater through the leaking ponds and lagoons and NOT TEST THE ELMIRA DRINKING WELLS FOR TWELVE MORE YEARS? Or on the other hand did they actually test the drinking wells between 1977 and 1989 and NOT TELL THE PUBLIC ABOUT HIGHLY CARCINOGENIC NDMA IN THEIR DRINKING WATER?

Their next big lie was that they didn't know Elvis (NDMA) had left the building. In fact they knew several years prior to 1989 that Uniroyal chemicals were off their site moving in the groundwater. We may touch on that tomorrow.