FURTHER EVIDENCE OF M.O.E. & CHEMTURA ILLEGAL BYPASS OF CONTAMINATED GROUNDWATER?

Do not ever forget which two Woolwich residents and Councillors rescued Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment from the grilling they were getting from myself, CPAC and SWAT during the fall of 2014. The Stroh Drain was redirecting Chemtura ground and surface water off their site and into the Canagagigue Creek further downstream. Evidence was first exposed by myself and then studied and reported on by MTE Consultants that the east side pits had sent both groundwater and surface flow off-site onto the neighbour's property. Even the excavations at GP1 and capping of GP2 were brought into question as being the wrong locations. Mark Bauman and Sandy Shantz rescued Chemtura and the M.O.E. from the credibility beating they were taking by dissolving the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee. Neither guilty party had any reasonable explanations for the discoveries listed above.

The piece de resistance was the discovery via Google Earth and Waterloo GIS satellite photos that there were manmade earthworks of some sort running from Chemtura's north-east side southwards and finally eastwards off-site to their eastern neighbour's property. It is likely that they hooked into the culvert exposed at ground surface and running north/south on the Stroh property which discharges into the manmade Stroh Drainage ditch.

The best estimate I have for the construction of the Stroh Drain is 1985 just prior to the Elmira water crisis. The manmade earthworks, I have previously suggested were some sort of Interceptor Trench or even a Barrier Wall. Interestingly recent information I have received indicates that Chemtura's longtime consultants, Conestoga Rovers installed "a barrier drain and leachate collection system" as part of their "cleanup" of the infamous Love Canal around 1980. My best time estimate for the Chemtura earthworks as seen on Google Earth and Waterloo GIS is between 1985 and 1993. They could easily have been done in the mid 80s along with other ongoing on-site (east & west side) extensive excavations prior to public scrutiny caused by the 1989 drinking wells shutdown. Or prior to and during the east side excavations of RPE4 & 5 in 1993 they could have done the same. Following is an exerpt (pg. 234-235) from the 2016 book by Richard S. Newman titled "Love Canal...".

"...workers created a massive barrier drain system that funneled leachate to a pumping station. Consisting of a three foot wide trench-made of "7000 feet of extra strength perforated vitrified clay tile"-the drain encircled much of the dump. Installed at depths of between 12 and 20 feet and gently "bedded in and covered with a minimum of one foot of crushed stone," the drain system funneled wandering wastes "to wet wells where the liquids were pumped out of the ground."

O.K. so we know that Conestoga Rovers certainly had experience with Interceptor Trenches/ Barrier Drains a few years prior to the earthworks done at Uniroyal/Chemtura. We also know that the Ontario M.O.E. went along with the ridiculous hydraulic containment of only the south-west quadrant of the Uniroyal shallow aquifer in 1997. Neither party ever gave a cogent explanation as to why the east side shallow aquifer was not contained. I think that now we know the reason why. While not "contained" it was most likely diverted onto their neighbour's property where it eventually through the Stroh Drain discharged fiurther downstream into the Canagagigue Creek. This much further downstream discharge would have avoided much embarassing surface and groundwater monitoring either on-site or immediately at Chemtura's property line.