Saturday, February 11, 2017

FIGHTING POLLUTION WITH BOTH HANDS TIED BEHIND YOUR BACK



First off the authorities in agreement with their polluter friends must refuse to allow the most experienced, knowledgable and dedicated citizens to have the opportunity to question Chemtura Canada or the Ontario Ministry of Environment publicly and refuse to allow them the opportunity to comment at public meetings. This is what Woolwich Councillors Bauman (Mark) and Shantz (Sandy) did to CPAC in 2015. They would have been assisted in convincing their Council colleagues to go along by the dishonest words of Chemtura/M.O.E.C.C. representatives as well as by two other local, sour grapes citizens who would throw their own mothers under the bus for their own aggrandizement.

Access to technical documents needs to be limited by as many hoops and loops as possible. A lack of timeliness, awkward formats, financial costs to citizens are all part of the methodology of professional liars. Awkward formats includes handing out large documents via e-mail making both receipt and printing difficult. Financial costs include direct per page costs to citizens from Woolwich Township for printing Ministry of Environment e-mail reports that they (M.O.E.) should have sent out by hard copy in the first place. Don't forget that I've been paying my own costs privately for toner cartridges, paper and drums for my printers for the last nearly thirty years. Not a penny subsidized by anyone. Apparently my time, labour and expertise also don't count for anything. That I expect from Chemtura and the M.O.E. but for my elected Council reps it is disgusting.

To date I still do not have hard (paper) copies of the entire file sent to Woolwich Township and TAG last December 30/16. Of course I've only known about this file since the February 2/17 TAG meeting when it showed up on a correspondence list. Even then I had to break the rules by speaking from the gallery, requesting a copy, without putting my hand up for recognition by the Chair. The last Chair, Dr. Jackson, had been specifically told not to recognize any questions or comments from the gallery and I expect the new Chair has been as well. This of course is quite hypocritical when Sandy Shantz from the gallery routinely interrupts and speaks to TAG. That does however kind of make it difficult for her to get cranky about me occasionally doing it as well.

The paper copies of this report I now have came from Lisa Schaefer, a part time employee of Woolwich Township, after a little prodding on my part. That said she has done a lot of work including hopefully this Monday sending me the rest of the report which was missed when she printed out the initial batch last Thursday. I went down to the Township building (on my dime) and picked it up although truth be told that's not exactly a long trip. The reason for the missed many pages is fairly attributed more to the M.O.E. than to Lisa. Similarily issues with all the item numbers down the left hand side being missing may possibly also be due to the file format the M.O.E. used. I'm no file expert, computer expert etc. so I'm not positive on that. I can say that the hard copy I now have is ridiculously awkward as it is multiple pages wide and many pages long and trying to match up data such as chemical contaminants with location, with dates, with which fish (carp, suckers, shiners etc.) is brutal. Keep in mind some of these documents I received are 100 lines in length and the pages are eleven inches by seventeen inches. Seriously! One file has pages seventeen inches wide and it takes two pages side by side to have all the parameters in front of you. That is thirty-four inches wide. Another file I received has the paper the narrow way ie. eleven inches wide but it takes four pages side by side to have all the parameters available when you are looking at the concentrations and trying to match them with all the other variables. Yes that is fourty-four inches (11"x 4) in width on the table in front of you.

Try looking in the middle of a sixty-eight page report consisting of four packages of pages each group being seventeen pages (ie. 17x4=68) . Each page is 100 lines long and you're looking at a single parameter eg. mercury and then finding the corresponding information that is also in the middle of a 100 line page, spread over three more of these pages, each page of which is somewhere in the middle of your four packages. And everything is not numbered; the pages or the lines.

It's awkward as hell moving your computer screen back and forth sideways to match up multi-variable data. That's why printed copies normally are better, except of course when the printed copies lose the numbering system. Not for one second do I believe that this is unintentional on the part of the Ministry of Environment. They are currently in desperate straits and their credibility is in the toilet. They are pretending to be consulting with the public and providing transparency through releasing their data when in fact they are doing neither honestly nor clearly. Hence honest citizens, yet again, are forced to do battle with both hands tied behind their backs. And heaven forbid if a citizen loses their temper and out of frustration tells somebody where to go. Indeed that is the goal of professional liars and their fellow travellors. Intentionally frustrate honest citizens and provoke them into saying something politically incorrect or rude. Then dismiss them as being impossible to work with. Ring any bells Woolwich, Chemtura & M.O.E.C.C.?



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