APTE MEMBER SYLVIA BERG WAS CO-OPTED

Fortunately co-opted isn't all that big of a deal in the scheme of things. A term that APTE member Ted Oldfield used on occasion was "fellow travellor". His term referred to someone who simply found it easier to get along so you go along ie. you don't make waves. Most of the time former mayor Bob Waters was a fellow travellor. He abhorred the bad publicity that Elmira received over the Water Crisis yet he didn't want to blame Uniroyal.

APTE's turnaround on Uniroyal's DNAPL plans was the gamechanger. In 1992 I had discovered that Dames & Moore were quoting hydrogeologist Stan Feenstra out of context in order to intentionally minimize the appearance of DNAPLs on the Uniroyal site. This was the infamous 1% versus 10% solubility rule scam. After I exposed that the M.O.E. insisted that Uniroyal via Conestoga Rovers (CRA) had to rewrite their DNAPL Report. Quoting the September 28, 1993 K-W Record (John Roe): "Uniroyal paid for studies and a report on DNAPLS last year. But that report was heavily criticized and the province (M.O.E.) told the company to come up with another study.".

Uniroyal did so and it was still a stinker. The Region of Waterloo along with APTE made that very clear. Again quoting the same K-W Record article : "APT member Alan Marshall said Uniroyal had not done enough tests for DNAPLS. "There's been little or no examination of a huge area (M2)" on the site, he said, calling on the company to do more testing.
For Elmira to have drinkable groundwater within 30 years, the company must excavate all "DNAPL hot spots," said APT member Sylvia Berg. "But to do this you need better excavations."".

The Record ended their article thusly: "The environment ministry must approve Uniroyal's plan for handling the DNAPLs and Berg said she'd "be very surprised if they found this report adequate."".

From that point up to when the M.O.E. formally accepted CRA's DNAPL report on December 10, 1993 APTE had not had any change of position expressed to me or APTE co-ordinators Richard Clausi and Esther Thur. I researched and wrote the first Draft of APTE's position on CRA's DNAPL report and Sylvia Berg and Glenys McMullen edited it. I also took them through the report and data and convinced them of the accuracy of my conclusions. They were 100% on board. Despite this, at the last moment Sylvia refused to co-sign APTE`s critique which I found odd.

After the M.O.E.`s reprehensible acceptance of CRA`s DNAPL report I could not get any remotely intelligent explanation out of Sylvia as to why APTE would not oppose the Ministry`s betrayal yet again. After Richard, Esther and I left APTE in early January 1994 Sylvia had this to say in the January 12, 1994 K-W Record (John Roe) : ``Berg said APT was generally satisfied with the excavation of the DNAPLs that took place late last year.``.

Sylvia sold APTE and the public down the drain on DNAPLS. To this day they have not been further excavated. I certainly hope that Sylvia was well rewarded for her betrayal. She did run for Mayor afterwards with Bob Waters support which I found bizarre initially.