GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Today's paper talks about the General Electric plant in Peterborough and how the company, management and shareholders didn't know. Didn't know in 1980 that asbestos was toxic. Didn't know that lead was toxic. Didn't know that solvents were toxic. Truly astounding how many allegedly incredibly stupid people are able to make so much money. Do you think there was just a tiny incentive for these people "not to know"?

Same thing in Cambridge, Ontario. There Northstar didn't just pick on their own employees. Hell no they shared their solvents including Trichloroethylene (TCE) with the whole Bishop St. community. From Bishop St. all the way down to the Grand River. Groundwater carried their waste TCE, TCA and more to be enjoyed by homeowners via fumes migrating into their basements. The Cambridge Advocate website recently carried a followup article describing the backyard sheds that are still dutifully pumping these fumes (TCE especially) from around basements in the Bishop St. area.

Here in Elmira we are told that Dioxins and DDT don't travel via groundwater. Apparently those compounds are hydrophobic (water fearing) and they adhere to soil particles. That said it is admitted that they flow just fine in solvents. Anybody know any community with overall higher concentrations of total solvents in their groundwater than here in Elmira, Ontario? Also while sorbed onto soil particles Dioxin and DDT flows just dandy in surface waters as suspended sediments. Suspended sediments eventually end up as deposited sediments. Hence they are deposited, suspended and resuspended ad infinitum the length of the Canagagigue Creek and into the Grand River. The fact that creek biota, sediments and fish are contaminated above all criteria and guidelines is an inconvenient truth to the braintrusts running this community. Never ever let facts and science over rule "common sense", gut feelings and political wisdom among high school educated (or less) politicians. Honest these six councillors know better than everybody else and when in doubt they simply defer to those with deep pockets.

Landfills: don't even get me started. First St. Landfill, M2 landfill, Bolender Landfill and Woolwich Landfill. Those are the "legal" landfills. There's been lots more dumping and disposal that never saw the light of day and never will be uncovered. That said there isn't much uncovering going on even with the known legal landfills. The Woolwich Landfill quietly came back on the radar three summers ago when the Region of Waterloo sent out notices to residents in the Sandy Hills area about low level contamination coming from the old Woolwich Landfill up on Seiling Drive. Meanwhile here in Elmira we are allegedly cleaning up the contaminated Elmira Aquifers in their entirety. How exactly is that supposed to work with ongoing leachate being produced and moving into the groundwater? Leachate by the way including chemicals from Uniroyal Chemical and Varnicolor Chemical that was deposited locally as well as farther away.

Oh hell let's just leave these problems to the next generation. We'll use the same old tired excuses. We didn't know any better. These were the historic practices of the day. We followed the laws and conventions that everybody else did. We thought it was O.K.. Those excuses were bullshit in the 50s, 60s and 70s and they're most certainly bullshit today.