FREE GARBAGE DISPOSAL FOR 41 YEARS?

Well of course nothing in life is free. You pay one way or the other. Prior to the early 1960s Elmira had enjoyed the south-west corner of the current Chemtura/Lanxess site as the town dump. Currently this would be called the M2 area. Unsurprisingly both Chemtura and the Ont. M.O.E. have done their best to pretend that it doesn't exist. Garbage and refuse from residences, stores, shops and industries were deposited , burned and left in place. Eventually the odours were too much for local residents and the practice was stopped.

Keeping in mind that several Elmira Town Councilors over the years were also Uniroyal Chemical employees at the time and one begins to understand the tolerant attitude towards this polluting chemical industry. This could also be seen back around 2000 as the Chamber of Commerce and their Chair (a town councillor) decided to resign from the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC) apparently according to them because UPAC without Uniroyal attending just weren't doing the job. Funny how our current council did something similar over two years ago when Chemtura and the M.O.E. pulled up stakes and left CPAC in a huff. I will give a small amount of credit to David Ash of Uniroyal. He at least had the balls to publicly come right out and state what he was doing. Chemtura and the M.O.E. did not. They simply quit attending while saying nothing. They saved all their lying for private meetings with Council and others.

Amazing how the Town Council plus industry all viewed the Canagagigue Creek as nothing more than a sewer. Is it any wonder that Uniroyal felt for decades that they had a license to dispose of their toxic liquid wastes in the same fashion? Same thing occurred with human sewage in Elmira. A big tank along the creek for solids to settle and everything else ran into the creek. Classy.