WHY WAS VARNICOLOR CHEMICAL EVER REMEDIATED?

At the time for us neophytes it was an obvious appropriate action. The site was grossly polluted in both the groundwater and the soils. Why wouldn't you clean up the site? Well just travel down the road a few hundred metres to the Uniroyal Chemical (now Lanxess) site. That site to this day has grossly contaminated soils and groundwater yet it's been an ongoing battle for thirty years to get them to clean up DNAPLS (free phase & residual), LNAPLS, Dioxins, DDT and various solvents, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. The excuse/reason is that Uniroyal allegedly is contained. The Ontario M.O.E. claim that the site is hydraulically contained. It is not. They preemptively wrote an Amended Control Order in June 2001 allowing some groundwater contamination to leave the site, allegedly to enhance or "optimize" the hydraulic clean up of the off-site aquifers. It was total and complete bullshit and "Optimization" was never formally accepted by CPAC. Privately of course behind CPAC's back, perhaps Pat Mclean and Susan exercised their influence with the Ministry of Environment and sold out CPAC and Woolwich residents and gave the M.O.E. their consent. If so look where we are today. The 2028 clean up is now acknowledged by all parties, honest and dishonest, to be highly unlikely to occur. So much for giving Uniroyal and CRA everything they ask for. Arseholes!

So apparently clean up of a contaminated site only is mandatory if the contaminants have or are migrating off-site. We were told by the M.O.E. that Varnicolor's contamination had neither travelled deep into the municipal aquifer or laterally off-site onto neighbour's properties. We were knowingly lied to by the M.O.E.. We now know otherwise. Varnicolor were only remediated precisely because their contamination had spread far and wide. Laterally it spread to their neighbours Motiveair, Elmira Theatre Company and possibly Calla Studios. Both soil excavations and an extended groundwater collection system were installed in Motiveair's backyard on the other side of the fence from the Varnicolor site. This I described in more detail in my December 1 and 2, 2014 posts here in the Elmira Advocate. We learned about deeper groundwater contamination into the Municipal Upper Aquifer in May 2016. I posted about this here in the Advocate on May 20, 2016 after seeing the risk assessment done by Peritus Environmental. The K-W Record (Paige Desmond) also published a story about this public meeting on the same date. Following this was a public meeting in Council Chambers to discuss the new owners plans and hopes to develop part of their property for commercial storage buildings. To date Elmira Pump have stated that they are still waiting for the final draft of the Risk Assessment from their hydrogeological consultants.

The takeaway from all this is quite straightforward. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment believe that they have permission from above (Ontario government) to lie, deceive and disrespect Ontario citizens at will. At the same time the disgusting hypocrites demand "respect" from the very same citizens that they hold in such contempt.