HAS ANYTHING CHANGED ENVIRONMENTALLY?

The question in the above title is asked due to a story in today's Waterloo Region Record titled "Ministry monitoring plastic pellets in river". I will grant you that tiny either plastic pellets or "resin pellets" certainly don't appear at first glance to be acutely toxic such as oil, gasoline, diesel or solvents spilled or dumped into our rivers and streams. Nevertheless they are a major pollution problem for several reasons including that fish, ducks and other wildlife consume them thinking they are perhaps fish eggs or other forms of food. Also according to this story the plastic pellets "...can absorb and concentrate toxins".

My question is based upon two things. Firstly it wasn't the Ontario Ministry of Environment who discovered large quantities of plastic pellets in the Eramosa River. It was a citizen in a kayak who contacted them last September. Secondly these "spills" of plastic pellets into the river had been going on for years undetected allegedly by either the company involved (PDI) or the Ontario MOECC.

Reports have been produced by a consulting firm hired by PDI. The Ministry are in control of these reports and we the public have no way to assess their thoroughness. This is a big deal. The MOE have been underfunded for decades by the provincial government. One simple result is that they aren't out looking for problems. They've got enough already on their plates. Secondly they've got backlogs both in their labs as well as with technical reports requiring either professional hydrogeologists, hydrologists or biologists to read and assess. Fortunately as has been proven a thousand times over here in Elmira; there are lay citizens with the knowledge and experience who can also do this work. While I always enjoyed and learned from reading the final reports of professionals in the field it was absolutely routine for myself and others on CPAC to have come to similar conclusions first in our reading of technical reports. As I've long said hydrogeology is not rocket science no matter how much polluters and other self-serving individuals pretend it is.