MORE ON LAST TUESDAY'S WOOLWICH COUNCIL MEETING

Once again our esteemed psuedo mayor overstepped her authority and attempted to interrupt a registered Delegation in the middle of their presentation. Vivienne Delaney was speaking to the recent appointment to council of Julie-Anne Herteis and to the grossly flawed process involved. Sandy got upset but she interrupted the wrong speaker this time. Vivienne handled Sandy the same way she handled the former mayor when he too breached both manners and respectful behaviour. Of course Sandy then shut up, waited for Viv to finish and council to ask Vivienne zero questions and then she proceeded to "comment" suggesting that Vivienne was wrong. This is Woolwich Council's preferred "chickenshit" method of defusing strong or critical Delegates to Council. They don't have the courage to ask the Delegates for clarification or backup to their statements.


Following is a copy of my Delegation to Council last Tuesday. The second paragraph clearly shows the false infornation that gets into some consultants reports and how Woolwich Council and Staff embrace it if it suits their purposes.





March 6, 2018
RESPONSE TO WOOLWICH STAFF REPORT E12-2018 (Bolender Park Landfill)

On November 16, 2017 I sent a typed list of 40 questions to Woolwich Council & Staff as well as to the Ontario Ministry of Environment. These questions were detailed and specific and all related directly to the Bolender Park Landfill located approximately 1/3 of a mile from this building. I received your written responses to my questions early last week. I refer to “responses” in the plural as you did send me responses to a total of two of my 40 questions.
Staff answered question #32 somewhat differently than their consultant GHD has. Essentially Staff’s answer was that topography ie. surface elevations could affect the rate of release of methane upwards into the atmosphere. This is in relation to a small ditch which CRA/GHD had inaccurately described as 3 metres deep in their August 6, 2010 (pg.5) technical report. Last Thursday with the assistance of one of your colleagues I was able to prove that the ditch is closer to 1.5 metres deep, not 3 metres deep. Secondly both GHD and your Staff member have claimed that either flowing water or standing water in the ditch assisted in preventing the lateral or horizontal migration of methane eastwards towards the homes on High St.. Based upon both on-site physical evidence found by myself and pointed out to your colleague as well as eye witness testimony presented to us by the homeowner who has lived there since 1973 it can now be categorically stated that there is not and never has been water either flowing or sitting in the vast majority of this ditch. This is, in my opinion, a typical piece of misdirection and misrepresentation, in line with what I have seen over thirty years from this particular consultant. In regards to the local homeowner your council colleague as well as myself and several CPAC members have his name.
Due to my own research and reading I had opinions on some of the 40 questions I sent you. I felt that I should give Council and Staff the opportunity to express their positions and opinions on these serious questions before I made my final conclusions. Council and staff have now done so. Therefore as they chose not to respond to 38 of my serious , polite and relevant Bolender Park Landfill questions, I have decided to advise Council and the public of my answers and conclusions to just a few of them. By the way, for the record, I did not find the reasons given for answering only two of my questions, to be credible.
My questions #1 and #2 asked who designed and built the gas collection system in 1984. They were unanswered so my conclusion is that after Woolwich Council turned down a very reasonable bid from Daly Construction out of Cambridge, Woolwich Township staff then built the methane collection system. My Question #10 asked if nearby shallow groundwater levels were monitored prior to the installation of gas probes. As this question was unanswered my conclusion is that there was no monitoring of groundwater levels at all hence the gas probes were installed too deeply causing a permanent undermining of the integrity of the entire system as the probe openings intended to draw in methane gas were regularly submerged by groundwater.
My Question #35 asked Council to confirm that the gas collection system had not been removing methane from the subsurface since at least December 1986. As this question was unanswered my conclusion is that the answer is yes. First this would explain how it is possible for extremely high levels of methane gas to still be present nearly fifty years after this relatively small landfill was closed. Secondly Staff likely did not want to admit that they and their consultants have known for decades that the system was not working yet they decided to do very little about it other than hope for the best.
My question #40 asked if Council were willing to do test pit excavations as well as magnetometer ie. metal detector testing in Bolender Park to determine if local eyewitness testimony is correct in that garbage was buried within the park itself. The metal detectors would be looking for buried drums and the test pit excavations to confirm or deny if garbage producing methane does exist in the park and could threaten either the George St. homes or families and children in the park. As this question was unanswered my conclusion is that Council are not willing to do these inexpensive investigations to protect the public.
These are but a few of my unanswered questions and my conclusions thereof. I believe that I will in the future continue to attend Woolwich Council as a Delegate giving my conclusions to these questions on public interest matters in the Bolender Park Landfill and area. I am moved to do this in the interests of the public and due to the vacuum of valid information coming from you.
Thank You.
Alan Marshall with review and comments from a number of CPAC members