WHY MONTHLY TAG MEETINGS ARE REQUIRED

The last time TAG (Technical Advisory Group) met was in December 2017. They meet this Thursday at 6:30 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers. Prior to December TAG hadn't met in five months ie. since July 2017. RAC meets a week from this Thursday. As bad as quarterly meetings per year are they aren't even on track for that. The last "quarterly" meeting was six months ago. Shame on you Sandy and Mark for all of this.

I will be posting a little bit today about the monthly Lanxess Progress Report for January 2018. The lack of off-site pumping is one item that should be discussed, debated and finally hammered over Lanxess's head each and every month. Other unresolved items are as follows. Table A.1 makes it clear that DNAPLS are located in the vicinity of new off-site pumping well W8. This well is just on the east side of Union St. here in Elmira, beside the former Nutrite/Yara facility. The good news is that the high concentrations of contaminants prove that this well and its' location are required. NDMA has two readings both at astronomical concentrations namely 170 and 210 parts per billion. The drinking water standard is .009 parts per billion. Chlorobenzene is also at an amazing 3100 and 3200 parts per billion (ppb). The drinking water standard is 80 ppb.

Even worse these concentrations of chlorobenzene guarantee that there is off-site free phase DNAPL (dense non-aqueous phase liquids) nearby in the sub-surface. While this is slightly less than the criteria for DNAPLS of 1% of the lab solubility of chlorobenzene; Elmira's groundwater is not pristine. Effective solubilities are what counts not lab solubilities.

Table A.5 shows us the concentrations of various chemicals in the vicinity of the Upper Aquifer Containment wells in the south-west corner of the site. Chlorobenzene is only at 1600 ppb.. Aniline is at 2,200 ppb and Toluene is at a staggering 7,000 and 10,000 ppb. This is an indication of the still present free phase LNAPL (light non-aqueous phase liquid) floating on the water table on site. Twenty-three years after its' discovery and they still haven't gotten rid of it. NDMA is as high as 9.7 ppb..

Table C.2 is both a revelation as well as a shock. I've been watching the difference between upstream and downstream contaminant levels in the Canagagigue Creek as it flows through the former Uniroyal site, for decades. The number of contaminants which increase in concentration in the creek as it passes through the site has been decreasing for a very long time. Suddenly the Arithmetic Mean of concentrations downstream is higher for seven different toxic chemicals than it is upstream. These chemicals are mercaptobenzothiazole, Benzothiazole, NDMA, nitrosomorpholine, chlorobenzene, Toluene and m,p xylenes. Granted the upstream Arithmetic Mean isn't much lower than the downstream but the point is this is a major reversal presumably based upon recent readings which doesn't appear to make much sense over the course of 37 samples being taken. what the hell has happened or is going on? This as well is why there needs to be monthly TAG meetings just as there were monthly CPAC and UPAC meetings for decades.