THE CREEK CLEANUP: THE USUAL CORRUPT PROCESS OR ARE THEY SIMPLY CHEAP?

The road ahead means going back to the past. Last Thursday TAG (Technical Advisory Group) members spoke clearly about source removal of DDT & Dioxin on the Lanxess property. The studies of the sediments and soils in and around the creek over the last six years have proven that DDT and its' metabolytes (DDD & DDE) along with Dioxins/Furans are still entering the Canagagigue Creek in Elmira, Ontario. With "normal" spring floods combined with more severe rainstorms throughout the year it has become even more obvious that these toxic chemicals are being "refreshed" on an ongoing basis. The scouring of the sediments in the bottom of the creek by the incredible hydraulic forces involved in a flood, transport soils, sands and gravel downstream along with the hydrophobic compounds attached to them.

There is but one ultimate source of these and so many other compounds and that is the former Uniroyal Chemical site now known as Lanxess. There have been attempts in the past to remediate/remove source areas along the creek on the Lanxess property. These occurred in the very early 2000s and culminated in 2005-2006 with the removal of part of a small island beside Uniroyal's south-west corner. Clearly the job is far from done. There are many other locations on the Lanxess property that citizen scientists as well as honest professionals have researched and found to be grossly contaminated. They were ignored by the good folks in charge of the clean up. That would be the Ministry of Errors and Corporate Collusion (MOECC) and their client Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura and now Lanxess.

There are also source zones off the Lanxess property which Lanxess/GHD/MOECC are doing their best to ignore. CPAC (Citizens Public Advisory Committee) took it to them in 2014 with both we citizen scientists as well as professionals in the field agreeing that a proper investigation was required on the Stroh property in and around the Stroh Drain. The partners in pollution did their best pretend investigation of the East Side from 2015-2018. They studiously and repeatedly avoided sampling where they were most likely to find problems. They studiously avoided consulting with the citizen scientists and professionals on CPAC who did the initial research and pointed MTE Consulting in the right direction. They are doing their usual end run around the facts and around the truth. This folks is corruption plain and simple and they are being protected by the MOECC. Local politicians are also running interference for them as usual.