TWO ENVIRONMENTAL FIELD TRIPS YESTERDAY

The first one was to the north end of Bolender Park where Aardvark drilling were installing a well, a methane monitoring well that is. I had a good chat with some of the staff there and had confirmed that not only were high groundwater levels an issue over the years because they flooded the gas probes but even with this new monitoring well the high groundwater levels were a problem. Of major interest to me is that Woolwich staff and council while denying any of my suggestions were needed now seem to be doing them. Until now there were never any methane probes on the south side of the Bolender Park Landfill which was simply ridiculous.

The second field trip was to the east side of the Lanxess (Uniroyal ) property. From the cemetery on the south side of Church Street on the way out of town (towards Guelph) one can see the beginning of the shallow and superficial cleanup of the next door farm, the Stroh farm. Of course when I and CPAC advised Chemtura Canada and the MOE that the Stroh farm was contaminated by Uniroyal Chemical toxic wastes we could get absolutely zero support from those two parties. Four years later while the cleanup so far is superficial it is a start. Dioxins/furans, DDT and NDMA have been found in the shallow subsurface well above all criteria. Of course if they had tested deeper they would likely have found more contamination. Similarly if they'd tested for more contaminants they'd likely have found more. The investigation of both the Stroh and Martin farms have as yet not been remotely satisfactory but we continue to hope and push as we've been doing for decades.