PROGNOSTICATIONS FOR 2019-2020

Both Lanxess Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation & Parks (MECP), disaffectionately known as MOE would like to wrap things up here in Elmira within the next couple of years. Yes they most likely will have to extend their hoped for minimal Canagagigue Creek "cleanup" into the 2021 warm weather season however this year they are probably hoping to have at least the overall scope and all the issues and locations (areas of concern) identified. All of that is complicated via Sandy Shantz's manipulation of public consultation. Lanxess have been put into a difficult position with the severity and lengths to which Woolwich Township went to satisfy both Chemtura and the MOE's crying about the last CPAC or Chemtura Public Advisory Committee.

They claim that CPAC were mean to them. CPAC did not afford them the respect and deference they felt their money, paid for experts and status demanded. So Sandy went overboard to the point that other than her personally appointed friends and colleagues, nobody else is allowed to say a peep at the public TAG meetings if you can believe it. No Delegations, no questions and no comments. That makes a joke of so called public consultation and even Lanxess are now seeing that that is counter-productive. They just know that at some point they are going to have to defend their including all stakeholders and all citizens in the Risk Assessment process surrounding the Canagagigue Creek and they haven'y got a leg to stand on.

At the same time Lanxess, the MOE, and Woolwich Township are scared ........ that all their past chickens are going to come home to roost. Sure the idea was to stop the flow of dioxins/furans, DDT and more from the old Uniroyal site into the creek. Significant efforts were made on site back in 2005 and 2006. Regardless those Persistent Organic Pollutants continue to discharge into the creek and are found in the fish, the creek sediments and the creekbank and floodplain soils all the way down to the Grand River. Perhaps they are found even further down the Grand although careful and selective sampling (i.e. zero sampling) has to date not confirmed that. But what about the old municipal landfills in Elmira along the banks of the Canagagigue? The Bolender Landfill, the M2 landfill and the First St. Landfill are all old municipal landfills which all cheerfully accepted industrial wastes from Uniroyal Chemical, Varnicolor Chemical, Borg Textiles and every other industrial manufacturers nearby. Those have all been leaking for decades and maybe the three guilty parties (Township, province & polluter) hope that the bulk of the contaminants are all gone before testing ever happens.

Meanwhile tonite in Woolwich Council Chambers Item 4 on the Agenda relates to one of the likely paths for Uniroyal Chemical's contaminated waste waters to have flowed over onto the Stroh property to the east. That area has become known as the "Gap" because of CRA, GHD, Chemtura, Lanxess and the MOE's successful efforts to date to avoid properly testing it. Perhaps if TAG, CPAC and the public began referring to the area as the "coverup" it might better get the message across. I expect some lively discussion and debate this evening both from TAG members as well as likely afterwards between myself and Ramin of Lanxess. Credit goes to Ramin as he appears to have grasped both the necessity and the opportunity to broaden discussions beyond council appointed citizens to decades long stakeholders and environmental activists unpopular with Sandy.