THIRTY YEARS LATER AND BOTH THE SITE & THE ELMIRA AQUIFERS ARE STILL A MESS

This posting is in regards to the just received October 2019 Lanxess Progress Report. Both on and off site pumping are in the crapper. Neither on-site pumping wells, PW4 or PW5, made their Target Average pumping rates for the month. Three Off-Site pumping wells including E7 at the south end of Elmira achieved their Target Average and five did not. The monthly average total pumping rate is the second lowest so far in 2019 and just barely exceeds the average pumping rates seven years ago (Nov. 2012) when Chemtura and CRA advised CPAC that they needed to triple the pumping rates to achieve the 2028 deadline. Fat chance now of that happening.

Off-Site chlorobenzene and NDMA at pumping well W8 (Yara/Nutrite) are through the roof with 6000 parts per billion chlorobenzene and 13.25 ppb of NDMA. The drinking water standards are 80 and .009 respectively! At pumping well W9 chlorobenzene is low wheras NDMA is at 28.53 ppb. Meanwhile the pumping rates of both these wells are in the crapper. Good news though, the litany of excuses presented each month are changing.

Table D.1 indicates that unsurprisingly there is still DNAPL on site in well known and expected locations (OW83 & RPW-7) despite long standing false claims by Uniroyal/Lanxess and their consultants that it is not present. Concentrations of chlorobenzene are in excess of the 1% solubility rule despite interference from all the other dissolved contaminants in the groundwater.

Table C.2 continues to confound as the upstream Canagagigue Creek has an Arithmetic Mean of contaminant concentrations higher than the downstream Arithmetic Mean. Either they are magically reducing on-site discharges (unlikely with low pumping rates) or the upstream sources including Bolender Park Landfill are flowing like mad into the creek. The other possibility is that GHD have simply mislabelled the columns by putting SS-110 data into the SS +925 column. That wouldn't surprise me terribly.

All in all this is the result of thirty years of the tail wagging the dog while going through the motions of public consultation.