MORE "MANAGEMENT" OF CONTAMINATED SITES IN GUELPH & WATERLOO REGION

In Sarnia they refer to it as the "chemical valley". Mr. John Jackson of Kitchener, decades ago, referred to Elmira's "mini chemical valley". This included Union St. and the many chemical companies on it such as Uniroyal Chemical, Nutrite, Sulco, and Varnicolor Chemical. The point in both instances was to group all the offenders together ostensibly as part of the planning process to keep residential homes far away. Of course that didn't work in Elmira and to this day developers continue to lobby Woolwich Township trying to build low income housing right across from both Sulco (CCC) and the former Uniroyal (Lanxess).

The real advantage to polluters of course is being able to hide under the umbrella of multiple local polluters. Especially in Elmira it was so easy for Varnicolor to blame the neighbours for odours and other unpleasant problems. Well the more I look the more I learn about the sordid pollution history of this area in and around York Rd. and Victoria Rd. in Guelph. The list of industrial companies who may have taken environmental shortcuts, possibly legal, possibly not, is extensive. Fibreglass Canada, Guelph Stove Works, Imperial Oil, Chemtura Canada, Biltmore Hats, Owens Corning, Hart, Huntsman, IMICO, plus three very handy and local landfills for these companies to dump their chemical wastes in alongside the Eramosa River. Once again residences are sprinkled throughout this heavily industrialized area. This is an excellent way for polluters to muddy the waters. Just point to every nearby other potential polluter and blame them.

Once of course you have been formally fingered as a culprit, the gamesmanship really begins. Scoping is a favourite. This is almost the opposite of polluters grouping together but of course is incorporated defensively without so much as a blush by polluters and their consultants. The consultant undertakes to study the soils and aquifers (groundwater) on their clients site. Of course they only have legal permission to dig, drill and test within the property boundaries of their client. Hence they are very careful not to only test on their own property but even the maps they produce would make you think that the world is flat and literally ends at their property borders. In Elmira Uniroyal produced maps showing groundwater contaminant plume maps that had extensive exceedances of multiple chemicals that magically ended at their borders. While the drinking wells to the south had been shut down and everyone knew they were at least a major contributor, you should have seen the gamesmanship on the east side of their site. No way were they going to admit that their liquid wastes had actually flowed from their waste pits located right beside their eastern property line, over that line onto the farmer's fields. There were rumours for decades about annual Christmas trips to that farmer with an envelope containing either cash or a cheque.

Meanwhile back in Guelph I have noticed something similar. The maps produced on behalf of IMICO (i.e. City of Guelph) are also a tad deceptive. Again it appears as if the world ends at their border with Beverley St. Then, bizarrely in hindsight, the maps with the Supplemental Soil Vapor Investigation (again on behalf of the City of Guelph) is for the properties south of York Rd. (i.e. Hayes, Kingsmill, Menzie, Audrey, Lawrence & Victoria Rd.) and they appear to start and stop at York Rd. In other words there is nothing to the north. Well guess what. If one can locate a much more comprehensive map one realizes two things. Firstly there are homes on Smith Ave., Hayes, Kingsmill and Audrey St. NORTH of York Rd. as those streets go right up to Beverley St. Secondly if there are exceedances of toxic soil vapours south of York Rd. then sure as hell there are exceedances at the above mentioned streets north of York Rd. and even closer to the former IMICO site. Possibly a pretty smooth move especially if there has not been any soil vapour testing done there. That's what I would call scoping.

Lastly do not forget that there are a few residential homes on both Beverley St. and on Stevenson St. Has any testing of soil, groundwater or soil vapours been done on their properties and if not, why not? As long as our governments and regulatory agencies are willing to play ball, there are a thousand ways to minimize and reduce the proper cleanup and remediate damage done to third parties by toxic pollution. It really is all about who has the money and the power and finally who is in charge of the cleanup and of the so called "enforcement" of our environmental laws. It has become a very cliquish, insular and self-serving cabal in my opinion.