WELL DONE WATERLOO REGION RECORD - FRONT PAGE STORY ON THE ELMIRA WATER FAILURE

Reporter Leah Gerber and the Waterloo Region Record have stepped up and informed the public that the much vaunted and bragged about Elmira cleanup isn't working. Wow! Where is the local newspaper, The Woolwich Observer, in all this? They are MIA, over and over again. Their presence has been desperately needed during the last five plus years since TAG & RAC began in September 2015 and most dramatically since the other local newspaper closed their doors in July 2015. The Independent had consistently covered UPAC (Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee) and CPAC (Chemtura Public advisory Committees) for decades. With their closing the Observer had the opportunity to single handedly cover this ground breaking environmental drama. It seems clear that Uniroyal/Chemtura and friends had other plans. I expect that eventually that story will come out. .......................................................................................................... The biggest story that the public has never heard was the Dr. Richard Jackson story. He was the first TAG Chair from September 2015 until the end of December 2016 when he resigned. New and inexperienced TAG members were not willing to go to the wall with him and demand better through the media when it became clear that the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Woolwich Township, Chemtura, and Conestoga Rovers were perfectly satisfied with the go slow, status quo, inadequate cleanup methods that had been ongoing since January 1992. Dr. Jackson publicly pummelled Chemtura, their consultants (CRA), and the Ministry of Environment over and over again for their past and present technical cleanup failures. And other than this Blog there was no one publicly recording those glorious months. .................................................................................................................... Leah Gerber has done a wonderful job despite only talking to Lanxess personnel and the current TAG Chair, Tiffany Svensson. Unfortunately after giving Ms. Svensson more than three and a half years to do the right thing, she finally revealed her true colours this past spring and summer. It was agonizingly difficult to understand that she was part and parcel of the problem as she made a private deal with Lanxess outside of the public TAG meetings that would remove the last chance for a real investigation of the Stroh (& Martin) farms for Uniroyal Chemical contamination that gravity flowed to them. TAG and CPAC (Citizens Public Advisory Committee) member Dr. Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach will be pushing for an honest investigation at the upcoming public (i.e. virtual) TAG meeting on November 26, 2020 at 6:30 pm. Some of us believe that Covid-19 concerns while deadly serious nevertheless are being used to greatly diminish public input and consultation via no live citizens being present at these meetings and virtual admittance controlled by Woolwich Township. ................................................................................................................ A couple of minor corrections are needed in today's Record story. The concentration of NDMA in Elmira's groundwater in 1989 was not 1,200 to 2,900 parts per trillion (ppt). It was closer to 1,200 to 2,900 parts per billion (ppb) which is 1,000 times higher. Secondly the discriptions of the membership of TAG and RAC were inaccurate. TAG are not a group of experts. There is one hydrogeologist and two other "experts" in different fields with other honest and intelligent citizens. RAC are not everyday citizens, they are made up of bureaucrats and government employees from the GRCA, RMOW, Woolwich Township, Ministry of Environment, Lanxess and GHD (consultants). It is still an excellent article and thank you Leah Gerber and the Waterloo Region Record.