K-W RECORD ADVISES THAT "MENNONITES COULD BE AT RISK FROM CREEK"

Please! "...could be at risk...". That would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Generations of Old Order Mennonites living along the creek have been seriously impacted by chemicals they've inhaled, ingested and even with skin contact with soils and sediments in the bottom of the Canagagigue Creek. The local polluter variously named Uniroyal Chemical, Crompton, Chemtura and now Lanxess Canada have been fully supported by all levels of government in avoiding the appropriate consequences of their intentional and knowing negligence causing disease and death to their neighbours. It has taken fifty to over a hundred years for the negligence and neglect that caused the loss of young lives in residential schools to cause an outcry and outrage from the public. Lanxess and friends, especially political ones, will eventually get their just rewards. ................................................................................................................................ Today's article by Leah Gerber serves the public interest. It advises which chemicals currently are still present despite the stoppage of on-site dumping fifty years ago. The problem chemicals are appropriately known as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and include dioxins/furans and DDT. Yes these do bioaccumulate and have longterm health effects on both humans and wildlife. Unfortunately however what the article does not tell the public is that the process is completely under the control of all the guilty parties. They are going through the motions to pretend to be "fixing" things. In fact since day one (November 1989) of the Elmira Water Crisis it's been all about minimizing the truth and the facts of the severity and extent of contamination and most importantly minimizing the cleanup costs to the polluter. ........................................................................................................................ The Old Order Mennonites along the creek have been sufferring the ill effects from pollution since the very late 1940s. With the ending of on-site toxic waste disposal around 1970, the more obvious, visble and odourous effects have been lessened. Then in 1997 hydraulic containment of Uniroyal's south-west creekbank also significantly lessened groundwater discharge of chlorophenols, solvents and other noxious liquid wastes into the creek. In one sense those improvements may have led to greater exposures as the downstream residents noticed that the creek looked and smelled better not knowing that the POPs had not been removed and indeed would not be removed for decades longer if at all. ....................................................................................................................................... This "cleanup" has been a sham from the beginning. A few co-opted and self-serving citizens combined with the majority of self-serving politicians have allowed, in my opinion, these corporations to get away with murder. Shame on them all.