Are the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MECP) coming clean as per their comments posted here yesterday? Or as was suggested a couple of decades ago was a certain, obstrepterous old man who greatly reversed his environmental position having a stroke? We hope not. The Ministry (MECP) are hinting that all the NDMA in the Elmira Aquifers primarily came from the Uniroyal Chemical east and west side pits prior to 1970 but after that they aren't so sure as to how much beneath the pits was contributing to the NDMA in the Elmira Municipal Aquifers. Holy Crap!
Is it possible that Varnicolor Chemical took up the slack otherwise known now as the NDMA "deficit" and were responsible for most of it from 1970 onwards? Up until now the debate was whether Varnicolor Chemical were a significant contributor of NDMA to the Elmira drinking water aquifers. If this proves to be true, and yes there is lots of evidence of NDMA being generated at the Varnicolor site, then this will stand the Elmira Water Crisis on its head.
There certainly has been a known chlorobenzene "deficit" for a number of years. It was discovered by a U. of Waterloo hydrogeologist and professor who authored the Conceptual Site Model (CSM) document. My recollection (perhaps foggy) was that something like 1200 kg. or more of chlorobenzene was mathematically determined to be present in the Elmira Municipal Aquifers than calculated from purchase orders and production useage. My suspicion has been either Borg Textiles or possibly Varnicolor despite a supposed lack of chlorobenzene found in Varnicolor's shallow groundwater. Borg and Varnicolor are downgradient from Uniroyal Chemical but located upgradient from the south wellfield. Hence they are in the middle of the plume coming from Uniroyal. Or are they? It now looks as if they may be the authors themselves of much of the chlorobenzene and NDMA contamination first "discovered" in November 1989.
No comments:
Post a Comment