OUR AUTHORITIES ARE STILL NOT LISTENING - RECORD EDITORIAL FROM MAY 8, 2012

 The Waterloo Region Record's Editorial was titled "Make Elmira's water safe again". Now it is more than a decade after that call to action and still nothing further has been done. It's like the movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray. Wells are pumping, water is allegedly being cleaned and discharged into the still polluted Canagagigue Creek and the Elmira Aquifers are not only still unsafe to drink but we don't even have a new projected date as to if and when they will be. The Record have even suggested that based upon experts they've listened to a child born in 1989, the year of the start of the Elmira Crisis, that "...it's doubtful this child would live long enough to ever be able to drink the water that lies in the ground beneath this town." I too have heard "experts" suggest that 2050, 2060 or even later may be the end date of this cleanup. We the citizens of Elmira and Woolwich have allowed our municipal authorities, our corporate apologists and our provincial Ministry of Environment to mismanage, lie and bullsh.t us for the last thirty-three years. The belated deadline we were finally given was 2028, a mere five years away. Good luck with that!

Of great interest is the Record's accurate understanding that Woolwich Council "...has now lost faith in that deal and broken ranks with the company and provincial Ministry of Environment (MOE)." That of course is part of the multi-lateral "sweetheart" deals signed between Uniroyal Chemical, Woolwich Township, the Region of Waterloo and the Ontario government (via the MOE). Our incompetent and pro business biased governments sold the farm and allowed Uniroyal Chemical to dictate the cleanup in exchange for a few million dollars in compensation to restore drinking water to Elmira via a pipeline from Waterloo. Since then MOE Control Orders have been "amended", rewritten and essentially either ignored or tossed on the garbage heap. "Cleanup" has been a sham of psuedo scientific bullsh.t written by bought and paid for consultants on behalf of Uniroyal, Crompton, Chemtura and Lanxess Canada. Our authorities sold us out for nickels on the dollar while both human beings and the environment have paid  the health price.