RAC & TAG ARE MERELY "CONTROLLED" OPPOSITION

Load these groups up with career bureaucrats and politicians as well as young professionals in the environmental field who want long and financially comfortable careers. This will ensure that nobody gets too far out of line and uses words or phrases like "conflict of interest", "self-serving",  "junk science" etc. Maintain tight control of these municipal council appointees. Feed the narrative that they are green and pro environment. Pretend that Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura/Lanxess are also green and pro environment when any idiot can see that the polluter and successors' goal is shareholder profits like most other corporations. You can never be too careful in the subtle art of lying to the masses.

Besides recent posts pointing out the failure to adequately pump and treat enough groundwater to restore Elmira's water to drinking water standards what else is going on? Well the Upper Aquifer Containment & Treatment System (UACTS) pumping and treating is also in the toilet. Along with that there is also the small matter of Yara pump & treat also being significantly decreased over the years. At one point I was falsely accused by the dynamic duo of holding up the then new ammonia treatment system. It was rubbish then and now as we see that without public discussion or debate both systems have been quietly slipping into irrelevance for years. 

The UACTS started out in the late 1990s pumping between 2 and 2.7 litres per second. It's purpose was to stop the discharge of grossly contaminated upper aquifer groundwater into the Canagagigue Creek on the Uniroyal Chemical site. Over the years the pumping and treating slowly decreased without public debate. In 2010 it was still normally at 1 - 1.3 litres per second. Same thing with the year 2014 when the old CPAC were still holding Chemtura's feet to the fire albeit Sandy and mark were listening to private lobbying from Chemtura. Lo and behold but the last four months of 2015 UACTS pump & treat were all below 1.0 l/sec after CPAC were removed by Mark and Sandy.

From the inception of RAC and TAG the UACTS has continued to decrease. 2019 was a big year as the litres per second of the most heavily contaminated groundwater on site was reduced to .6 to .9 l/sec by the end of the year. These lower rates continued throughout 2020 and were again reduced in 2021 all without PUBLIC discussion at either RAC or TAG. 2022 rates were again decreased down to .2 to .5  l/sec. 2023 pump & treat has continued these money saving rates for Lanxess at the expense of the Creek, the wildlife and downstream human beings. 

The Yara (Nutrite) removal of ammonia was hooked into the Uniroyal/Lanxess system in late 2008. By 2009 they were at .5 litres per second but by 2010 were as low as .3  l/sec. They were back up in 2011 to .6  l/sec and down again to .1 to .5  l/sec in 2012. From 2013 - 2018 they fluctuated between .1 and .4  l/sec without any PUBLIC explanation to CPAC, RAC or TAG. 2019-2022 has continued with the extremely low Yara pump & treat of ammonia contaminated groundwater. 2023 however has been a prizewinner with new low pumping rates of .02, .04 and .05 l/sec again with absolutely no PUBLIC discussion at RAC or TAG.

Now while I do not know how well the ammonia has been cleaned up at Yara I do know that the Upper Aquifer at Uniroyal/Lanxess is still grossly contaminated and is expected to remain so in perpetuity or at least for the next couple of centuries whichever comes first. Elmira citizens and UPC/CPAC were all advised that the Uniroyal site could never be cleaned up and that pump & treat was necessary forever. This ongoing decreasing of the pump & treat systems has NOT been agreed to by anyone PUBLICLY although I fully expect that all the guilty parties have done so a long time ago. If it smells like rotten fish then it's probably corruption.