BOTH COMMUNICATIONS & JUNK SCIENCE CLARIFICATIONS

 The communications clarification between Woolwich Township and CPAC (Citizens Public Advisory Committee) is the simplest. It turns out that the Woolwich employee in charge of setting up the meeting is on vacation. Neither she nor anyone else advised the Chair of CPAC about that impending absence ahead of time leaving the CPAC Chair wondering why she was ghosting him.

Way back in the 1990s the Region of Waterloo's consultants, CH2MHILL, advised that during the DNAPL investigations that Conestoga Rovers (CRA), on behalf of Uniroyal Chemical were taking soil samples from inappropriate locations while they were allegedly searching for DNAPL (Dense Non Aqueous Phase Liquids) in the subsurface.  As DNAPL have densities greater than 1 they tend to slowly sink through soil pore spaces  and as well through water saturated soils. Hence CRA should have been looking for DNAPLS on top of dense, clay and silt aquitards rather than in the middle of highly porous aquifers.

Now the chickens come home to roost with the lack of strong and serious debate about two more favourite tricks of dishonest, dirty polluters. These occurred both during some of the Canagagigue Creek soil and sediment investigations as well as during fish tissue sampling also looking for dioxins, DDT, mercury, PCBs and more. The first was courtesy of CRA/GHD and the second courtesy of the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MECP). Nice when the regulator itself is so firmly in bed with the polluter. 

Core sampling of the bottom of a creek or river is the way to take sediment samples. The core sampler is a metal tube which is pushed downwards through the sediments on the bottom of the waterway. Now of course all GHD have to do is go out and look for parts of the Creek that are "armoured" as in they have a stony bottom versus softer sediments. Then GHD whine that the core samplers won't penetrate the "armour" so they have to use shovels instead. Then of course the fine sediments flow off the shovel as the shovel is lifted up through the water column. These fine sediments are where the majority of the toxic chemicals are bonded to rather than to the stones and rocks.

Another bit of gamesmanship is for the MECP to take fish tissue samples from the least likely areas of the fish to accumulate toxins. That would be lean dorsal fillets versus from fatty areas of the fish. Even internal organs such as the liver would greatly enhance the concentration readings of DDT, dioxins, PCBs, mercury etc. With Tissue Residue Guidelines (TRG) having a hard number, just like the sediment sampling gamesmanship, here the MECP can further assist their corporate clients against both citizens and wildlife trying to survive in and around the Creek.

How many more lies, deceptions and manipulations that we don't know about have been used to minimize the numerical extent of pollution in the Canagagigue Creek as well as the Elmira Aquifers ?