So our authorities agreed to a Risk Assessment. What better assessment of future risk than to look at the health outcomes of the past? I mean after all there has been zero downstream cleanup to date yet the excessive concentrations of DDT, dioxins/furans etc. are still in the Creek soils and sediments. There have to be government health records if the downstream residents have accessed OHIP doctors and hospitals over the last fifty to seventy-five years. How many still births? How many miscarriages? How many deformed or mal formed babies missing limbs etc? How many cancers? How much diabetes? How many health outcomes common to DDT and dioxin/furan poisonings?
Conflicts of interests are rampant in Woolwich Township. People who have directly benefited from Uniroyal and successors largesse are in decision making positions. This is especially true on the TAG committee in that young environmental professionals are sitting on it and they know where their bread is buttered. They are not going to rock either the Min. of Environment's (MECP) boat nor Lanxess's and GHD's.
Money. The guilty parties have it in spades and the local citizens do not. Also local citizens generally are very intimidated by libel laws. This is intentional. It helps to muzzle them which is the main reason that we have Libel laws. It certainly isn't to prevent false accusations it is to prevent accurate allegations of wrong doing. Money also buys publicity whether in newspapers or radio.
Corrupt politicians have been around forever. They sell their souls and then spend their lives denying it. They long ago learned to make their worst decisions out of the public light. Private discussions with other politicians whether strictly following the laws surrounding private conversations or not are the rule not the exception.
Captured regulators means the MECP. Here in Elmira it's all about the "sweetheart " deal they signed with Uniroyal back in October 1991 in order to shut down the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) in mid stream. This was done immediately before the MECP were to take the stand. It saved the MECP from publicly confirming private deals and negotiations with Uniroyal over the decades allowing the dumping of toxic wastes onto the lands and into the Creek. The MECP sold the farm in order to shut down the EAB and avoid public humilation and worse.
The print media have been under attack for decades. Economically they have been whittled down to a tiny fraction of what they were. They too have to be very careful of nasty polluters and friends with deep pockets who believe in the use of SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Of course our courts have no high ground to stand on in this intentional and perverse obliteration of the rights of the public. Also the media in general are far less likely to attack even the worst of corporate sinners for fear that those corporations could ened up owning their employers. Media conglomeration continues and is no joke.
The record of success (minimal polluter cleanups) is on the upswing. Polluters are discussing and negotiating their way around charges and courts when that is where they belong as the dirty polluters they are. They are criminals and until they are treated as such they will proliferate.
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