SO A PUBLIC MEETING NEXT THURSDAY (Nov. 7/24) AT THE WOOLWICH COMMUNITY CENTRE. WILL IT BE A DOG & PONY SHOW?

 I first heard that expression years ago from a friend who attends various Financial presentations in which groups are trying to flog their particular financial products to the public. My weak recollection is that they make their money not so much on the financial appreciation of their products in the market place as much as on commission for each new investor they bring into the fold.

When it comes to Elmira environmental Dog & Pony shows our polluters and their protective authorities (politicians & bureaucrats)  are hard nosed experts. They produce some incredibly resourceful theories and ideas sometimes bordering on the edge of junk science and sometimes sailing miles past those borders. The ongoing RAC, TAG and now TRAC meetings are fine examples. They have talked about irrelevant asymptotic behaviour that simply does not apply,  they have denied Dr. Neil Thompson's (U. of Waterloo) chlorobenzene findings years afterwards (not at the time), and sold major reductions in both on-site and off-site pumping (i.e. hydraulic containment) that have more than guaranteed their failure to achieve the 2028 deadline.

Watch carefully as to how Woolwich and the Region of Waterloo carefully control the microphone. Watch as they pick and choose their own stooges to speak first, longest and most often. Watch them use Susan Bryant to commend the process around the plan to use the east side. She has been their tacit not explicit cheerleader for a very long time and continues to do so. All she wants is the hint of a small bone (token) from Lanxess that they will at least do some minor/tiny cleanup downstream in the Canagagigue so she can claim victory in her decades long efforts. After all neither she nor anybody intelligent can claim victory in the alleged cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers. The latest date being bandied about is 2060 which more than guarantees the expiry of each and every Elmira citizen who spoke up way back in the late 80s and early 90s. 

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