I mean have they ever lied to the public before on environmental issues? What a silly question. Each and every major industrial case of groundwater contamination has been under reported, minimized and it's length of time for remediation necessary, intentionally understated. Then of course there are also the gross cases such as Breslube in Breslau, Canadian General Tower (CGT), Ciba-Geigy and Northstar Aerospace in Cambridge and Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira. In all of these cases the Region of Waterloo, as the governing body for water supply and quality, have misled the public horribly.
CGT has free phase TCE DNAPLS in the Bedrock beneath their site. It is possible that there is another source of this TCE (trichloroethylene) nearby as well. All of this results in huge water treatment costs from the Middleton Wellfield literally across the road from CGT. The Region are back attending the so called Technical Remediation Advisory Committee in Elmira who have no backbone to speak of and are entirely on the wrong cleanup track. The Region attends and says and does little about it. Regarding Breslube, two Regional wells were shut down decades ago due to contamination in the groundwater from Breslube migrating towards the nearby Grand River where the Region's two river wells (K70 & K71) were located. At least the Region shut them down but of course without pointing any fingers at the irresponsible party.
Northstar Aerospace was a gross case of vapour intrusion of TCE into homes in the Bishop St. community. Multiple generations suffered ill health and or died prematurely from this company plus another's negligence. The Region assisted in minimizing the crisis and covering up the extent of culpability of two companies and the Ontario Ministry of Environment. Beyond shameful!
After decades of bragging about their world class, wonderful groundwater expect a turnaround when they decide it's time to build a water pipeline to Lake Erie. Also don't expect honesty for the reason, namely industrial pollution. No it will likely be blamed upon road salt and Round-Up used by weed hating local residents
So now the Region have claimed in today's Woolwich Observer that their preferred By-Pass route in Elmira is the so called hybrid route up Union St. , through the former Home Hardware on Duke St. and joining up with Church St. (Hwy #86). From there it will go slightly east and then north up to Kenny Place where it will rejoin Arthur St. north (Hwy #85). Expect a bait and switch in the upcoming years as they and Woolwich, the MECP, Lanxess etc. all want to bury the illegal and embarassing decades long Uniroyal contamination of two active farms producing milk, beef, soybeans, corn and more for public consumption.
Long BEFORE the coverup of the chemical spills on the eastside of Elmira was exposed... there were/are a few "special" persons-businesses on the north end of ELMIRA who really really wanted a nice Elmira Bypass so their investments at the North end would be more viable and improve tremendously in value. Its akin to turning a basement apt into a penthouse without doing anything or without paying for it! Its a really good bureaucratic and political power scam and it appears that it is "legal" and the cost and expense of this "planning" scam/sham will be at all average taxpayer and commuter expense and inconvenience. The scammers do not even have to show up at public meetings because they have people in place at every level who do all the really dirty work both for and against the actual agenda. It is DISGUSTING!
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