Well everybody are mostly being quite polite albeit pretty slow. To date I've seen one tiny correction that really wasn't even my direct complaint in the first place. That had to do with .009 millionths of a gram per litre of water. Also I've dropped two of my complaints including the one advising the reporter and the Record that 36 years of discussion around concentrations of contaminants have used the following units of measure namely parts per trillion (ppt), parts per billion (ppb), parts per million (ppm) as well as ng/l, ug/l and mg/l versus millionths of a gram per litre of water. The second complaint I've dropped is the one indicating that there are eleven on-site pumping wells. This complaint was based upon three on-site deep Municipal Aquifer pumping wells (PW3, PW4, PW5) in addition to eleven shallow (UA) pumping wells. Now in hindsight I recall that the polluter/company have been constantly changing the number of on-site pumping wells as in reducing the numbers such that both the shallow (UA) and the deeper (MU) wells may actually be down to eleven now in total.
Why is my formal complaint to both the Waterloo Region Record and the National NewsMedia Council important? Over the last 36 years the responsible polluting corporation instead of properly cleaning up Elmira, their own property and the Canagagigue Creek; the various owners of the site (Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura/Lanxess) have focused on changing the narrative. They have focused on solidifying support both within and without the community. They have lobbied three levels of governance and politicians into believing that the damage done by Uniroyal Chemical and still continuing really isn't that bad. They have minimized and covered up the health and environmental damages that they have caused partially by buying allegedly scientific reports that suit their narrative not the truth. One local referred to this as "Adjusting the science according to your needs".
Our media have also fallen into this trap. Basically when the polluter is surrounded by fellow travellors and political friends at all levels it becomes difficult for the media not to slide into the narrative woven by the polluter. One of the most contemptible narratives is that one citizen (American no less) has singlehandedly fought a courageous battle against Uniroyal and successors. Nothing could be further from the truth. She has been "controlled opposition" almost from the beginning. She and her two sidekicks (Sylvia & Pat) have played the game along with Uniroyal and friends. She yells loudly about the Creek and then trades away major environmental concessions to the companies in order to advance her sole concern being the Creek. These concessions are as relatively minor as lowered monitoring requirements and as major as falsely conceding the removal of DNAPLS (dense non aqueous phase liquids) from discussion and contention. The irony is that after 36 years nothing downstream all the way to the Grand River has been cleaned or remediated. If it ever happens and she has recently expressed doubt about that, it will be at most a token "hot spot" or two.
I do praise the Record for the time, effort and space that they allocated for their November 15/25 article titled "The long cleanup of Elmira's water contamination crisis". That said after my 36 years of study, research, hard work and real opposition from all the players involved including backstabbing from Susan, do I not have the right to ask the media at least to get the story accurate?
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