Recently (yesterday?) I mentioned Woolwich's Double Whammy against citizens of Waterloo Region. While Waterloo and Cambridge are no slouches in the industrial pollution department I believe that little Woolwich Township is the double prize winner as in # 1 for worst polluted site i.e. Uniroyal/Lanxess in Elmira and they are also # 2 i.e. Safety-Kleen in Breslau. Now do keep in mind that while Safety-Kleen are and have been legally liable for the environmental state of their site, incoming PCBs and all, nevertheless it is my expectation that the bulk of the environmental discharges, emissions and general pigginess can be attributed to the owners of the site before them as mentioned in yesterday's post here.
Regarding Polysesouvient, the very active anti private firearms ownership lobby, I have to point out that there is a very solid rebuttal in today's K-W Record under Letters To The Editor by a Mr. Dennis Watson of Waterloo titled "Report not what it looks like". He points out that the relevant RCMP 2024 report ignored 60% of the Canadian statistics as neither Ontario nor Quebec numbers were included. This is because unlike many of the other provinces these two provinces have their own municipal police forces in almost all communities/cities and I believe that the O.P.P. covers the rest. Also for the provinces and locations where the RCMP are the only police force present, Mr. Watson states that "...a third of the guns recovered could not be traced,". Personally I must also add that here in Ontario both our biggest and most crime troubled city (Toronto) has had their municipal police force go on the public record as saying that removing firearms from registered and licensed owners will not lessen crime. The Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P.) have also publicly said the same thing as well as suggesting that indeed the large majority of illegal firearms involved in crime in Ontario are smuggled here from the United States.
Getting back to dirty polluters let me advise readers of the following. In my younger days I travelled on foot extensively and sometimes took self guided tours of various regional contaminated sites. Somehow I do not recall if I had written or verbal permission all the time although I do recall to Mr. Ron Stroh's credit he personally did give me permission on one occasion to tour his property on the immediate east side of Uniroyal/Lanxess . It is truly amazing what an observant person can learn by walking a contaminated site. Also way back when Rich Clausi coined the phrase the "Full Aerial Response Team" (FART) when the Ministry of Environment demanded to know how we obtained photographs or possibly environmental samples of this and that.
I have seen first hand gross pollution on the Safety-Kleen site. I and everybody else has certainly smelled it over the decades. I have also obtained hydrogeological reports from decades ago describing the gross sub-surface pollution obviously caused by either spillage or dumping or both. I have a few months back sent data and pictures to relevant environmental researchers. I know how serious the ground and groundwater contamination has been and likely still is between the operating area and the Grand River. Much of this property was and maybe still is part of I believe the Forwell (gravel) Pit. I also have work connections decades ago to employees at Forwells. There was limited attempts at hydraulic containment of a very small part of the site decades ago in an attempt to keep the PCBs floating on top of the shallow aquifer (also known as LNAPLS) from migrating downgradient en masse to the Grand River.
I expect yet another phony sham of an Environmental Assessment to "prove" exactly what the Region and Safety-Kleen want which is something giving the guilty parties the good housekeeping seal of approval.
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