ANOTHER REPORT: "POTENTIAL REMEDIAL ALTERNATIVE UPDATE" - LIKELY TEN TO TWENTY YEARS OVERDUE

 

We are approximately within 18-20 months of the mandated 2028 deadline to have achieved Ontario Drinking Water Standards (ODWS) in the Elmira Aquifers. All parties agree it won't happen. Here's the rub. Those criteria are not just for NDMA and chlorobenzene. They are for each and every toxic contaminant in our drinking water aquifers. This includes some that are routinely monitored for and others less so such as Dioxins, DDT, PCBs, PAHs, other chlorinated solvents etc. These others, contrary to the lies we've been fed, will not automatically be at ODWS even if and when NDMA and chlorobenzene are. 

All the DNAPL lies that Uniroyal, CRA, GHD and the Ont. MECP have told Elmira citizens are coming home to bite them. Dr. Neil Thompson (U. of Waterloo) discovered an excess of 1,900 kilograms of chlorobenzene in the Elmira Aquifers in exceedance of the known quantity provided by Uniroyal Chemical. Past strong evidence of off-site chlorobenzene DNAPLS on the Nutrite property and beside the Howard St. Water Tower, pumping well W4 and monitoring well OW57-32R have long been denied with only recent tacit admittance of DNAPLS by the Water Tower. 

The report mentioned in the title has a Schematic Of Hydrogeologic Units (Fig. 1.2) on page 9. It shows the amount of mass contaminant recovery by the pumping wells both on the Uniroyal site and off the site. Pumping rates and concentrations for each pumping well are also shown. Unfortunately it is a poor Diagram as it does not explicitly say which contaminant it is tracking. Based upon the concentrations it likely is the much lower concentration NDMA rather than chlorobenzene that is being shown. Regardless one can quickly see that the two highest quantities of extracted contaminant are from pumping well W9 (2,845.1 g/yr) and pumping well W3R (426.7 g/yr). These quantities are even higher than the third place grossly contaminated on-site pumping well PW4 which due to its' much lower pumping rate is only removing 225.9 g/yr). 

W9 is located slightly west of Union St. near Park St. This is the location of a former textile industry and is just across the road (Union St.) from the former furniture company (Roxton ?) as well as Uniroyal Chemical. It is also very close to pumping well W8 just barely on the east side of Union St. on the former Nutrite/Yara property and very close to the off-site DNAPL from Uniroyal Chemical. Meanwhile pumping well W3R is downgradient from the former pumping well W4 which was located right in the heart of the off-site DNAPL beside the Howard St. Water Tower. W4 pumped heavily for many years and the powers to be may just have shut it down prematurely as higher concentrations of chlorobenzene have shifted towards nearby (south) pumping well W3R as well as nearby monitoring wells causing consternation amongst our local DNAPL DENIERS.   

Simply put it was easier to lie and bafflegab early on in the alleged "cleanup" but as NDMA and chlorobenzene dissolved plumes have shrunk they are revealing more and more about the sources of all contamination not just the two that Uniroyal and the Ont. MECP want us to focus on.