REMEDIATION ALTERNATIVES IGNORING HISTORY, DNAPLS & CHLORINATED SOLVENTS OTHER THAN CHLOROBENZENE; ARE TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

 

                              

                THE "CLEANUP" HAS ALWAYS BEEN A SHAM

Not only with the acquiescence of the Ontario MECP but in fact with their wild enthusiasm the polluter, his consultants and a gaggle of fellow travellors have embraced the blindfolded focus upon chlorobenzene and NDMA from almost day one. Pretending that every other toxic, dirty, smelly, putrid and gross liquid and solid chemical waste fits neatly into the characteristics of either NDMA or chlorobenzene is the height of hypocrisy, junk science, propaganda and prevarication. 

There are takeaways from this latest report by Mr. Cullen Flanders (Onterris). For example although it turns out to be hindsight for the public due to intentional misinformation; chlorobenzene is not a "typical" chlorinated solvent. It degrades via soil bacteria etc. very quickly in shallow, aerobic surficial soils and even in deeper, anaerobic soils its' low solubility in groundwater degrades quickly. Who knew? The problem of course is that the majority of it does not readily dissolve in groundwater as does NDMA. What it does do is pool in low lying areas particularly on top of low permeability surfaces such as aquitards and slowly dissolve into the groundwater over decades/centuries. 

NDMA on the other hand does not degrade naturally either in aerobic (oxygen rich) or anaerobic (oxygen poor) environments. It fully, 100% dissolves into groundwater and away it goes. It was in the north wellfield years before it was ever found in the south wellfield which only came on line in the 1970s so rest assured that cancers and other diseases were caused by NDMA long before the start of the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis. 

Yesterday's post needs amending in the last paragraph. I should have stated that as the "NDMA and chlorobenzene dissolved plumes have shrunk they are revealing more and more about the sources of all (Those Contaminants)  not just the two that Uniroyal wants us to focus on.". In other words as NDMA and chlorobenzene plumes decrease we are finding clearer evidence as to how we citizens have been lied to by Uniroyal and successors about the number of different corporate sources of those two contaminants. What we have been successfully deflected from is the various corporate sources around Elmira for all the other toxic contaminants including Dioxins, DDT, PAHs, PCBs, chlorophenol, trichloroethane, trichloroethene,  dichloroethylene, dichloroethane etc. Do not forget that Varnicolor had admitted LNAPLS (BTEX chemicals) as well as DNAPLS consisting of multiple chlorinated solvents in their surficial aquifer which we were not told had indeed migrated downwards into both aquitards and drinking water aquifers until 2016. The Ontario M.O.E. (MECP) blatantly lied to and misled us by reneging on their early 1990s promise to install those deeper monitoring wells quickly so that we could see the full vertical extent of Varnicolor's contamination.  Are those DNAPLS still below Varnicolor Chemical slowly dissolving into Elmira's drinking water aquifers? Will they and other chemicals in the DNAPL forever contaminate above drinking water standards our local water irrelevant of how much NDMA and chlorobenzene are eventually removed? Finally what honest party is there to actually monitor all these other toxic chemicals in our groundwater including low levels of Dioxins and DDT, chlorinated solvents or otherwise? Forget Lanxess, GHD or the Ont. MECP.