CRA ARE AS TRICKY AS EVER

Currently Conestoga Rovers on behalf of Chemtura are "investigating" GP1 & 2 on the south-east corner of their site. According to their two work plans dated June 30 and July 28/11 they "...will excavate the test pits to a minimum depth of 4 metres below ground surface (mbgs), the top of the UA1, or the maximum reach of the excavator bucket, whichever comes first.". They have massaged the wording very slightly in their July 28/11 Work plan which is what caught my attention. The June Work plan evoked my response "well just get a bigger excavator". Afterall the depth of the excavation should be based on what you are finding as you dig, not on an arbitrary reach of an excavator bucket. After rereading the two reports I now understand that the real issue is the top of UA1 (Upper aquifer 1). CRA over the years have produced numerous stratigraphic cross-sections. Both David M. and Ron C. on the new CPAC will be familiar with what these are. Unfortunately unlike myself they do not have a twenty year plus library of technical documents produced by Uniroyal/Chemtura consultants.

Stratigraphic cross-sections are drawings of the below ground makeup showing things like clay layers, sand and gravel layers etc. They show a cross-section (sideways view) of what is below . I've looked at several produced by CRA and they all show that in the south-east corner where GP1&2 are located there is no fill or surficial aquitard. The UA or upper aquifer is present right at the surface. One of these cross-sections runs from OW69 through to CH19 or in other words a significant length of GP1. The other cross-section runs from CRA3 through to CH19. This is on the extreme southern border of Chemtura , parallel to GP2 and literally only a few metres below (south) of it. Hence CRA's Work Plan says that they will excavate the test pits to the top of the UA1 which is ground surface. Later today or tommorrow I will e-mail these cross-sections to all CPAC members.

ELMIRA BUS ROUTE RECEIVES SUPPORT

The front page of tommorrow's Woolwich Observer has the story "Public feedback supports continuing Elmira bus route". Apparently the Open House in June regarding Route # 21 was well attended and all feedback was very positive. It appears as if this is good news and will help Woolwich Council justify the expense that the Township will have in order to keep this service running. Clearly when comparing this to the proposed LRT (light rapid transit) in K-W, we are comparing apples to oranges.

LOCAL GREENPEACE INTERVIEW

This occurred at the K-W Record yesterday and the story is titled "Greenpeace extols virtues of green energy over nuclear". A key element for me is that electricity demand has fallen not risen in the last 5-6 years. This is a result of both public conservation programs as well as the loss of major industry throughout Ontario. Further estimates indicate that electricity demand will continue to fall for at least the next seven years. Greenpeace are praising the Liberals' Green Energy Act as the way to go via renewable energy. At the same time they are criticizing the building or expansion of current nuclear reactors. A number of K-W "green energy" leaders are also praised by Greenpeace.

HUNDER GRAVEL PIT APPLICATION

Last Thursday July 28/11 I posted here that I had received a letter regarding this proposed gravel pit beside the Gold Course Rd. subdivision in Conestogo. Yesterday I went down to the Woolwich Township offices and was told that yes they would e-mail me this 11 page Township Engineering Report. I then drove home and lo and behold there it was already on my computer. I am quite surprised by this report. The supremacy of the Aggregate Resources Act in regards to the rights of citizens and Municipalities has long been a given. This Report prepared by Woolwich Staff is quite a departure from my understanding that most Municipalities would rather throw in the towel than get into a losing, expensive fight at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). The saying that comes to my mind is that "Fools walk where angels fear to tread". At the same time keep something very much in focus. The Aggregate Resources Act should have been abolished or severely amended decades ago. It is a contemptible piece of legislation trampling upon citizens rights. This new Council were elected to basically fight it. It appears that they are so doing. WOW! What is wrong with this picture? Have we in Woolwich actually elected, at long last, a Council which will follow through on their promises? The public meeting/Council meeting to discuss this is next Tuesday in the Council Chambers at 7 pm.

CHEMTURA (RE)VERIFICATION BY C.I.A.C.

The CIAC or Chemistry Institute Association of Canada has been holding a Verification study/analysis at Chemtura for the last several weeks. The C.C.P.A. or Chemical Producers Association of Canada were the forerunners to the C.I.A.C.. Aside from a hundred other past reasons to deny this Responsible Care* verification to Chemtura, there are three recent ones. Firstly and most recently, Dwight Este of Chemtura lied by omission. O.K. O.K. semantics here. Is the word "lie" appropriate especially when it's by omission? Also other Chemtura folks (Jeff & Josef) were present when he did this and certainly did not correct him. Dwight advised CPAC and Chair (Mayor) Cowan that they only needed one citizen representative after yours truly had advised both CPAC and Woolwich Council that two were required! Chemtura already had National Advisory Panel member and local resident Pat McLean on board. This they failed to share with CPAC. STRIKE ONE.

STRIKE TWO deals with last fall's release of BLE-25 a mixture of Acetone and Diphenylamine (DPA). The release was due to outdated rupture disc technology. To date Chemtura have given no reasons other than the obvious one (money) as to why a large emergency pressure vessel is not on site connected to their batch process pressure vessels. Rupture discs are designed to fail when the pressure in a vessel exceeds design limits. Then they are designed to release the contents of the vessel to Chemtura's neighbours as they did again last fall. This is Responsible Care*?

STRIKE THREE has to do with Chemtura's (and the M.O.E.'s) failure to advise and announce to the community and Township that they had had a release, in a timely fashion, last fall. The Community Alert Network should have been activated as well as their siren and an immediate phone call to Woolwich Township was in order. None of the above occurred. This is Responsible Care* ?

I freely admit my bias in regards to industry led public relations organizations. I will admit to being impressed when the C.C.P.A. repeatedly refused Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura the Responsible Care* designation through the early 2000's. I was equally unimpressed when they received it in 2008. To my knowledge that fact was not reported in our local papers. It should have been or was it a secret? I have felt that the old CPAC aided and abetted Chemtura's success via their penchant for private negotiations. What did they receive in turn? Meanwhile the ball is back in the C.I.A.C.'s court. If they verify/approve Chemtura this time then they are indeed nothing but a mouthpiece for irresponsible chemical polluters. If on the other hand they withhold their approval, then once again I must reconsider my position regarding their whole program. P.S. STRIKE FOUR could certainly be Chemtura's self serving attempt at undermining a new, revitalized and aggressive CPAC via their acceptance and promotion of a private alternative group. Shame on them!

GRCA SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT ?

Today's K-W Record has a story titled "Woolwich landowner ordered to remove fill". Apparently the landowner was filling in a low spot on his property which was near a wetland. The impetus for the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) action was complaints from a neighbour. This inherently is a hit and miss method of environmental protection. The location of the property is on Shantz Station Rd. near Maryhill.

There certainly is an element here of slamming the gate after the horse has bolted. Dave Schultz of the GRCA advises us that "...in the Grand River watershed about 65% of wetlands have been lost...". We are also advised that in reference to the charges laid on this particular individual "... actions like this are relatively small given the amount of legal development that happens in a year.". This is what concerns me. How seriously difficult (or expensive) is it to obtain a permit from the GRCA for a larger development including residential subdivisions? The GRCA have a poor record in actually prohibiting development in inappropriate locations. At one time their nickname was the Grand River Construction Authority.

I admit a certain bias based however on their behaviour in Elmira. While Varnicolor's Lot 91 was in the news for illegal storage and dumping and burying of solvents (& P.C.B.'s), they the GRCA gave approval for the construction of concrete tank farms on Lot 91 in the floodplain of the Canagagigue Creek. In fact that site is bordered on two sides by Landfill Creek and the "GiG". That was in 1991. Today we still have pro development Councillors in all Municipalities and hence I have to ask the obvious question. How difficult is it for these pro development folks to change their hats when they attend a GRCA meeting? Who are we kidding?

DELEGATION TO JULY 28/11 CPAC MEETING

I have just handed out a map of the town of Elmira. Chemtura are labeled by name , just below Church St. on the right side of the page. To the immediate left or west of Chemtura the letter N is marked and stands for Nutrite or Yara. Below Chemtura we have the letters STP for Sewage Treatment Plant. Left or southwest of the STP we have the letter V for Varnicolor Chemical. This is Varnicolor’s 62 Union St. site. Directly below or south of the STP we have the letter L. This stands for Landfill as in First St. Landfill. Currently this site is occupied by the Region of Waterloo Transfer Station. Chemtura plus other local industry enjoyed dumping priveleges in this landfill decades ago. Again below or south of the Landfill we have another V for Varnicolor. This was Varnicolor’s infamous Lot 91. Solvents were stored, leaked and dumped on this site for years. P.C.B.’s and other toxic goodies were discovered buried in leaking drums on this site. Due west or left of Lot 91 and due south of Varnicolor’s Union St. site we have the letter B standing for Borg Textiles. With the exception of a couple of local citizens, namely Rich Clausi and myself, this site has escaped all scrutiny as a potential polluter and contributer to the south wellfield contamination. The letter S, south and west of Borg stands for Sanyo Canadian. Their claim to toxic fame may possibly be no more than their proximity to Well CH38 which historically has had inappropriately high NDMA concentrations. If one were to draw a straight line from Pumping Well 4 (PW4) to the south wellfield marked as E7 , just a couple of inches below Sanyo on the map, one could not help but notice that the line from the most heavily contaminated area at Chemtura (PW4) neatly bisects many other contaminated sites along the way. This is of concern as in the early days of the 1989 well shutdowns , many experts expected nearby contaminant sources to be the cause, not Uniroyal. It was two years later in the middle of an adjourned Environmental Appeal Board hearing that the M.O.E. and Uniroyal did their private deal, assigning all blame to Uniroyal. This map, common sense and hard evidence of Chlorobenzene behind Varnicolor , high NDMA at well CH38 and little or no Aquitard below Varnicolor’s Lot 91 , say otherwise. Further to Lot 91 at least two Uniroyal employees had seen and reported to the M.O.E., dumping on Lot 91. I saw dumping with my own eyes and evidence above and beyond buried drums, of massive, ongoing liquid solvent dumping on this site. I stand here before you and tell you that employees plural of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment were exposed as covering up pollution evidence as well as of being untruthful, by Richard Clausi, Ted Oldfield and myself, all members at the time of APT Environment.
None of the above mentioned pollution , to my knowledge, includes Dioxins. These members of the dirty dozen are in a class of their own and need to be removed from Chemtura. For the last two years I have been bringing this information and evidence of other sources to public CPAC meetings. The Chlorobenzene is in the form of DNAPL and was discovered by CRA , 100 feet below the surface, in 1998. I found it in one of their old monthly Progress Reports two years ago. To this day neither Chemtura nor the M.O.E. have so much as confirmed or denied the existence of this off-site pollution publicly here at CPAC. Past CPAC members themselves have refused to discuss or question this information. I have quoted in writing the exact report and page numbers and not a whisper from CRA, Chemtura , the M.O.E., or the old CPAC . This is why you will never have drinking water out of the Elmira Aquifer. There is and has been an ongoing conspiracy to deceive the public. The whole public premise of the cleanup has been to isolate and contain Chemtura’s buried wastes on site , while simultaneously pumping and treating DISSOLVED contamination off-site. While I believe that this is currently unachievable anyways; the presence of below ground, unremediated multiple sources of contamination throughout the Elmira Aquifer make this a fantasy. CPAC your mandate is to ensure that we have our local drinking water restored. You are being grossly deceived and misled by Chemtura and their friends.

Alan Marshall Elmira Environmental Hazards Team