LAST NITE'S WOOLWICH BIO-EN MEETING

Firstly let me clarify yesterday's posting which asked whether the recent World Trade Organization decision rejecting Canada's appeal of a ruling against Ontario for insisting on local content for suppliers to renewable energy contracts could affect Woolwich Bio-En. I was advised last evening that no this ruling is in regards to wind and solar projects not bio-energy ones such as is under construction currently on Martin's Lane in Elmira.

From a distance things may look quiet but apparently to date soil has been moved, conduit laid and some concrete has been poured. Also the excavation for a storm water pond has been completed. Earl Brubacher runs a very calm, sedate and professional meeting and I would describe all participants as conducting themselves accordingly. Gerry Heidiburt did have some concerns around changes in a technical document that appeared to be backing away from a Ministry of the Environment requirement insisting that the flare used to burn off excess biogases have a minimum temperature. The magic number is 850 C and Conestoga Rovers, consultants to Bio-En seemed to feel that temperature was unecessary. Mr. Brubacher explained the background and history in regards to the flare to all assembled. Apparently the vast majority of flares in use whether for landfills, wastewater treatment etc. sucessfully burn off methane gas and more while only monitoring the temperature versus maintaining a minimum. Nevertheless the flare used on Martin's Lane is custom built and capable of indeed maintaining the minimum temperature of 850 C. The actual operating manner including adding natural gas and oxygen to increase the temperature will be up to the M.O.E. not Woolwich Bio-En.

Yours truly asked the question as to whether the Region of Waterloo might approach Woolwich Bio-En to use Biosolids as a fuel in their generation of electricity. Mr. Brubacher certainly gave the impression that this was not on anyone's radar and to date was a non issue. Gerry Heidiburt suggested that Biosolids would not be an optimum fuel and that if so used should not be within many miles of towns or residences.

The next public meeting is scheduled for Tuesday July 9/13 7 pm. presumably again at the Memorial Centre on Snyder Ave..

FREE TRADE & WORLD TRADE ONCE AGAIN BITE LOCAL CONTROL

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "WTO rejects appeal over green energy". According to the World Trade orgaization, Ontario are granting unfair subsidies to local manufacturers. Not only would this be true but that's exactly what the intent of the Ontario legislation was all about.

The Record article focuses on wind and solar projects and the province of Ontario have tried to politically sweeten the energy pot by insisting that renewable energy projects must use local suppliers for their projects. This has helped jobs in Ontario whereas the premiums paid for renewable energy have probably been detrimental to the Ontario economy.

Other renewable enrgy projects would include our local Bio-Energy project here in Elmira. Again in order to receive the lucrative prices for electricity from the province, the promoters have had to follow the rules of the game. Whether or not this most recent ruling and both Canada's and Ontario's response to it will affect our local renewable energy project I do not know. That being said there is a public meeting for Woolwich Bio-En this evening at 7 pm. in the Memorial Centre (Concourse Cafe). It would be a good oportunity to find out.

LOCAL EXPLOITATION OF OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Canada we were taught in school was the land of hewers of wood and drawers of water. Lumber, furs, mineral wealth were what made this country. In recent decades it has of course been oil including tar sands in Alberta. What I am about to present comes courtesy of last Saturday'w Woolwich Observer. I am going to quote from the Observer a statement provided by the Wellington Water Watchers. "Nestle Waters is the world's largest bottled water company, and Wellington County in southwestern Ontario is home to its largest bottling facility in Canada. Nestle pays $3.71 for every million litres of water it pumps from the local watershed, which it then packages in single-use plastic bottles and sells back to the public for as much as $2 million. In 2010, Nestle paid just $2,238 for over 600 million litres of water taken from Mill Creek in Aberfoyle."

Wow! You have to hand it to corporations. If there is a way to make a buck mostly at someone else's expense (ie. the public) they will find it. Another brief article in Saturday's Observer deals with local gravel pits. Woolwich Township have sent a letter to the province reiterating the Townships concerns about the Ontario Municipal Board process which often accompanies gravel pit applications. It is extremely expensive and onerous even for municipalities much less for individuals and nearby residents. Woolwich Township and other municipalities are paid royalties of pennies per tonne which does not even cover the increased costs of wear and tear on our roads inflicted by gravel trucks. Currently here in Woolwich residents are fighting both the proposed Capitol Pit in West Montrose and the Hunder Pit in Conestogo. The Jigs Hollow Pit outside Winterbourne was scrutinized by local residents who did a professional job in exposing flaws and falsehoods all to no avail. Council let them down although I wonder if it was as much the case of Council saving their pennies to fight the other two proposals at the OMB; feeling that they couldn't afford all three. If I'm wrong and Council don't go to the wall for West Montrose and Conestogo then quite frankly this Council is toast in 2014.

A COUPLE OF FURTHER POINTS RE: THURSDAY'S CPAC MEETING

A former CPAC member who had been assiduously and conspicuously avoiding attending public CPAC meetings has begun attending them on occasion. She had raised an issue in regards to a farm pond downgradient of the Chemtura site and specifically downgradient of the proposed scraping and capping of GP1 and GP2. Her issue was a concern that maps appeared to show an overland flow path from the GP1 and GP2 area directly towards this farm pond which was used as a swimming pond. As these two Chemtura areas are badly contaminated with DDT and dioxins and more; her concerns certainly need to be addressed. The fellow from the M.O.E. who presented the results of the Downstream Monitoring Report mentioned that there were no sediments in the bottom of the pond due to a geotextile membrane that was installed. I asked him a couple of questions about the permeability of this geotextile. In other words was its' purpose to be a waterproof liner hence keeping groundwater out or was it simply to keep mud and plant growth off the bottom and sides of the pond. He had absolutely no idea. He was able to suggest that berms around the top of the pond definitely would prevent overland flow of water from entering. The former CPAC member asked for and mostly received assurances that the M.O.E. would consider testing of this bermed soil for Chemtura contaminants. I still am a little concerned about contaminated groundwater infiltrating this pond and hope the M.O.E. consider testing for that as well.

LAST NIGHTS CPAC MEETING

It was calm and quiet. CPAC were missing their regular Chair Dr. Dan who has been attending his first grandchild, south of the border. Also Sebastian had advised that he could not make it and Councillor Bauman had to leave early for another engagement. Therefore the load fell upon Vivienne to hold the fort as temporary Chair in the absence of Dan, Sebastian and later Mark. She did an admirable job and with help from Ron Campbell (CPAC) and Graham Chevreau and myself (SWAT) we held Chemtura/CRA/M.O.E.'s feet to the fire. That being said none of us had our hearts into really, appropriately laying the lumber upon the three previously mentioned guilty parties. Call it pity or even mercy if you will.

First off the M.O.E. earned the ire of Chair Viv by once again asking to defer an Agenda item. This was the Groundwater Flow and Contaminant Transport Model Update that was handed out six months ago by Conestoga Rovers on behalf of Chemtura. The M.O.E. were supposed to give their comments on this groundbreaking turnaround by Chemtura which includes off-site source removal by chemical oxidation as well as tripling of the off-site pumping rates. Then the M.O.E. presented their recent Downstream Monitoring report. This allegedly is a comparison and update to studies done in 1996 and 1997 which found large quantities of DDT and Dioxins in the downstream Canagagigue Creek courtesy of Uniroyal/Chemtura. This report is riddled with errors and poor science and quite frankly is embarassingly, amateurishly written. Jeff of Chemtura took a couple of shots at the M.O.E. presenter as did I but again it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel to really go after him. Also as Chair Viv pointed out there will be additional new information upcoming and hence this report will be rescheduled hopefully on the Thursday May 30/13 Agenda.

Alan Deal of CRA (Conestoga Rovers) once again presented the Annual Monitoring Report. They say you can get used to anything but I was pleased after the meeting to hear even new SWAT and recent CPAC members express exasperation with the presentation. The polite comment was that it was a cheerleading type presentation and the rude comment was it was nothing but a dog and pony show. Yours truly questioned CRA and Chemtura about their removal of a total of 1300 tonnes of contaminated soil during 2011 and 2012. This removal was ostensibly to provide underground servicing for utilities of some sort. The interesting part was that the location was exactly where Uniroyal refused to excavate free phase DNAPL in December 1993 namely along the border of TPW2 and M2 the former municipal landfill. Last night Jeff of Chemtura adamantly declared that he couldn't remember the details of 1993 regarding free phase DNAPL versus relatively immobile tars which are DNAPLS by the way. I did remember but did some checking this morning anyways. In the August 2007 DNAPL Investigation Report we are advised that as recently as then, free phase LNAPL and free phase DNAPL was occasionally showing up in well OW80-5 in tar pit west (TPW2). My impression is that either Chemtura finally removed this free phase DNAPL twenty years after the fact; although they don't want to admit it, or the DNAPL over the last twenty years has continued to move either vertically or laterally and they couldn't find it. Nice!

Literally months after the fact, Dwight of Chemtura handed out the CIAC *Responsible Care verification report. This report includes Dr. Dan Holt's dissenting opinion and is accurate and specific pointing out particular codes and sections that Chemtura have not been in compliance with. Fellow verification team member and former councillor and CPAC Chair Pat McLean, not to be outdone or upstaged by the current CPAC Chair, added her written reasons for accepting Chemtura's sucessful verification. Her reasons were not specific or credible and merely made excuses for Chemtura's "past history".

All in all it was a fairly tame affair last night. I expect a few more fireworks at the May 30 meeting dealing with the Downstream Monitoring report as well as one specific overhead table that CRA presented during their Annual Monitoring Report .

POLITICS TAINTS EVERYTHING

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "More Tory MPs say no to attacks on Trudeau". The majority of this story is political while at the same time clearly indicating that there are numerous Conservative backbenchers who have both spine and ethics. The relevance of this article to the Elmira Advocate is all in the very last sentence namely "Rathgeber, one of the most outspoken MPs, says he has resisted attempts by staff at the Prime Minister's Office to vet the content of his personal blog.". Wow! Aside from the brass and arrogance of the PMO attempting to control a backbencher's blog is the personal significance this has for me. In my case I have been to date stymied in attempts to rejoin CPAC formally by our Woolwich Township Mayor and CAO. The word has been passed to me that the only thing standing in the way of my rejoining CPAC is this blog, the Elmira Advocate.

I've had this blog ongoing six days a week for three years now. It predates the current Woolwich Council by about six months and it's readership has been growing steadily. Faithful readers include numerous universities and colleges as well as different government organizations. Environment Canada and the EPA are on occasionally as are different consulting and engineering companies. Private citizens throughout Waterloo Region, Guelph and Toronto also follow the Advocate. The issues that I write on tend to be environmental with the focus on Woolwich Township. That said they also sometimes include regional environmental issues such as Biosolids and contaminated sites (Northstar, Breithaupt Tannery) that have lessons in common with our contaminated sites in Woolwich.

Bio-En, numerous gravel pits, wind farms, emerald ash borer and other invasive plants and animals are also discussed here. Unfortunately it appears as if Woolwich Township have extremely thin skin. I don't for a second attribute this to the entire Council, only one or two. I have criticized the Council's decision (non-unanimous) on allowing recycling back into the Jigs Hollow Pit (Kuntz). I have also criticized Council over the approval of Bio-En on Martin's Lane in Elmira. At the same time I have applauded serious attempts, that have proven unsucessful, to relocate this facility to a location farther from citizens' homes.

As with any blog there are comments from the public and many are anonymous. Many of these have been highly critical of our Mayor and Council and those that I believe are wide of the mark I will disagree with. The few that are distasteful, profane or simply unduly nasty I have deleted. Apparently all of this is unacceptable to the Mayor and at least one of his advisers. They think that they can blackmail me into dropping this blog. I find their attitude reprehensible and that is why I am going public with it. I have seriously attempted to rejoin CPAC via discreet, polite and proper channels and all I've received back from the Township is paranoid, petty behaviour.

The M.O.E. and Chemtura don't want me to have the status and appearance of township approval. I believe that to date CPAC members have mostly not been aware of the backdoor meddling by the Mayor in CPAC's membership discussions. If CPAC independently don't want me as a member then I would respect that and this need go no further. If CPAC however would like me as a formal member, then quite frankly the M.O.E., Chemtura and the Mayor should all butt out.

UPCOMING ENVIRONMENTAL DATES AND ISSUES

Currently there is an ongoing Appeal of a Control Order issued by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment on the Directors of Northstar Aerospace. Basically the Directors are trying to get out of their responsibility to maintain ongoing pump and treat operations at the Bishop St. site in Cambridge. I was sent an M.O.E. issues list yesterday which may have upcoming hearing dates on it but so far I can't open the darn thing.

Tomorrow evening of course is the monthly Chemtura Public Advisory Committee meeting held in Woolwich Council Chambers at 6 pm..

Tuesday May 7/13 is the next public meeting of Woolwich Bio-En. It's being held at the Memorial Centre (arena) on Snyder Ave. in the Concourse Cafe at 7 pm..

There will be a public CPAC orientation/education meeting in Woolwich Council Chambers on May 21/13 at 9 am..

The usual last Thursday of the month is CPAC time again therefore Thursday May 30/13 in Woolwich Council Chambers. Tomorrow nites CPAC is due to scheduling conflicts that it couldn't be held last Thursday.

I will also throw in here the likely June CPAC meeting of Thursday June 27/13, 6 pm. .

The Hunder Pit Ontario Municipal Board hearing is scheduled for September. I had heard September 3 suggested a long time ago but can't confirm that. I am appalled to say that I have no upcoming dates for the proposed Capitol Pit in West Montrose. It is truly ridiculous how long these stupid proposals are allowed to drag on without resolution.