BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Until recently Chemtura and their long time consultants, Conestoga Rovers & Assoc. (CRA), have been somewhat in limbo awaiting various stakeholders comments and criticisms regarding their Groundwater and Contaminant Transport Model Update. This alleged five year update is in actuality their response to CPAC's Resolution from about fifteen months ago. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment via their hydrogeologist, Jaimie Connolly, did give a somewhat limited endorsement at the last CPAC public meeting on June 27/13.

Chemtura have of course been trying to get CPAC to comment and commit upon this their new cleanup plan as well. CPAC as well have been guarded in their enthusiasm and I believe that is an excellent idea. The Elmira cleanup is strewn with the wreckage of a number of half baked, poorly thought out proposals. Furthermore I have seen a tendency for the bare bones only skeleton to be waved around with appropriate oohs and ahs by Chemtura fellow travellors; while Chemtura and CRA await what they feel is their due namely admiration, trust and blind faith.

I believe the expression "the devil is in the details" is quite appropriate here. While currently I don't believe that source removal (ISCO) in two off-site areas combined with a tripling of the off-site pumping rates will accomplish drinking water standards by 2028; it certainly will greatly advance the process. The unresolved issue is this: what will be the environmental cost of achieving these much greater remediation efforts? Why am I so skeptical that major short cuts are not in the cards to "support" Chemtura's new five year plan?

Here is the worst case imaginable scenario. In order to blindly reduce chemical concentrations in the Elmira Aquifers quickly why not just ignore the Canagagigue Creek for example? Add pumping wells, time, labour and cash and pump the Aquifers damn near dry while discharging (dumping) directly into the creek with little or no treatment. Remember all eyes are focused on reducing chemical concentrations in the groundwater. The opportunities for cheating and short cuts are there and the talent for stickhandling and "managing" public opinion and criticism is as well. Who is going to actually stop Chemtura from doing this? Midnight and overnight treatment bypasses might actually not be caught. Our local cop on the beat (M.O.E.) is overweight, out of shape and lacking in ethics. These are just some of the unresolved issues to date.

OLD CROWE FOUNDRY IN CAMBRIDGE NEEDS CLEANUP

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Old foundry "a disaster waiting to happen". Apparently there have been a number of fires intentionally set to date although thankfully each was contained quickly. I do not know how it is that some factories including foundries are demolished fairly quickly such as the old Procast in Elmira yet others simply are allowed to fall down. Any of these sites after demolition are supposed to have some sort of site assessment with removal of at least some of the more blatant subsurface contamination. Foundries while operating dispose of what are known as foundry sands. These are sand that lines the moulds into which the molten metal is poured. These sands are often impregnated with phenolic resins which chemically are a benzene ring with an OH (oxygen/hydrogen) attached to them and therefore are considered hazardous. The Crowe site is described as being "...filled with 45-gallon drums of flammable, combustible and toxic liquids.". There is absolutely no excuse for leaving these behind. My guess is that these would be cleaning solvents such as toluene, TCA, xylene as well as the forementioned benzene. While these would be very bad to inhale via smoke from a fire I would be just as concerned with these drums being vandalised and leaking through cement floor cracks into the soil beneath. Is there anyone living in Cambridge (or K-W) who thinks that their fair city needs more solvents in their groundwater?

Just to add a bigger bang to the mix there are even compressed gas cylinders on site. Between the unnecessary hazards to nearby residents and responding firefighters; our politicians should be ashamed of themselves. Quit passing the buck and someone take charge of these derelict and abandoned sites and at the absolute least remove and properly dispose of these life threatening hazards. If any folks think that theatre is more important than public health and safety then you should be forced to live next to one of these sites. Can the municipalities not do the job and then bill the province for example? Why are these initially small problems being left until they are emergencies and people's health damaged?

THE ELMIRA INDEPENDENT HELPS CLEAR THE CHEMTURA FOG

This week's Independent which isn't on-line yet, carrys this article "Cleanup deadline questioned". Also Editor Gail Martin has an Editorial titled "No easy fixes". Both of these writings are excellent and because of them have helped me connect a few more dots in this long running local tragedy.

Gail points out in her front page article that M.O.E. hydrogeologist, Jaimie Connolly, while supportive of Chemtura/CRA's new remediation plan, nevertheless has major concerns with their computer model and doubts that they will actually be able to achieve their mandated cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers by 2028. Gail in her Editorial gives appropriate credit to CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) for publicly sounding the warning months prior to the M.O.E.; that there is doubt that the Elmira Aquifers will be cleaned up to drinking standards by 2028.

At this point I'm going to give the background to the current scenario. In the spring of 2012 CPAC unanimously passed a Resolution which stated that the past and current cleanup plan wasn't even going to come close to cleaning the Aquifers adequately and on time. Woolwich Township Council then took this Resolution and unanimously endorsed it and sent it on to
the Region of Waterloo, the province of Ontario and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. These three groups were not happy campers and believe me neither were Chemtura and their longtime consultants Conestoga Rovers. None of them would agree with the CPAC Resolution and indeed some were greatly offended by it. Overall resounding silence was their response.

These guilty parties (which included former Woolwich Township Councils but not the current one) went into damage control.
Chemtura and CRA trotted out their 5 year Model Update last November (2012). Lo and behold they and they alone supposedly determined that their current off-site pumping rates and non source removal of subsurface wastes were inadequate. They solemnly and with straight faces advised CPAC that Conestoga Rovers had devised a new plan which included a tripling of the quantity of off-site groundwater being pumped as well as In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) of two highly contaminated off-site areas. ISCO is considered a form of source removal.

Keep in mind that until last November your Ontario M.O.E. has consistently supported Chemtura/CRA cleanup plans since the mid 90's. Last Thursday the M.O.E.'s hydrogeologist formally and publicly advised that the M.O.E. support the direction that Chemtura/CRA are now going BUT have doubts that with this new and improved plan; that they can still achieve the 2028 cleanup deadline. What the hell! If you hypocritical buggers have doubts with the vastly improved new plan where the hell have you been for years (decades) with the old ones????

A further bit of history and background. The old CPAC and their Chair, former councillor Pat Mclean were very supportive of Chemtura/CRA's cleanup plans. The old CPAC occasionally parachuted in, allegedly independent hydrogeologist Wilf Ruland, primarily in my opinion to support Pat, Susan Bryant and CPAC's positions and opinions. Dr. Henry Regier was the least impressed with Wilf's alleged independent opinions and I slowly began to understand why. Henry is a legitimate scientist with a deep respect for truth, facts and logical thinking. Hindsight being 20/20 ; the old CPAC didn't know what the hell they were doing and they resented my contrary opinions to their support of Chemtura/CRA's now proven grossly inadequate cleanup plans for Elmira.

In summation I ask the public to understand that your young CPAC have blazed the way through twenty years of hard core bull...., politics and self interest. The young CPAC have shaken up the game and put the cleanup back on track. None of this would have happened without Woolwich voters turfing out the old councillors in October 2010 and bringing in new thinking. This new thinking was led by Mayor Todd Cowan, who while no longer my friend; I will not deny the truth which is if he hadn't won the October 2010 election, this incredible turnaround at CPAC and the cleanup would not have happened.

ONTARIO BABIES ARE EXPOSED TO INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS WHILE IN THE WOMB

Last Thursday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Babies exposed to toxins before birth". A number of environmental/industrial chemicals have been found in the cord blodd of some newborns in Toronto and Hamilton. "The report by Environmental Defence released Wednesday suggests babies are exposed to chemicals in the womb because pollutants are so pervasive both in the environment and in widely used consumer products.". These chemicals include PCB's, PFC's and organochlorine pesticides. Of course our neighbour here in Elmira, Chemtura, have shared their pesticides with the Grand River watershed including DDT and from the recent look of things in an M.O.E. study, are continuing to so do.

It is my belief that twenty years after the loudest environmental critics and activists are gone, the common belief and refrain will be why weren't you louder. Down the road Canadian citizens with the benefit of hindsight will see what many of us have seen and understood for the last twenty years.

POLITICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this Opinion piece by Martin Regg Cohn titled "Liberals trying to bury 2010 eco-fees mess". It is amazing to me how a basically solid environmental decision/idea, if implemented badly, can backfire and bring the whole good intentions into disrepute. Tory Leader Tim Hudak talked about "Dalton McGuinty's sneaky eco-taxes.". Granted the Tories generally aren't going to support any valid environmental venture that carrys a cost with it; but in this case Mr. Hudak was on more solid ground because again the Liberals implementation was done poorly.

The new plan makes producers incorporate all environmental costs and charges into their initial selling price. "Producers could no longer pass the buck-or fob off eco-fees-onto consumers at the cash register.". This is good news and affects all consumers in Ontario of so many products which absolutely need true environmental costs included in their prices.

MORE ON LAST THURSDAY'S CPAC MEETING

Jaimie Connolly of the M.O.E. was describing his support for source removal via ISCO (In-Situ Chemical Oxidation) for two off-site problem areas immediately west of Chemtura at Yara (Nutrite) and further away in the North-West direction. I therefore suggested that if two off-site problem areas were good for ISCO why not also do it to the Municipal Lower Aquifer by Varnicolor. Here we have the largest plume of off-site chlorobenzene.

I also asked Jaimie if the proposed ISCO for the Yara site would take care of not only NDMA but also diesel contamination, ammonia and pesticides on the site. Jaimie didn't even blink about the further contamination but did say he didn't know which chemical oxidant was being used. I suspect that Fenton's Reagant is the likely candidate.

In regards to my question to Jaimie about whether he & the M.O.E. had confidence in Chemtura's ability to triple their pumping, he gave a very interesting answer. He said he was confident they could do it but the question was would they do it. Well!

Susanna Meteer, SWAT team member and nominee for CPAC membership, asked Jeff Merriman of Chemtura an interesting question about a new remediation method (for DNAPLS?) called smouldering. Jeff while not very familiar with it did suggest that it sounded more like a thermal cleanup method versus a chemical one such as ISCO.

Once again yours truly advised Chemtura and the M.O.E. that I wanted some literatire reviews regarding the ability of Dioxins ?DDT binding or sorbing to different types of soils. In other words while I may buy that they sorb to topsoil I'm much more skeptical that they sorb to sand and gravel.

Lastly Chemtura/CRA keep bragging about taking groundwater samples in the south-east corner of the Upper Aquifer 1 (UA1) and supposedly only finding low levels of solvents. I believe that the results in UA3 and the Municipal Aquifer (MU) would be substantially higher and would indicate the how and why of groundwater flow of Dioxins & DDT.

The young CPAC has Chemtura/CRA/M.O.E. on the run and on the defensive and that's appropriate. Good news from Chemtura would be their source removal of drums, waste and contaminated soil in the south-west. If Chemtura want more appreciation for their efforts then they must continue on the source removal path.

INDEPENDENT WRITES STORY ON HUNSBERGER PIT

Last Thursday's (June 27/13) Elmira Independent carried this story "Township seeks sunset clause for Hunsberger pit". Basically Dan Kennaley of Woolwich Township is attempting to cover all the bases ahead of time in case the Township and citizens are unsucessful at the Ontario Municipal Board hearing starting September 3/13. This base has to do with a sunset clause as well as a heritage designation for a house on the property. All councillors supported the sunset clause after further discussion and explanation however councillors Poffenroth and Bauman did not support the heritage designation on the house.

Both The Woolwich Observer and Elmira Independent have covered this controversial proposed pit well and I think the citizens of Woolwich owe them thanks for their community service.