LOCAL INVASIVE SPECIES

This week's Woolwich Observer published an article titled "Already a problem for local trees, emerald ash borer expected to be more of an issue". The article while focusing on the ash borer also touched upon wild parsnips, wild turnip and giant hogweed. To my surprise it did not mention another invasive plant namely goutweed which locally is and has been a problem for the last few years.

It is understandable that goutweed has been under the radar because it does not produce dangerous sap such as giant hogweed and wild turnip does. Also it to date has not caused the devastation to trees (ash) that the ash borer has. In terms of financial damages that municipalities have had to deal with due to cutting down and removing dead ash trees the ash borer has taken the priority of attention.
The article suggests that ash trees will not be totally eradicated in Waterloo Region but that they will never regain the numbers and prominence they once held. Any loss of diversity in our ecosystems is not a good thing.

Whether a few years down the road our authorities will be spending time and money to control goutweed is hard to say. It too reduces diversity whether in gardens or in woodlots and therefore also is not a good thing. It is invasive and spreads rapidly out of control while severely damaging other established plants and flowers .

THE "BEWILDERED HERD " VOTE TODAY

This week's copy of the Woolwich Observer is now on-line so I can include a link to two of their Opinion pieces in my posting. The two pieces are "Our View/Editorial "Cynical about the process, we don't bother to vote"" followed by "His View/Steve Kannon "Politics is all about preventing the bewildered herd from actually having a say"". Both of these opinions by the senior staff/management of the Woolwich Observer are incredibly jaded, incredibly negative and incredibly disturbing.

Firstly I'm going to give evidence (hopefully proof by this evening's vote tally) that the "bewildered herd " does have a say. I believe, as do all the polls and the current premier, that the public will throw out a stale, corrupt and way past their best before date, Liberal Party today here in Ontario. That's the good news.

Here's the bad news. I believe that the Merlihan Empire (W. Observer) plus Steve Kannon are essentially correct in both their Opinion pieces. All three parties and in fact the party system itself is inherently corrupt. O.K. so they didn't say that directly, I did. What they are telling us is that our current system of democracy is a sham. Essentially we can vote out the bums today only to vote in different bums. All three front running parties have vested interests backing them. Steve clarifies that the corporate interests presumably backing both the Liberals and Conservatives are worse than the "meddling" unions backing the NDP. I tend to agree while holding my nose in regards to the self-interest long on display by the Teachers' unions. That said the public service unions also do very well by governments/parties primarily to secure their votes come election time. The self righteousness of these union members in justifying their wages and benefits wouldn't sting so much if the rest of us with lesser wages and benefits didn't have to pay for their superior working conditions. And please spare me the sanctimonious crap about only the best and brightest work in government.

All that said, employees wherever are not the bad guys. The first Editorial states that graft, corruption and incompetence abound. That refers to the backers and lobbyists of the three parties and the incompetence includes both municipal bureaucracies and boardrooms of multinationals. The graft and corruption refers to the monied elites who are the backers primarily of the Conservatives and Liberals. The politicians whom they support are "...happy with a self-serving system that allows unfettered access to the cookie jar for themselves and their financial backers."

Both these Editorials/Opinion pieces are a wake-up call. They are worthy of serious study. That is unlikely however as most of us would rather read the sports scores or watch the Blue Jays or the NBA finals on television versus really sitting down and thinking about serious things. Things that will affect your children's and grandchildren's lives.

UNIROYAL & SUCCESSORS HAVE DAMAGED THE GRAND RIVER

Everybody know that Uniroyal and their successors (Crompton, Chemtura and Lanxess) bear responsibility for incredible damage to the Canagagigue Creek (the "Gig") which runs from well north of the Woolwich Dam down to the Grand River just below West Montrose. What many informed people may suspect is that they have also damaged the Grand River below the mouth of the Canagagigue and possibly further downstream. The question is whether this is based upon common sense, extrapolation of monitoring within the creek just prior to it joining the Grand or possibly actual readings/monitoring within the Grand River that can be attributed back to the Canagagigue.

The first two certainly are part of it but there has been rigorous and scientific evidence proving damage to the Grand River in the stretch immediately below the incoming Canagagigue Creek. This was done in a report titled "Biological Survey of the Grand River and its Tributaries 1966". A second report done in 1982 and titled "Grand River Basin Management Study" also documented injury and damage to the Grand River courtesy of Woolwich Township industries. This included both from the Canagagigue Creek as well as from Breslube (now safety-Kleen) in Breslau. The first report was written by the Ontario Water Resources Commission (OWRC) and the second by the Ontario Ministry of Environment (M.O.E.) in conjunction with the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA).

The following information comes from the 1966 report. It states that at Station Ca13 in the "Gig" just upstream of the Grand River that while there was some improvement in fish species found due to an incoming small tributary nevertheless it was not a normal fish community and furthermore "...seven species of fish disappeared from the Grand River at Station G11, below the point of entry of Canagagigue Creek into the Grand." Added to this monitoring was the information that "The influence of impaired water from Canagagigue Creek was detected chemically at Station G11 on the Grand River. At that location the level of BOD, nutrients and solids increased." These three parameters are commonly used to pinpoint source areas of contamination whether chemical or agricultural such as fertilizers or manure.

The most recent and extensive testing last year by the M.O.E. was all about the Canagagigue Creek particularly Dioxin/Furans and DDT. It did not extend unfortunately into the Grand River nor did it look at the myriad numbers of other toxic chemical parameters in the creek.

THE TRUTH HAS ALWAYS PROVOKED THEM

The Elmira Independent published my Letter To The Editor back on December 3, 2008. The title was "Ministry should lay charges". This was in reference to my posting here last Wednesday about Chemtura's failure to maintain on-site hydraulic containment of the Municipal Aquifer during their construction of the new and enhanced Ammonia Treatment System. My Letter to The Editor rather bluntly advised that the M.O.E. had ample evidence including their own report on the matter in order to lay charges against Chemtura. Their Investigation and Enforcement Branch decided not to.

On March 13, 2009 the K-W Record carried an article titled "Chemtura struggling to avoid default". This large article detailed Chemtura's financial problems in servicing their debts and was somewhat blamed upon the recent and ongoing economic recession at the time. Both the Elmira Independent and the K-W Record had additional articles on the matter later in March (March 20/09 for the Record) which differentiated between the troubles of Chemtura U.S. versus how the Canadian affiliate was doing. The Elmira plant had steady production and they were stating that their U.S.'s parent company's troubles would not affect their ongoing clean up here in Elmira, Ontario.

At the CPAC meeting of June 29, 2009, CPAC were advised that Chemtura were planning on eliminating 36 current wells from their monitoring program despite M.O.E. disagreement with five of the proposed wells and the fact that CPAC had not received advice from Wilf Ruland yet on the matter. The Elmira Independent article of July 8, 2009 also mentioned that yours truly as a long term involved citizen and environmentalist had not even received a list of the proposed wells to date. The Independent also decided to mention the rather embarrassing fact that CPAC members attendance was so bad that they didn't even have a quorum. This of course should have been doubly embarrassing to them as yours truly, politically removed from CPAC the previous year, was right there as always in the gallery attending CPAC meetings.

A number of my comments and questions whether at the CPAC meetings or in Letters To The Editor have long provoked Chemtura and the M.O.E.. They have this funny idea that just because they hide behind credentialed experts (CRA) that we the citizens are supposed to blindly believe whatever Chemtura serving nonsense they spew forth.

IT'S ALL BUT OVER - CURRENTLY DEAFENING SILENCE

So there were two meetings last March namely One TAG meeting followed by one RAC meeting. Those discussions were about the DDT and Dioxin/Furans on the Stroh farm. A month later we the paying public were treated again to two meetings namely one TAG (Technical Advisory Group) meeting followed by one RAC (Remediation Advisory Committee) meeting. Those two meetings were about the latest and largest Canagagigue Creek investigation unfortunately done by GHD (formerly Conestoga Rovers). I wonder at what point in time will the public ask why convicted murderers are in charge of the additional murder investigation of which they the investigators are charged with? This of course is a metaphor using the word "murder", albeit just barely. Perhaps "murder" of the environment along with premature human sickness and death will someday be considered murder.

RAC are a bunch of woefully uninformed representatives of multiple levels of government as well as government agencies. They include Woolwich Township, Region of Waterloo, province of Ontario (M.O.E.), GRCA, Lanxess (Chemtura) plus a couple of TAG reps. TAG are mostly a bunch of well meaning and honest citizens with a couple of wolves in sheep's clothing thrown in to the mix as a payoff by Sandy for helping on her last election campaign. They were far more effective with their original Chair Dr. Richard Jackson who resigned after only twelve months at the helm. Possibly he did not wish to have his name and reputation sullied by what he clearly saw as a flawed process (and available personnel) that could not achieve the goals necessary. He did express confidence in the talents and efforts of Neil Thompson of the University of Waterloo in regards to his work on a Conceptual Site Model. He also expressed confidence in his replacement as TAG Chair, Ms. Tiffany Svensson.

The next RAC meeting is scheduled for September 2018. As long as they are content to sit back and let Lanxess and GHD run the show to their advantage and interests then it matters not whether they meet or not. This is especially so as the better informed public are denied the ability to ask them questions or point out fallacies and inaccuracies in their plans. TAG are scheduled to meet next OCTOBER unless they are able to get folks out for a tentative July meeting. These prolonged gaps between meetings simply work to the advantage of all the guilty parties as they condition the new TAG members to many months between meetings and the subsequent loss of continuity etc.. Even we old hands lose focus and find it more difficult to stay up to date when we are having to review all issues over and over again just to get back up to speed for the next meeting three to six months later.

Then let's talk about Minutes. Has anybody seen them from the March and April meetings? I'll recheck my files but I don't think they're out yet. If so the only Minutes to date are in reality my postings here the morning after these meetings. Exactly how well do you think members of RAC and TAG remember meetings if they don't see and read the Minutes for either weeks or God help us months afterwards? It's not by accident folks. It's intentional.

GOUTWEED -STILL HERE & SPREADING FAST

At least one local resident continues to work tirelessly in her bid to rid her property of goutweed. To date her attempts to bring Woolwich Township on board as partners to solve the problem has been less than successful. Yes they are responding to her which one might think is the bare minimum to do but believe me this Township have no difficulties in not responding when they so choose. The Bolender Park methane issues are one example of that.

It is my understanding that to date at least one Woolwich staffer has looked at her property. Also advice in how to contain the spread of the goutweed has also been offered, some good and some less so. Further advice has included giving the resident the name of a local landscape company for both advice and to get work done. All at her cost of course.

If I understand it correctly, the goutweed came from the Township's property (Bolender Park) and spread onto her nearby property.

For further information on the behaviour and characteristics of goutweed either Google it or check out my May 21/18 posting here. Goutweed tends to choke out other preferred lawn and garden plants by entwining their roots in and around the roots of other species.

HEALTH CANADA SLOWLY COMING AROUND TO BANNING NEONICOTONOIDS

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Pesticides do harm to bees and should be phased out, Health Canada says". Health Canada has done a number of different studies on nicotine based pesticides and made a recommendation in 2016 that one of them, imidacloprid, was building up in surface and ground water as well as killing aquatic insects and thus should be banned. This followed an earlier study suggesting that this group of pesticides only negatively affected bees under certain specific conditions. They therefore concluded that if neonicotonoids were banned on the main crops attractive to bees then the risk of using them elsewhere was "acceptable".

Health Canada have generally been much less aggressive in regards to them than either the European Union countries or other scientists in general. Nonetheless any direction by Health Canada to reduce the use of this class of pesticides is welcomed.

Environmental groups as well as the Ontario Beekeepers' Association have strongly demanded a ban on neonicotonoids for several years now and overall scientists have strongly endorsed their opinions and views.

Health Canada did recommend limiting the use of two other neonicotonoids, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, suggesting they eventually be phased out for direct application on certain crops and municipal and residential lawns.