"VOLUNTARY" CLEANUP OF GRAVEL PIT-1 - INDEED IT WAS, IN HINDSIGHT

The March 7, 2013 edition of the Elmira Independent carries the following story titled "Committee opposes partial excavation of waste pits." CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) wanted both gravel pits, GP-1 and GP-2 excavated and contaminated soils (dioxin/furans, DDT, & more) removed. In order to save a buck, Chemtura only wanted to excavate parts of GP-1 and cap then GP-2 in order to reduce water infiltration into the pit. All in all it was an excellent scam by both the company and the Ontario Ministry of Environment.

To date Chemtura or their successor Lanxess have not so much as acknowledged or commented on the probable relocation of GP-1 despite as always the evidence is from sources intimately associated with the company and its site in Elmira, Ontario. Both text from reports in the 1980s and early 90s as well as a 1983 and 1992 maps indicate the earlier accepted location of GP-1. Conestoga Rovers has even admitted that they have over time made adjustments to the size and shape of Gp-1 in particular. They have not admitted to outright relocation however.

If as I believe that GP-1 was arbitrarily and bilaterally moved by Uniroyal Chemical and CRA then indeed the cleanup of the likely much less contaminated pretend GP-1 should have been voluntary. What is indescribable and heinous however is the potential Ontario Ministry of Environment's (MOE/MECP) collusion with Uniroyal on the matter. I'm sure that they would prefer the word "negotiated" but that would be a misnomer. I very much doubt that they have the right to "negotiate" away the legal responsibilities of a coporate polluter who has contaminated their neighbour's property. If the MOE did collude with Uniroyal and CRA on this matter, then it is trilateral not bilateral relocation of a contaminated area. The original (via the 1983 map) GP-1 was on Uniroyal's property but was located in the lower lying area on the north-east side of the diagonal ridge of high ground in their south-east corner. This diagonal ridge (north-west to south-east orientation) of higher ground is what deflected the overland flow of waste waters from the east side pits south-east onto the neighbouring Stroh property. Therefore overland flow into the real GP-1 would have more obviously continued south-eastwards through the "Gap" area and onto the Stroh property and farm.

THREE DECADES OF PROFESSIONAL DECEPTION

Sometimes I wonder why I have such disrespect for various alleged professional consultants, spokespersons, and experts who all amazingly to me, not so much to others, find ways to interpret facts favourably to their clients or even misstate facts also favourably to their clients. There is an immense advantage to being the proponent for either development proposals or remediation proposals for your own property. Firstly, generally speaking, you control the facts and hence the narrative. Also, generally speaking, there is no real government regulator in serious, open confrontation with you, unless of course you are a small fry and then things can change in a hurry. Just ask Varnicolor Chemical owner Severin Argenton about that. Some former government employed drinking buddies quickly jumped ship when the tide turned against Severin and the MOE back in the early 1990s.

Over the last two days I have posted here about the pumping of waste waters from the west side of the creek (Canagagigue) over to the east side pits on the top of the hill. I also posted here about synonyms, typos, and other misstatements and errors amazingly all being helpful to the narrative that the polluter and sometimes their guilty regulator preferred.

There are a few but very significant errors in Table 3.1 in the August 1991 Environmental Audit written by Conestoga Rovers (CRA) on behalf of Uniroyal Chemical. These include inaccurate dates of disposal as well as not clearly indicating the exact dates that various west side ponds were constructed which would then give a clearer indication of how many years they were actually in operation say compared to the east side pits. Similarly it would help if this "Waste Disposal Summary Table" more clearly indicated which pits and ponds were primarily for liquids versus solids or sludges. Also DDT is mentioned as being in the Building 8 sump but there is no indication in this Table as to the final destination for this product (it was into RPE-4).

Even the nomenclature for RPE and RPW is deceptive. RPW refers to the west side "ponds" as in Retention Pond West and RPE refers to the east side "pits" as in Retention Pit East. This certainly gave me for a very long time the false belief that the process liquids primarily were disposed into the west side "ponds" versus into the east side "pits". Uniroyal and successors had a multitude of opportunities to correct those misunderstandings at public UPAC and CPAC meetings for decades but did not.

Both the August 1991 and the January 1992 Environmental Audits are seriously convoluted and complicated in regards to explaining to citizens and lay persons exactly where solid and liquid wastes ended up. Yes they are clear that in the first few years just about everything liquid went directly or indirectly into the Canagagigue Creek. After that the company used more convoluted routes to essentially get the same result. After 1946 the Uniroyal Chemical sewer and sump systems sent the vast majority of waste waters to the east side pits which already by 1948 were causing vegetative distress to further east crops (Stroh property) as well as along the creek on the Uniroyal property. Clearly the information we received in the early 90s about Mr. Stroh senior having received compensation for crop damage makes sense.

If the guilty parties had been up front at the start of public consultation (i.e. UPAC) then citizens would have focused much more on the east side long before the discovery of the Stroh Drain, Ditch & Berm in May 2014.

CORRECTION REGARDING STROH DRAIN, DITCH & BERM

Following is copy of an e-mail sent earlier this morning to Tiffany Svensson, (TAG Chair), Joe Kelly (member), Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach (CPAC & TAG member) and Lisa Schaefer (Support Co-ordinator for RAC/TAG - Woolwich Township employee)




Tiffany & Joe: I have been rereading old but very relevant reports describing the overland flow of liquid wastes from the east side pits. Two of the sources are the 1985 "A History of Uniroyal Waste Management at Elmira" by W. Jackman, J. Ralston,and A. Smith. The first two gentlemen are from the Ontario MOE and the last is from the GRCA. The second report is the August 1991 "Environmental Audit" produced by Conestoga Rovers (CRA) under order from the MOE and on behalf of Uniroyal Chemical.

The 1985 report states on page 4 : "By 1948, seepage from the ponds was being collected in open ditches and drained to a gravel pit (GP on Fig. 1)."
"The 2,4-D wastewater continued to be pumped to the ponds until 1965 when the municipal waste treatment plant..."

And on page 6 : "Any wash water from the 2,4,5-T process entered the same waste streams as the 2,45-D process."

The August 1991 Environmental Audit on Page 37 states that liquid wastes leaked out the bottom of RPE-1 because it was built on a sand lens and caused "vegetative stress" on both crops on the east side and vegetation on the west side. as far away as the Canagagigue Creek.

However as per page 38, pits RPE-2, 3.4 were built on top of clay and hence there was much less and much slower leakage through the bottom. The obvious fact was that ongoing and daily pumping of liquid wastes into these pits resulted in significant overflows of wastewater versus CRA's claim of "intermittent" flow.

Page 39 states: "Intermittent overflow from the pits was collected in open ditches and drained to a gravel pit on the south-east portion of the property." Furthermore "This seepage toward the gravel pit continued until approximately 1965, when the Elmira STP began to receive wastes from Uniroyal." And on the same page "...the east pits continued to be used to equalize the loadings to the Elmira STP."

Page 43 states: "Seepage and overflow from the pits RPE-1 to RPE-5 was directed by drainage ditches into gravel pits located in the south-east portion of the site. This practice began in the early 1940s until approximately 1970 when the east side ponds were closed and /or lined. Liquids would pond in the gravel pits and eventually seep down into the subsurface soils. Liquid waste water was continuously standing in the gravel pits until the east side pits were closed. When seepage from these pits subsided in the early 1970s, the gravel pits dried up."

Prior to my commenting/criticizing CRA's obvious conflict of interest (i.e. client driven and paid for reports) and choice of language (
"seepage", "intermittent") to minimize the extent of pollution and cost of cleanup to their client (Uniroyal Chemical) I wish to ask Lisa Schaefer to please send this e-mail report to all of TAG at a minimum. Thank you Lisa. Secondly I wish to advise that Woolwich Township should have both these reports, and much more, in their archives. If not then either the MOE/MECP or Lanxess should be able to provide them to Lisa, Tiffany and all TAG members. As a last resort I am the proud owner of a complete set of Uniroyal to Lanxess reports (approx. 1980 - 2019) and I would either e-mail you entire pages as Attachments or possibly bring in the reports for you to examine with myself present.

Point One: Note in the above quotes how many times seepage and overflows were directed into a gravel pit (SINGULAR!) versus gravel pits plural. That is because they were directed towards a gravel pit (GP-1) only, however GP-1 was not in the current location where CRA conveniently moved it to on their maps over the last three decades. I have the maps showing its relocation from its original location on the north-east side of the diagonal ridge of high ground that a number of us walked on top of on April 11, 2019 during our site tour.

Point Two: We are supposed to believe that "seepage" or "intermittent overflow" of the east side pits resulted in surface drainage in open ditches (versus say in an enclosed pipe) over a distance of 300 metres from RPE-5 and closer to 750 metres from RPE-2 which is much further north. That is ridiculous nonsense. Only very large volumes of liquids waste waters would flow that distance without being entirely absorbed into the soil along the way. Furthermore CRA have stated that these waste water flows resulted in "continuously standing" liquids in the gravel pits.

Point Three: From 1946 until very close to 1970, the east side pits were the recipients of the vast bulk of process waste waters and liquid wastes generated by Uniroyal and successors production processes on the west side of the creek. From 1942 until 1946 liquid wastes were simply put directly into Shirt Factory Creek (SFC) and from there the Canagagigue or directly allowed to run off the river flats into the Canagagigue Creek. From 1946 until 1970 they were pumped via two pipelines across the creek and over to the east side pits. The waste waters averaged around 165,000 Imperial Gallons Per Day (IGPD) with lows of 140,000 gallons and highs of 240,000 IGPD. These daily volumes could not possibly be absorbed by the soil and indeed they were not. They flowed southwards and eastwards following the ground surface elevation contours until they ended in a large depression on the Stroh property to the immediate east of the Stroh Drain, Ditch & Berm. Yes these liquid wastes were not in a pipe and certainly spread out with some going west towards the creek on Uniroyal's property and some going into the currently known GP-1 location. Most however went over to the Stroh property. Ground surface elevation contours do not lie. My large map has these contours now for the entire east side and these contours are sourced from the MOE/MECP, GRCA, CRA, MTE and others and are consistent with each other.

Joe, in regards to the small pond just south of RPE-5 your observation was worthy however that depression is the result of contaminated soil being excavated and put into RPE-5 in 1969 essentially after the east side pits were out of service. This information is also in the Environmental Audit.

Sincerely Alan Marshall CPAC & EH-Team member P.S. TAG & CPAC member Sebastian Seibel- Achenbach has more current and extensive knowledge of these matters than TAG hence his position being closer to mine than to some TAG members.

SYNONYMS, TYPOGRAPHICAL, & OTHER INTENTIONAL (?) ERRORS TO CONFUSE AND DECEIVE THE PUBLIC

There are several reports from the 1980s and very early 1990s written by consultants for Uniroyal Chemical and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE/MECP) that have become the "bibles" for environmental activists and citizens who have seriously pursued the truth for the last three decades regarding the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis. There were a couple of others from consultants hired by the Region of Waterloo namely CH2M HILL and one done by consulting firm Terraqua. These last two, especially the Terreaqua report (1986) I have very little difficulty with.

There are serious problems with the 1985 "History of Uniroyal Chemical Waste Management" produced by the MOE and GRCA as well as with the two Environmental Audits produced by Conestoga Rovers in August 1991 and January 1992. There are too many times that either products, building names, sumps, waste pits and ponds are referred to using synonyms without explanation or clarification. There are what look like typographical errors whereby a building number is one digit off what it was previously, again without explanation or clarification. As far as the wastewater distribution and disposal system there are a plethora of names and numbers for the very same sumps for example. Also there are incorrect dates and waste pit locations in the Environmental Audit.

All of this almost seems to be a bit of showing off. You know when you try to talk to a person about their work and they try to impress you with a ton of acronyms and or a ton of meaningless numbers thrown in to make their jobs and knowledge seem both greater than yours and vaster than it really is. Some consultants aren't happy unless they are basically speaking a different language than their audience which may also have the intent of discouraging questions if you have been totally lost during the presentation. Using synonyms to confuse your audience can be no more than trying to impress or it can be simple rudeness or finally it can be to intentionally confuse your audience.

Recently I've been rereading these reports, yet again. Keeping them all on the table at the same time and going back and forth between them is helpful. One can slowly pick out the confusing if not contradictory statements and see how it is done. The why is a little more subjective although from the experience and viewpoint of dealing with these two groups for three decades one can readily come to one's own conclusion. Sometimes there are blatant errors and other times it is careful word choice to make you think one thing until you reread it and compare to the other reports. Between multiple reports and authors one can slowly pick one's way through the smoke and haze. All of this further hinders true public consultation.

MORE DETAIL ON METHOD DETECTION LIMITS (MDL)

Yesterday's post included comments from Jason Rice MOE/MECP) (in a letter to Tiffany Svensson) regarding why MDLs vary between ALS labs and the MECP labs. Various reasons include:

For dioxin/furan analysis ALS uses EPA Method 8290 instead of EPA Method 1613. The latter is the superior of the two and the one used by the MOE/MECP.

Regarding DDT analysis ALS labs uses Method E3487 versus ALS labs using Methods WT-TM 1102 and 1302. While those numbers are Greek to me apparently using the ALS Method results in higher Method Detection Limits (MDLs). Also the MECP use more sensitive instrument equipment than ALS which lowers MDLs. Finally The MECP lab method has a larger final volume of sample extract also lowering MDLs.

For both dioxin/furans and DDT there are also superior versus inferior clean-up steps involving the lab equipment used. Mr. Rice (MECP) believes that the ALS steps are inferior to the MOE's.

My take on all this is that you get what you pay for and hence Lanxess had no incentive to get the best lab work done as it would cost more money upfront to the lab and then later with the greater cleanup of the Creek occasioned by the greater number of criteria exceedances that the lab would find if they used the superior methods.

KIND OF AN ODD TAG MEETING LAST EVENING

First off everybody behaved nicely including Sandy Shantz politely and respectfully giving me her condolences on the passing of my father-in-law, Aden Brubacher. A couple of others did as well. I thanked them sincerely including our pretend mayor, Sandy. No I did not call her that but treated her as respectfully and courteously as she treated me.

The meeting was odd for many reasons. First of all there were no MOE staff present. Neither was Ramin Ansari, Dwighte Este, Helder Botellho from Lanxess present. Therefore as usual exactly zero questions could be asked by either TAG members or the public of the MOE (MECP) or Lanxess which is exactly as those two bodies seem to prefer. As if the public could ask questions even if the MOE and Lanxess were present courtesy of the horse.... Terms of Reference for TAG and RAC. Also odd was Sandy Shantz (RAC co-chair) sitting at the front with TAG chair Tiffany Svensson. Sandy has spent the last two meetings in the gallery with the rest of us plebes and that's exactly where she should be sitting, not at the front. What the hell is she doing...supervising or micromanaging her own appointee as chair of TAG???

Two new TAG members were introduced last evening namely Katharina Richter and Dustin Martin. They both live in Elmira, Woolwich Township whereas another TAG member Susan Bryant lives in neither. Both new members certainly seem well qualified although I believe that both have zero experience regarding Uniroyal and Elmira issues. That they will eventually (years) get up to speed is likely if they become keen and continue on. It will take years partly due to the history and complexity of the issues and also due to the reduced number of meetings per year. Unfortunately last night's meeting was incredibly dull and somewhat technical with lots of acronyms being thrown around. The dullness is partly due to the lack of input from MOE and Lanxess. While UPAC and CPAC have suffered in the past from too much time taken up by Conestoga Rovers on behalf of Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura the opposite is currently happening.

Tiffany and TAG have messed up again. The earlier messup was accepting the 5.9 inch (15 cm.) only sampling and later excavations on the north-west side of the Stroh property. This one is accepting Lanxess's (Ramin's) self-serving refusal to do soil testing further south on the Stroh property in and around the Stroh Drain, Ditch and Berm (SDDB). This was done despite TAG member Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach's disagreement.

David Hofbauer advised that in his opinion the MOE in their comments to Lanxess were attempting to get more data into the Risk Assessment process unless Lanxess/GHD can better explain why it isn't needed.

Jason Rice replied to Tiffany Svensson's request for information regarding Method Detection Limits (MDL). Clearly ALS labs testing is inferior to both the MOE labs and probably Maxxam who have been used for years by Uni/Crompton/Chemtura. When I say inferior I strongly suspect intentionally inferior as they (ALS) were likely contracted to do the less expensive and less accurate testing and inherent higher MDLs by Lanxess all in the name of saving money AND in the name of generating many more NON-DETECTS (ND) in the soil and sediment samples in the downstream Canagagigue Creek. This is what occurs when the MDLs are higher than the criteria and health guidelines. Instead of more exceedances of criteria in the samples, simply more ND are generated. Talk about a win-win for Lanxess and a lose-lose for the public and the environment. The extent of gross and toxic contamination in the Canagagigue Creek is once again minimized thus lowering cleanup costs dramatically.The scam and sham of the Elmira cleanup continues. Bless you all politicians, fellow travellors and self-serving bureaucrats for keeping your heads down and letting them get away with it.

MORE ABOUT YESTERDAY'S POST AND TODAY"S TAG MEETING

First of all today's TAG meeting at 6:30 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers will have a detailed discussion regarding the Ministry of Environment's (MOE/MECP) written comments on both Contaminants of Potential Concern (COPC) and on the Canagagigue Creek Conceptual Site Model (CSM). Lanxess and their consultants GHD have been working on these two matters for some time now.

Rather than go through the MOE's comments in detail I am going to boil it down to the basics. Lanxess, the proud owners of a still disgustingly contaminated site (i.e. Uniroyal in Elmira) do not wish, like every owner before them, to spend one nickel more than absolutely necessary on the cleanup of either their own site or of the Elmira Aquifers and the downstream Canagagigue Creek. The Elmira cleanup has for decades made a mockery of the politicians mantra that "Polluter Pays". All the successive owners of the Uniroyal Chemical site including Uniroyal themselves played the system shamelessly.

The MOE/MECP have touched on only a couple of the games that have been played over the decades. This includes the failures of the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System (UACTS) to fully hydraulically contain the south-west corner of the site much less to contain the shallow aquifers discharge to the creek throughout the site. They have also advised that on page 2 of their July 30/19 document that Lanxess did not evaluate COPC's in groundwater "because the groundwater COPC evaluation was reportedly documented in the Annual Monitoring Report No. 28". "However, AMR No. 28 does not specifically identify the groundwater COPCs."

Elmira citizens and the environment have been on the receiving end of these "errors", falsehoods and deceptions for thirty years now. It is long past time for the games to stop and the truth to be told by both polluters and regulators.