TODAY'S THE DAY: TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE ELMIRA ADVOCATE

Let's see: Today is my sister's birthday. She turned 80 today. That bodes well for my longevity as my twin brother passed away four years ago and my parents died at 73 and 78 respectively. I am officially, as undiplomatically pointed out by my daughter twelve days ago, closer to 71 than 70. Also my son's birthday is only five days away. Thirdly the Elmira Advocate was launched ten years ago today. I am both pleased and take as a point of pride and a badge of honour that my Blog is despised by many. Many liars, many deceivers, many politicians, many bureaucrats, many involved in both our environmental as well as judicial systems. It is not one's job title that determines whether they hate either me or the Elmira Advocate. It's their behaviour including manipulation of people and facts as well as their aversion to the truth and conversion to "alternate realities", "gilding the lily" or "factual fictions". I, along with the rest of the world, am human. I make mistakes. What I do not do and never have done is intentionally mislead, prevaricate or knowingly provide inaccuracies. Our world unfortunately incentivizes (financially promote's) the best liars among us. That certainly has led to a plethora of unkind jokes about lawyers and politicians. e.g "It's not fair that 93% of lawyers give all the rest a bad name." Substitute politicians for lawyers and you can probably up the percentage to 95.

Yes the world is corrupt through and through. Note I do not believe that the majority of people are corrupt. It's the 2-4% of us who have made their lifetime ambition to be in charge and control of the rest of us, who are the problem. Whether their program has included direct or indirect political control, economic control or other means, that is where the problem lies. If only the other 96-98% of us would only pay more attention. Easier said than done especially when most do not even see or believe the problems facing both human beings and the planet itself.

CAN THE INTERNET BE SCRUBBED OF INFO THAT IS CONTRARY TO CORPORATE INTERESTS?

My first guess would be no. This is based upon all the wonderful on-line articles, newspaper stories, reports, studies and even my own Elmira Advocate postings which certainly do not give a positive, upbeat impression of Uniroyal Chemical. Oh and lest we forget, my book "Elmira Water Woes: The Triumph Of Corruption, Deceit and Citizen Betrayal" is also on-line in its entirety. So this begs the question for me as to how a couple of presumably, potentially, or probably highly contaminated sites can have such a tiny on-line presence. Certainly the timing for the first, Hart Chemical, might be such that it was gone from Guelph, Ontario essentially prior to the real start up of the Internet. The second company, Huntsman Corp., which was located at the same address and on the same property is similar. There are articles regarding Huntsman activities at other locations (U.S.) but little or nothing about their tenure in Guelph, Ontario on the banks of the Eramosa River. Coincidentally (or not) the Eramosa River has also been blessed in the past with municipal/industrial dumps both immediately upstream and downstream of the Hart/Huntsman and now PDI (bulk carriers) location at 256 Victoria Rd.

I remember all of once, Jeff Merriman, environmental engineer for Uniroyal, Crompton, Chemtura suggesting that the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant was an ongoing polluter to the Canagagigue Creek and hence everything in the creek was not necessarily his employer`s fault. I was later surprised that Uniroyal and subsequent owners were so careful not to point out municipal or provincial contributions to the chemically enhanced creek via former landfills both up and downstream of the Uniroyal Chemical plant. Why not. Well that should be obvious in hindsight. The left hand washes the right hand which washes the left hand... . Woolwich Township have been long and truly in bed with both the Ontario Ministry of Environment and with Uniroyal and their later corporate iterations. It`s far more than Uniroyal simply providing local employment and some local taxes to the municipality. It`s also about all parties having dirty hands environmentally hence people who live in glass houses should not throw stones at each other.

BACK TO THE FUTURE ? STUDYING THE PAST CAN ILLUMINATE THE FUTURE

Friday April 4, 2014. Just over six years ago Gail Martin of the Elmira Independent wrote two stories titled "In-Situ remediation project moves forward" and "MOE plans DDT study". The first story described two failed attempts as of that date to use In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) to lower the concentrations of off-site "hot spots" of contamination. The third location to be attempted was by off-site pumping well W3 which is located very close to the Midas muffler shop on Industrial Dr. It too in hindsight failed according to Conestoga Rovers and Chemtura due to factors out of their control. Not so according to Dr. Richard Jackson a couple of years later. Dr. Jackson, Chair of TAG (Technical Advisory Group) claimed that the ISCO tests failed due to either incompetence or lack of knowledge/effort/will. Perhaps all of the preceding. I have to tell you that Elmira was the big loser when Susan Rupert (one of the APTE founders), the Elmira Independent, and Dr. Jackson all departed.

The second article refers to a new planned DDT study. Ostensibly this is in response to a request from CPAC to the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE). I am however a little skeptical about that. It seems that of the many excellent ideas that some UPAC or CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) members have come up with over the decades, very few are ever sincerely acted upon by either the MOE or Uniroyal/Chemtura. Those that have been are for self-serving purposes of either Chemtura or the MOE or more likely both. In other words they are to advance private plans that those two parties already have.

Guess what? Currently and since 2017 the MOE and Chemtura/Lanxess Canada have been working towards another Site Specific Risk Assessment (SSRA). A rose by any other name smells just as corrupt. The testing in the Canagagigue Creek in 2012, 2014, 2015 etc. all is leading towards the tried and proven black art of SSRA. That process perhaps does not need to be corrupt but as long as the polluter, their consultants and the equally corrupt regulator (MOE/MECP) are in charge of the process, it's pretty much a given. The SSRA is for the downstream Canagagigue Creek (the "Gig") from the current Lanxess (Uniroyal Chemical) site to the mouth of the "Gig" at the Grand River just south of West Montrose. Each and every study since 2012 has been vigorously studied, and criticized for a plethora of major flaws and each and every one of those criticisms have fallen on the deaf and biased ears of the corrupted parties. These criticisms have come from multiple CPAC and TAG members who have volunteered their time and expertise. This expertise includes hydrogeologists, biologists, remediation specialists, and local citizens with decades of experience reading technical reports, questioning and debating the polluter's and the MOE's experts.

Is our future in doubt? Hardly unless or until Ontario citizens wake up and take this province back from politicians and their self-serving supporters. Perhaps as "climate change" continues to unleash hell upon the world, citizens everywhere will wake up to the unpalatable truth that our politicians have failed to embrace the long term public interest in favour of short term monied interests. So it has always been and will likely continue until the end.

A FULL DECADE OF SHARING MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT, BUREAUCRACIES, CLIENT DRIVEN CONSULTANTS , INDUSTRIAL POLLUTERS & WORSE

TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY

May 8, 2010. That was my first post here on the Elmira Advocate. I tended to focus entirely, as per the description at the top of my Blog, on "Advocating for citizens of Woolwich Township with regards to the environment, surface water, drinking water and contaminated industrial sites." Over the years my focus has stayed on Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura and now Lanxess Canada while also writing about numerous other local environmental issues. These would include contaminated gas stations, gravel pits, methane issues at Bolender Landfill, odour issues in Elmira, Woolwich Bio-En, asbestos and lead in both Elmira's and Kitchener-Waterloo's drinking water etc. Since last October I have also posted occasionally here regarding issues that I formerly kept on my Waterloo Region Advocate Blog. These would include the justice system, police, labour, politics, education and corruption in any and all of them.

I posted my book titled "Elmira Water Woes: The Triumph of Corruption, Deceit and Citizen Betrayal" on my Waterloo Region Advocate Blog. It is also posted in its' entirety on the Cambridge Advocate Website. I decided one to cut back on writing two separate Blogs and I decided to leave my Waterloo Region Advocate Blog with the focus of the last two months (April-May 2019) on my book.

Environmentally I have also expanded the scope of my Elmira Advocate Blog to include provincial and sometimes national environmental issues. These would include the scandal of mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrows, environmental threats from derailed trains carrying crude oil, very slight coverage of pipeline issues in Alberta and B.C. and more. Of late after a few weeks of writing about the Region of Waterloo Annual (Water) Reports for Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and the four Townships I have been focusing on some absolutely ridiculous and horrible pollution in Guelph including Chemtura Canada, IMICO, potentially Hart/Huntsman, plus multiple leaking landfills in and around the Speed and Eramosa Rivers as well as beside residential homes close to York and Victoria Rds. in Guelph.

I also have focused on local governance here in Woolwich Township. It is truly awful. Combined with the corruption/deceit of MECAC (municipal election compliance audit committee) was the corruption/deceit of our local (Kitchener) judicial system in refusing to enforce the Municipal Elections Act.

What have I learned? In a nutshell I quote from a T-shirt worn to public meetings by environmentalist and activist Pat Potter. It goes like this:

"THEY ALL LIE".

"RIVER TRASH : GUELPH'S HISTORICAL GARBAGE..." GUELPH MERCURY JULY 21, 2012

The actual full title of the story by Rob O'Flanagan is "River trash : Guelph's historical garbage just below the surface". The first few pages of the story show pictures of the Eramosa River and two of them are fairly disgusting. The one shows numerous glass bottles along the bank, some broken and some not. The other shows old electrical components including wires on the bank of the river. Possibly one item visible could be an old electrical ballast. If that is so then that is quite likely to be one of the sources of PCBs in both nearby soils and the river itself. I received this article from an old friend and environmental colleague living in Guelph.

Glass bottles, electrical wires, leather items, old toys, household garbage and foodstuffs and leaking car batteries. This situation likely runs from the Hanlon Expressway all the way to Victoria Rd. a distance of about 2.5 kilometres. There were a total of eleven dumps along that stretch of river. The first was on the west side of the Hanlon and the last on the west side of Victoria Rd. between the river and the south end of streets such as Lawrence, Audrey, Menzie, Kingsmill and Hayes. That information makes the very minimal outdoor soil vapour testing at a few streets nearest Victoria Rd. appear to be minimalist in the extreme. Similarly proposed indoor air testing for toxic vapours again in only a few streets nearest Victoria Rd. appears to be an attempt to "scope" or hide the potential extent of the problem.

There is no doubt that local industries enjoyed the privilege of dumping both inert and toxic wastes into these municipally condoned dumps. The term Landfill Site is far too nice of a term for car parts, pop, milk, beer, and liquor bottles combined with metal scraps, foundry wastes, probably liquid waste solvents and worse. The leachate from these dumps would be being discharged directly into the Speed and Eramosa Rivers. Also methane gas is formed courtesy of rotting foodstuffs. Both methane gas as well as solvent vapours (eg. trichloroethylene-TCE) are common examples of vapour intrusion into buildings and homes and while the first is explosive the second is horribly toxic to both pets and human beings. One witness stated in the article that he has come across strong and noxious vapours from even minor digging in the soils near the rivers.

Then of course we also have the non-voting residents of the area such as turtles, fish, muskrats, beavers and other wildlife. They have long been the recipients of the largesse of human beings who have become a plague upon the earth. We can do better and that includes proper cleanup of our sordid past behaviours. Excuses by the Ministry of Environment that we didn't know better at the time are exactly that: excuses.

THIRTY FRUSTRATING YEARS LATER AND IT'S SO MUCH CLEARER

First of all I have zero regrets for stepping up and taking action. I have zero regrets for calling out individuals, companies, government agencies, and governments themselves (municipal, regional and provincial) for their inaction, deceit, incompetence, dishonesty and or willful negligence of the public interest. I was as brainwashed as all the rest for far too long as I wanted to believe that our governments inherent purpose is to protect their citizens as well as to promote their legitimate interests. If only.

If nothing else I have realized that governments can and do move amazingly quickly when they are inspired to do so. The current Covid 19 crisis is a textbook case on how fast and quickly governments can respond to a crisis if they feel it is in their best interests to do so. Yes there were several governments who fell short on the timely and quick scale. Clearly England (Boris Johnson) and the United States (Donald Trump) are the best examples of that. China may have stalled and delayed initially but once well and truly motivated they have stopped the pandemic in their country. A little late for the rest of us undoubtedly but we did have the luxury of several weeks to see its' seriousness before it got to us, mostly by personal travel of our own citizens.

So let's be bluntly honest here. Thirty plus years later and the Uniroyal Chemical site is not cleaned up. That is undisputed and in fact almost a perverse/reverse point of pride. The claim that the site is too polluted to bother cleaning it up is nonsensical, self-serving "poo poo del toro" as Dr. Henry Regier has been known to say. "Containing" the site versus cleaning it up is the mantra of world class polluters and their sycophantic regulators. The problem of course is that practitioners of world class puffery (i.e. p.. p.. del toro) will always advise us that a grossly contaminated site is 100% "contained" even if it's barely 40% contained. Some of those practitioners are so used to their own bull ... that they've come to believe their own misrepresentations, exaggerations and supreme gilding of the lily. Their attitude is "here's the plan/theory, here's at least some of the resources needed to implement the plan/theory and the starting date is now hence it's a done deal and forever more we will claim victory. Critics or skeptics are mere naysayers.

The Uniroyal site is not and likely never will be, or at least not within the next two hundred years, seriously cleaned up much less 100% cleaned up is because that is exactly what our provincial and federal governments want. They do not want the monied and influential interests in this country to feel penalized because they were forced to clean up polluted sites that the governments of the day tacitly if not explicitly condoned. Some countries do force private companies to fully or mostly clean up their messes. I expect that European countries in general require more cleanup than we do. Superfund designated sites and their owners in the United States appear to be on the hook much more than contaminated sites and their owners are in Canada. They do however allow client driven consultants to intervene on belalf of their polluter clients albeit those same consultants do not fully drive the remediation plans as they do here.

The IMICO site in Guelph is another terrible example. Varnicolor Chemical in Elmira has had much greater overall (surface) cleanup than Uniroyal. Still thirty years later and the Ontario MOE/MECP have not given the new (approx 2002) owners their long sought after Record of Site Condition (RSC) so that they can divide their property and build ground surface only commercial storage units. This is due to the deep contamination that was willfully and deceitfully ignored by the same MOE/MECP. Their initial Control Order insisted upon a full areal and vertical investigation. In order to give Phillip Environmental an inducement to buy the site the MOE dropped the deep investigation and willingly allowed those contaminants to be reduced over decades by dilution, natural attenuation (Ha!) and the overlap pumping and treating of the Elmira Aquifers by Uniroyal Chemical and their successors. I publicly exposed Varnicolor Chemical thirty years ago. They still apparently haven't been cleaned up enough to permit commercial surface storage units. That's pretty scary. And done intentionally.

COVID 19 AND OUR JURY SYSTEM

Last Tuesday's (April 28) Waterloo Region Record carried an article titled "Lawyers, advocates mull future of jury system". The sub-title is "experts worry about rise in judge-only trials as virus worsens backlogs". That pretty much says it in a nutshell. Defence lawyers are not keen on the idea as stated by Bill Trudell: "I don't think you're going to find that many defence counsel that think expediency should trump the jury system."

I'm of two minds on this issue both from personal experience and from decades long observation of our judicial system. From personal experience I can tell you that I was savaged by an idiot, biased judge by the name of the dishonourable Robert Reilly. He flatly refused my wife and I a jury trial (civil court) based upon an after the fact loophole/technicality engineered by the other party's lawyer. Reilly knew full well that the other lawyer (Pecker) set a trap for us and Reilly as judge did not give us as unrepresented litigants (URL) a heads up as to the ramifications thereof. When I asked for a jury trial, knowing full well that a jury of my peers would be very sympathetic to parents defence of their children, the good (awful) judge refused us a jury based upon a technicality I was unaware of. Hence if you're stuck with a judge who either was in the bottom half of his graduating class or who is grossly biased for whatever reason, then you desperately need a jury to rein him in.

On the other hand juries have participated in a plethora of blatantly ridiculous verdicts based upon junk science, shoddy investigation, dishonest witnesses, prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias and even incompetent or uncaring defence lawyers. The names Milgard, Morin and Don Marshall (Nova Scotia) come to mind although there are now literally dozens in Canada to hundreds of cases of wrongful convictions even for murder in the United States. In other words our judicial system, in my opinion, is a costly, pathetic joke. Juries are both part of the solution and part of the problem as they can be easily manipulated by a well financed state intent upon conviction no matter what the truth is.