TAG COMPLACENTLY IGNORE OPPOSING VIEWS PRESENTED TO THEM

 Their bias has become just so blatant.  It  includes Sebastian (TAG member) appealing to them to discuss and debate seriously the dioxin/furan results far in exceedance of criteria in sediments in the Stroh Drain along with the presence of DDT breakdown products . It includes me going on three years ago providing each and every TAG member with colour maps showing agreed upon topographical contours (i.e. ground surface elevations) clearly showing that Uniroyal Chemical's contaminated waste waters from their east side ponds flowed off-site onto the Stroh property into a low lying area where they likely settled out into the soils. Sebastian has begged Lanxess and the MECP to take soil samples in and around the Stroh Drain and test for dioxins/furans, DDT and other toxic contaminants. TAG have at least given muted support to that suggestion however to no avail with Lanxess/MECP. 

Regarding the map plus proof and evidence that the topographical contours were accurate and agreed upon I also provided technical references of Conestoga Rovers (CRA) and the Ministry of Environment (MECP) to much of the data on the map. TAG and their Chair Tiffany Svensson absolutely refused to discuss or debate my formal written Delegation to them. That is contemptible and disgusting and totally without any merit whatsoever. This is hard data and evidence, not produced or manufactured by me, but by the MECP, RMOW, CRA  clearly showing that Lanxess and friends conclusions are at odds with their own data and technical reports. Meanwhile TAG's so called "experts" sit on their hands and look the other way. 

Over a month ago I verbally presented and sent a written Delegation to RAC regarding the MECP's only recently released September 2020 Sediment and Fish Monitoring Report. Just like at TAG, RAC allegedly listen but do not care or comprehend apparently. Zero questions or comments then and zero since. Not a peep. At tomorrow's virtual TAG meeting (6:30 pm.) Sebastian will be presenting his analysis of the same report. Once again TAG will cover their eyes and ears even when one of their own members has something serious to tell them. Perhaps at the very least TAG and their Chair will murmur and cluck sympathetic words while averting their eyes. It's the least they can do for an honest member who despite lacking some of their scientific credentials has ten times the courage and heart of the rest of them together.  

TAG and RAC are doing their assigned jobs which is principally to be polite good little boys and girls and do not rock the boat or raise any consternation. Politicians by their own admission know better than us and they've thrown their lot in with the professional liars and any naughty boys and girls will suffer the consequences whether professional or personal including private defamation.

 

SHAMELESS CO-OPTING CONTINUES - NOT SATISFIED WITH ELMIRA COVERUP THEY NOW WANT CITIZENS TO THANK THEM FOR IT

 Some say that harsh words are wasted when describing the subsets of human beings who enjoy lying and deceiving the rest of us. I disagree. They should be called out and they should be called out by name. This would include names like Ramin, Josef, David, Sandy, George, Dwight and Jeff. In the case of the last one he has retired and allegedly is actually doing charitable work . While that may not excuse his past behaviour it does however put him in perspective. It never fails to amaze me how some people are so successfully able to lead one life on the job and a totally different life off the job. Strange unless they are continuing to fake it as they have on the job. 

Just to be clear these names include employees of Uniroyal, Chemtura, Lanxess, MECP and Woolwich Township. That said I've recently received disturbing information that might somewhat mitigate the behaviour of the "employee" of Woolwich Township. Also apologies to those decent people with the same first names as those listed above.

Apparently Lanxess obviously with the acquiesence of Woolwich Township, want to "negotiate" a new understanding  regarding the timing of the completion of the restoration of the Elmira Aquifers. Apparently they feel that long term (as in decades) lying about that is just fine. Nothing to see here folks. Move along. More new lies and manipulation to follow. The most recent suggestions from the Region of Waterloo as well as from Dr. Richard Jackson are that 2050-2060 may be possible. No one is really sure and I can tell you that at the rate Lanxess are failing with their pump and treat it will likely be longer than that. 

How terribly convenient that the destroyer of our Elmira Aquifers and their corporate successors now want to discuss a new proposed cleanup date with the shameful so called citizens committee known as TAG. There are a number of good and decent people on that committee however the majority (especially the Chair) have proven themselves to be unduly under the influence of  both Lanxess and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MECP). That is where the "shameful" remark comes in. 

We the citizens of Elmira and Woolwich were lied to about the completion cleanup date from about 1994 until about 2015. Many, many times Uniroyal, Crompton and Chemtura had the opportunity to come clean. They and the MECP chose to continue the charade and lies. The 2010-2014 Woolwich Council did step up. They told it straight when they accepted CPAC's written statement in June 2012 advising that 2028 cleanup would not happen. This was under the Chairmanship of Dr. Dan Holt. For this and other good deeds all the guilty parties ganged up on CPAC, lied and manipulated, including manufacturing a so called "crisis". Uniroyal had stormed out of a UPAC meeting back in 1998 and refused to attend those public meetings for at least six months until the then Chair Pat McLean gave them concessions to return. They did it again in very late 2014 and Woolwich Township under Sandy Shantz capitulated yet again.

And now the pile of stinking, rotten filth want TAG to negotiate a new deal. How about this Lanxess. Take a godd..n  hike but leave a few hundred million dollars behind to clean up your mess and maybe even more to pay for health care to those whose health you have ruined. That is the most generous "deal" you should ever get for your reprehensible  assaults on the environment and on human health.

TAG MEETING THIS THURSDAY AT 6:30 PM.

 Perhaps referring to Agenda Item 4.1  MECP 2020 Fish & Sediment Study Report as a garbage piece of self-serving trash dedicated to supporting the absolute worst in junk science and psuedo science and being used for the purpose of  reducing both moral culpability and financial liability by a provincial government Ministry, is a little on the harsh side. It is also strong evidence of MECP corruption in my well informed opinion. Therefore recognizing the harshness of my first sentence let me amend it slightly: This report by the Ontario Ministry of Expanded Corporate Pollution (MECP) is a piece of self-serving trash dedicated to supporting the absolute worst in junk science and psuedo science and being used for the purpose of reducing both moral culpability and financial liability by a provincial government Ministry. Notice I dropped the word "garbage" in that last sentence. 

The other items on the Agenda are a brief mention of my September 29/22 Delegation to RAC (Item 3.1.1.) in which I read my personal critique of this same report as well as written and verbal comments by TAG member Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach (Agenda Item 4.1.1) on this MECP report and finally brief comments on the Lanxess Monthly Pretend Progress Reports i.e. the PP Reports. If presented as usual by Linda Dickson of TAG I expect that she will point out the still ongoing failure to achieve Target Pumping Rates for wells PW4 & 5 (municipal Aquifer pumping wells). This is a huge deal but likely will not receive the attention it so badly deserves.

This TAG meeting is important and should be attended by more of the public and media. E-mail to  lschaefer@woolwich.ca  will get you into this virtual meeting.

SHOW ME THE MONEY! SCHOOL BOARD EMPLOYEES ON A WALKOUT TODAY

 Well I've heard two figures not very far apart regarding wages. the numbers are $39,000 and $40,000 per year average wages. This is for full time work by Custodians, Librarians, Early Childhood Educators and Administrative Assistants. Those wages twenty plus years ago might have been average wages for non-union work, which is by far the majority in Canada. Regardless $39,000-40,000 would have gone a lot farther then than now.

However these are unionized wages in 2022-23 by an employer more than willing to pay teachers in excess of $100,000 per year. Sorry folks that while I respect for example public school teachers working hard all day with young children I believe that they are overpaid relative to their job. Clearly these employees on today's walkout are absolutely necessary to the proper functioning of our schools as the schools are now shut down for the day. Nobody is trying to run schools without custodians and their colleagues or do their jobs for them.

In these inflationary times and with homes still at ridiculous prices do we expect people to work for peanuts? Apparently so as all they wanted was a $4,800 wage increase to add to their $39-$40,000. figure. Also there is the not insignificant issue of negotiated contracts via good faith bargaining. Shame on Ford and the Conservatives in both cheaping out and in using the Not Withstanding Clause to do some significant union bashing in Ontario. Political Ideology sometimes stinks and this is one of those occasions.    

CHILD ABUSE IN OUR HIGH SCHOOLS - "A COMPLETE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY"

 Well, well, well it seems like our long broken educational system continues to deceive. A report in today's Waterloo Region Record titled "It's the tip of the iceberg" advises us that across Canada "...252 current or former school personnel committed or were accused of committing offenses of a sexual nature against at least 548 children from 2017 to 2021." Furthermore "There is a complete lack of transparency." and "...she suspects the report's numbers are an underestimation. "It's the tip of the iceberg," she said."  Yeah our school administrators and board certainly have the problem well in hand apparently.

By that I mean they have it well covered up. All the puffery, all the bullsh.t , all the brazen lying by our educational establishment along the lines of "Zero tolerance of bullying, abuse " etc. is just that i.e. bullsh.t. Or maybe in the alternative they are pretending that students can no longer get away with those behaviours but hey adult boys will be boys so it's O.K. for them to have their fun at the kids expense. What a mess we have allowed our filth at the top of the educational system to get away with for decades. 

Just a reminder it is local as well. The behaviour of teacher Ron Archer should have resulted in criminal charges and convictions of many senior Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) employees but it never did. I found out personally years afterwards that their attitude towards other lesser teacher offenders was swayed by the gross criminal behaviour of Ron Archer which finally resulted in his jail term for sexual assaults against children. I guess when they were "dealing" with Mr. Archer via the "pass the trash" policies of transferring him to other schools they kind of felt that other very bad teacher/employee behaviours could and should be stifled and covered up. By the way there have been other criminal charges laid since against WRDSB employees for sexual offenses.

So certain politicians who have made a political career starting as school Trustees might want to consider removing that from their resumes. Lets see I'm thinking ...oops there are so many both municipal and provincial it wouldn't be fair to name only some of them.  Funny how seldom any of this gets out. Maybe the shame and guilt can be shared with our police and courts as well. How often have they declared as "unfounded" sexual assault allegations in our community? How many of them have come from within our public tax funded schools? Shame on all the filth at the WRDSB and all guilty Boards who have ever looked the other way and covered up illegal behaviour by their employees towards children.  

THE PRETEND CLEANUP CONTINUES

 Well the September 2022 Lanxess Progress Report is out and it needs to be renamed the Lanxess Pretend Progress Report otherwise known as the PP Report. I find that moniker to be both amusing and more accurate.

The problem is the ongoing and apparently permanent failure to maintain on site hydraulic containment in the grossly contaminated municipal aquifers (MU & ML). Recall the text that is part of these monthly PP reports namely "As wells and treatment system components require periodic downtime for maintenance, the Target Average pumping rate is set at 90% of the set point rate. GHD recommends that Lanxess maintain the target pumping rates greater than or equal to these rates." That is pretty clear to all except professional liars and the intentionally obtuse.  

September's on-site Municipal Aquifer pumping rate was 4.3 litres per second. The Target Rate is 4.7 litres per second and has been that same Target Rate for years despite off-site pumping increasing over the last year. There is a relationship between on and off site pumping in that greater off-site pumping requires greater on-site pumping to maintain on-site hydraulic containment. Eleven of the last twelve months have had significantly higher off-site pumping than we have had since off-site pumping started in 1998. There not only has been no increase to on-site pumping, it has actually decreased. Not once this year (2022) has on-site pumping achieved their Target Rate of 4.7 l/sec. In fact the only time recently that on-site pumping achieved  4.7 litres per second was September 2021, a full year ago. This is a recipe for disaster and as Lanxess only pay for 50% of off-site pumping and treating and pay 100% for on-site, then the company have a financial advantage to continue to allow escape of on-site contamination to the off-site natural environment. That is immoral and illegal and your Ontario Ministry of Environment is doing nothing about it.   

CURRENT STATUS ENVIRONMENTALLY

 Last week I sent an e-mail to the five new Woolwich councillors regarding Lanxess Canada and the purported Elmira cleanup. To date one has responded. Congrats to the one and disappointment with the other four. That said I understand if they are a tad busier than usual preparing for their new (part time?) positions. 

I also sent out two Letters To The Editor and will be pleasantly surprised if even one of them gets published. These letters are well written and are in regards to a current hot potato what with even TAG members expressing discontent with Lanxess's joke of a Risk Assessment and their claims that all downstream environmental and health risks are acceptable. My Letter To The Editor is similar to yesterday's post here in the Advocate.

Oddly there doesn't seem to be any media regarding the Ontario Land Tribunal's above average stupid decision surrounding the Hawk Ridge Homes matter.  Mitigation is the word that developers and other polluters just love. Essentially it means that no matter how bad environmentally a proposed project is it can be "mitigated" through engineering controls or if they are not satisfactory through pixie dust and or fairy godmothers with magic wands.

A new subdivision of residential homes (Hawk Ridge) will be built across Union ST. from Lanxess Canada and from CCC (Former Sulco). I give credit to Sulco and their manager Ron Koniuch who fought valiantly for years opposing the hazardous location of this subdivision. He and Sulco did this both for their private interest but also importantly for the public interest. Oddly Chemtura/Lanxess dropped out of the fight several years back despite them being the most likely to cause death and mayhem from fugitive emissions and or fires.

I also believe that the proposed truck parking lot beside Bolender Park and located above the former landfill will proceed. Many people including Dr. Dan Holt have worked hard looking for alternative locations but to date to no avail. 

The Risk Assessment of the Canagagigue Creek has been a flop and a bust for the Creek, local wildlife and local residents. It has however achieved its' purpose which was to give credibility to a wholly despicable and dishonest minimized cleanup of the Creek by Lanxess while hiding yet again behind the skirts of our emasculated, impotent Ontario Ministry of Environment better known as the Ministry of Enhanced Corporate Pollution (MECP).