COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MEETING AT 6 PM.

Tonite in the Woolwich Council Chambers on Church St. at 6 pm. yours truly will be a delegate. I will probably post my written report here in the next day or two. Essentially I will be advising Council and the public about a number of ongoing environmental problems originating with Chemtura Canada Ltd., in Elmira. These problems will include everything from intentional delaying by the company to their attempts to soften opposition from the current CPAC members. Both the Ministry of the Environment especially, and Chemtura have been unhappy with the amount and directness of the criticism that has been given to them.

FIBBING POLITICIANS? HOW CAN THAT BE?

Last Saturday's (Jan. 28/12) K-W Record has a small story by Jeff Outhit titled "Politicians fudging transit costs". Apparently using creative accounting practices and by shifting money and costs from one budget account to another it is possible to pretend that our tax increases are being held to one percent per year for our expanded public transit. The reality says Jeff Outhit is closer to 1.5 % increase per year due to transit expansion including the LRT. He also states "Shuffling money this way is self serving." Furthermore "They are implementing the transit expansion they approved. It costs what it costs. They should show some spine and own it." Is it any wonder that ordinary everyday citizens have such little confidence in the honesty and integrity of our politicians? Is the willingness to fudge (lie) on even relatively minor things making it easier for them to tell whoppers when there is something big at stake, such as an election for example?

THE MEMBERS ARE GREAT, THE MODEL IS NOT

The current model of public consultation in Elmira called CPAC is open to misuse and abuse. There is some disagreement as to the history around the formation of CPAC formerly called UPAC. Yes the Ontario M.O.E. did approach the Township of Woolwich back around 1990-91 looking for some community forum ostensibly to include citizen viewpoints and opinion in regards to the best cleanup of Uniroyal Chemical and the Elmira Aquifer. Hindsight being twenty-twenty the M.O.E.'s purpose was to dilute and deflect the enormous impact that the then citizens' group APTE was having on the water crisis. APTE under the leadership of Susan Rupert was a populist, democratic and honest voice for concerned Elmira citizens who had seen and heard the untruths and gibberish coming from the authorities for years. APTE realized this and there was great internal debate about joining this public consultation process. Susan Rupert was not in favour, understanding that it was an intended sham.

It was Pat McLean who dragged UPAC/CPAC into being a committee of Council in 2000. That being said there is at least one former Woolwich Councillor who felt that UPAC already was such. Nevertheless there was great debate and discussion at CPAC and yours truly was strongly against the whole idea precisely because it would mean CPAC would no longer be independent and could be manipulated by Council if they so wished. Again hindsight being twenty-twenty it is clear that CPAC being a committee of Council is fraught with peril. A benign Council in theory could allow CPAC to be independent. Having for example one Council member having one vote out of six to ten votes of the rest of the citizen members would be an example. The problem is in having the Mayor on CPAC as Chair, usurping literally all decisions on process and procedure. In theory said Mayor could add or drop Agenda items for public CPAC meetings at will. In theory said Mayor could reschedule or cancel CPAC meetings at will. In theory said Mayor could threaten member removal at will and then follow through with Council in camera and said member not even be allowed to speak on his or her own behalf. Important items like the Minutes already are and always have been under the sole control of Woolwich Township. This includes their storage and retrieval and even perusal looking for past important Motions for example.

It would be very easy for our current Council to look at themselves and say "Hey we're honest and forthright. We wouldn't abuse our control of CPAC ". That may be so but Council should look ahead while looking behind at the history of UPAC/CPAC. Your Mayor during the municipal election campaign made it clear that CPAC had taken much too long to do much too little in regards to the restoration of our groundwater. He was correct and that was due to the control of CPAC through the longtime Councillor who was Chair. Woolwich Council needs to assure that CPAC are truly an independent citizens' committee. Currently it's not even close.

ANOTHER FARM GROUP HAS REQUESTED A WIND FARM MORATORIUM

The Thursday January 26, 2012 Elmira Independent carrys the following story: "CFFO applauds green energy taxation decision". Although the tax decision is their main concern what I found interesting is that nearly three years ago the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario asked the Ontario government to put a moratorium on further wind power projects in Ontario. This is the second agricultural group to now ask for a moratorium and I truly wonder how much longer the province can ignore the citizens at ground zero. Of interest is that the article earlier this week in the K-W Record detailing the concerns of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has been followed up with a similar article titled "Wind power versus rural power" also in this weeks Elmira Independent.

BIO-EN PUBLIC CONSULTATION IS A FARCE

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that Bio-En is coming to town and will be located on Martin's Lane in Elmira. Not only do I believe that the final location is decided but I believe it's been that way for a while. The local group BFCC (Bio Fuel Concerned Citizens) and their appropriately named STOP THE STINK campaign have effectively been ignored. Their input, petitions, letters, e-mails, lawn signs and thoughtful and accurate research appear to mean nothing to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

The BFCC have kept the doors open to communication with the M.O.E. From Ed Speers in the beginning to Dan Holt and all the other volunteers and activists involved, they have been open, honest, polite and respectful. Mayor Cowan campaigned on a promise that his connections to the McGuinty Liberal government would assist him in persuading both the Bio-En proponents and the M.O.E. to look at and accept an alternate location, hopefully in Woolwich but not next to a residential subdivision. It appears to be all in vain.

A week ago disturbing information was received by the BFCC. They appropriately e-mailed their M.O.E. contact person with a very simple and direct question. Is the Martin Lane location in Elmira a done deal? Within a couple of hours they had a response. It was bureaucratic doubletalk about technical design work. They immediately, last Friday, e-mailed him back and politely pointed out that he had deflected their question. No new answer for a few days so another e-mail was sent to the same M.O.E. person. This one he responded to stating he hadn't received the second e-mail last Friday. Patiently the same question went back to him . Again a simple yes or no answer was avoided by the M.O.E. person. In the middle of his response dealing with the facility design not yet meeting regulatory requirements, he did however have the following sentence. "PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS THE PROPONENT'S DECISION TO SELECT THE PROJECT LOCATION" (I have printed the quote in capitol letters).

My opinion, and I emphasize it is exactly that, is that the M.O.E. have pulled a bait and switch whereby the citizens concerns around location, for a myriad of legitimate reasons including traffic and odours, have been arbitrarily shifted to design concerns by the M.O.E. which said design change may or may not have some minor mitigating effect on odours only. If I was a betting man I'd say that Elmira citizens have gotten it again in the ear from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

HONEST EXPERTS STATE ELMIRA 2028 GROUNDWATER CLEANUP WON"T HAPPEN

This is just too precious. The Township of Woolwich website has made a little boo boo. Under Council on the top left side, if you click on it, four options come up including Chemtura Public Advisory Committee. Click on that and for the last three to four weeks including this morning they've had a list of Agendas and Minutes supposedly from the six public CPAC meetings since June 2011. Unfortunately they left off a public meeting held in early June and in it's place they included a private CPAC orientation and education meeting that was held on September 19, 2011. This private meeting is where some incredible, supposedly off the record, statements were made.

Page three of the published Minutes state and I quote "David Marks enquired as to whether or not pressure can be put on the MOE for source removal." Keep in mind that David is a certified hydrogeologist. Furthermore David said "The priority is source removal as opposed to pump and treat. David Marks noted that pump and treat has to stay and has its place but it was the technolgy of the day. Ron Campbell remarked that it is obvious that Chemtura will not meet the 2028 deadline as the technology does not exist to reach the target." . The last quote from David Marks was "He noted further that the MOE was reckless allowing Phillip Environmental to buy Varnicolor with no accountability." This last statement was after a discussion of a number of other sources of groundwater contamination within Elmira.

Readers please keep in mind that these were not public discussions but they were however within the appropriate context of a Hydrogeology 101 educational presentation and discussion given to the CPAC members. Also keep in mind that the Township publishing CPAC Agendas and Minutes is totally proper and should have been done for the last twenty years. Finally also keep in mind that I expect this is simply an honest error which I have advised CPAC of. My publishing the honest but astounding comments of environmental professionals regarding the failures of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Chemtura and their consultants with regards to old technology is not for the purpose of embarassing either CPAC or the Township of Woolwich. You the public have the right to know that honest professionals in the field do not agree with the opinions of Chemtura and the M.O.E. regarding the restoration of Elmira's water by 2028.

CALL FOR WIND FARM STOPPAGE

Last Saturday's K-W Record (Jan. 21/12) printed the following story: "Farmers want wind farm development suspended". The President of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Mark Wales, has issued this request to the Province of Ontario. This is no small thing. It certainly gives the appearance that all is not rosy in rural Ontario and in fact that there is huge concern for the O.F.A. to come out so strongly against further windfarms. Large scale industrial wind turbines have been sprouting like mushrooms in Ontario and often the most likely candidates landwise would be on farmer's agricultural land. Clearly the Province has been making financial deals with individual farmers but at the same time they haven't been making deals with the farmers' nearest neighbours. Mr. Wales states "...residents have been pitted against their neighbours over concerns with health impacts and quality of life issues relating to wind turbines.". Furthermore this Record story states "Several lawsuits have been launched against wind farms attributing health issues such as sleep disturbances, headaches and memory problems to wind turbines.". To my mind it appears both unwise and a shade arrogant for our Premier to continue to push ahead with wind turbine projects as he's stated he will, in the face of lawsuits and opposition by a large well respected group, namely the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.