WHO DO WOOLWICH COUNCIL THINK THEY ARE?

Do they think they are Robin Hood? Do they think they have some God given right to protect the public interest? I've got news for Woolwich Council. If they expect support down the road from developers, corporate interests and the local monied elite then they'd better give their heads a shake. They've probably burned any chances of future investment from the likes of Conrad Black with their wild eyed, crazy, quasi socialist behaviour.

Whew! I got that off my chest. I do owe Council one from over a year ago but I guess it's past time to let that go. Today's Woolwich Observer has the following story: "Council rejects recycling component of Jigs Hollow pit". I reported here in the Advocate recently (Tues. June 26/12) about Jan Huisson and Lynn Hare back at Council and presenting them with more information concerning problems as well as discrepancies with the proposed recycling operations at the Jigs Hollow Pit. Lynn Hare in her presentation advised Council that their primary role was to protect the public interest. This seems to be a Council who actually believe and embrace that astonishing idea. If only that revolutionary behaviour could spread to both provincial and federal politics.

"Mark Bauman was the lone dissenter, saying he feared yet more legal action-"OMB roulette."". While Mark has a point it has been interesting to actually see a few recent Decisions by the OMB which also actually appear to protect the public interest. This includes gravel pits in Puslinch as well as their most recent decision turning down the Hawk Ridge Homes proposal for Union St. in Elmira.

SAD AND SADDER

Last evening in the Woolwich Council Chambers, CPAC held their monthly public meeting. It has been held the last Thursday of the month at 6 pm. and will so continue with next month's meeting on July 26. My overall impression is very positive concerning the job being done by all the CPAC members with special kudos to the Chair Dan Holt. He is fair and honest to all and is doing a great job. The size of the gallery is growing and partial credit for that must go to a few of the old CPAC members who have been coming out the last three meetings. The title above reflects my disappointment in the performance of both Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E.

We had a powerpoint presentation from John Jackson of Great Lakes United. I had forgotten what a great speaker he is. He presented information about the currently in legislative process, Great Lakes Protection Act. Within it are what are referred to as geographically significant initiatives and apparently our Grand River is very much on the radar. It is the second largest source of nutrients (unwanted) to Lake Erie. The problem as readily admitted by John is the lack of financing to back up these proposed initiatives.

Both Josef and Dwighte of Chemtura advised CPAC that their off-site wells are and have been pumping great guns the last few weeks. It's about time and we will see in June's Progress Report although two wells were down for a week for maintenance. Steve Martindale (M.O.E.) was unavailable for this meeting and was replaced by a Wally Rosenberg. He clearly had been given minimal prior briefing and rather than point the finger at him or Steve I'll lay the blame squarely on senior staff at the M.O.E.. Quite frankly the M.O.E. looked amateurish, unprepared and incompetent. They were only exceeded in that regard by Chemtura who were only missing one of their three usuals namely Jeff Merriman. There were far too many deferrals to the July meeting on Agenda items that are old news not new. This included the 125 drums excavated last summer in Chemtura's south-west corner as well as Varnicolor's Union St. upcoming contaminated soil excavations and their former Lot 91 groundwater readings taken over a year ago.

Councillor and CPAC member Mark Bauman inquired as to whether money would be forthcoming from the M.O.E. to assist in hiring a peer reviewer for CPAC. The answer was I'll ask. There was significant discussion around the peer review done by R.W.D.I. out of Guelph dealing with Chemtura's site wide Air certificate of Approval. CPAC members including Ron, David, Mark as well as myself and Pat McLean spoke to it with Pat and Dwighte of Chemtura pushing hard for some kind of "acceptance", "approval" or even just a grudging CPAC has no objections statement/position from CPAC. I spoke strongly about what I have seen as a four year, mostly behind the scenes process, with this new CPAC receiving figuratively a whole five minutes of information. This included without any intended or implied criticism, the fact that Woolwich CAO, Dave Brenneman was in charge of the file for all of 2011, rather than CPAC. Under these circumstances I hope that CPAC will simply pass or say no comment and in future if Chemtura and friends want support/endorsement/approval/consent from CPAC they might want to make the whole process public and transparent. Again I found Chemtura's whining about the $10,000 they spent on RWDI's peer review just sooooo sad. Not!

The other CPAC members including Vivienne and Sebastian asked a number of clarifying questions on the alleged 2028 cleanup deadline as well as on Lot 91 and funding. Ron Campbell specifically pointed out the significance of my Delegation to last night's CPAC which dealt with the depths of the test pits which Chemtura had dug on their south-east corner (GP1 & 2). My findings indicated that the most obvious soil contamination based upon soil gas readings, strong chemical odours and discolored soil was deeper than Chemtura's test pits. Chemtura wish to proceed with some very shallow excavation of Dioxins and DDT while capping the rest. Again it's all about the money not the environment or health of the community. David Marks, hydrogeologist and CPAC member, in his quiet and calm manner clearly stated that he is not confident that the 2028 cleanup is possible.

There was discussion by Ron around the SWAT (soil, water, air, technical) team and although Richard Clausi, Henry Regier and myself have all been conscripted (cheerfully); Ron is looking for more volunteers. Today is Richard's last day of work as he is retiring as Head of the Math department at Elmira District Secondary School (EDSS). AS a result he was working last evening finishing everything off at school. Henry by the way introduced John Jackson at the start of the meeting as he has known him for nearly thirty years. Finally under New Business, Chair Dan Holt showed photographs of badly maintained monitoring wells around Elmira. By law and regulation wells drilled directly into aquifers must be covered and securely locked at the surface to prevent intentional or otherwise contamination from entering them. These particular wells have been in disrepair for a decade even though a year ago the Ontario M.O.E. took water samples from them for testing. All in all CPAC are proceeding nicely despite disappointing efforts by Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment.

ANCIENT/NEW ELMIRA GROUNDWATER HISTORY

As some may know I have an extensive library pertaining to local pollution matters. I was perusing it yesterday and came across some old data which I beleive is only known by a very few people locally. Along with my written delegation tonight that I will present to the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) I will also be handing out copies of this posting. Two CPAC members, namely Ron Campbell and David Marks will be especially interested in the following as Ron is keen on "other sources" and David is a hydrogeologist.

The Elmira south wellfield (E7, E9) was shut down due to NDMA (& lots more) in November 1989. A public meeting was held in Elmira both to inform the public and to hear from them. At the time I was working at Varnicolor Chemical at 62 Union St. in Elmira. A local citizen stood up at that public meeting and described his experiences five months earlier while working as an independent contractor on the Varnicolor site. He wrote a formal Affidavit dated December 6, 1989. I quote from it: "At the 3 1/2 to 4 foot level, chemicals seeped out of the pit run gravel faster than I could dig it." "I returned to Varnicolor and continued digging when Keren (sp.) Kelley arrived. He spoke to me. The chemical was very evident. It looked like water, a clear colour with dust in it from the ground and it had a strong chemical smell to it. It smelled like a solvent. This liquid was filling the pit faster than I could dig it. The Chief commented on how bad or serious this looked." "The sandy haired fellow showed up and made an exclamation of surprise when he saw the liquid in the pit. He quickly disappeared, and returned 5 minutes later and told me three important people were showing up and that I was to fill in the pit so that nothing showed." "A few days later I reported the incident to ...(blacked out with magic marker) of the Citizens Environment Advisory Committee. He said he'd follow it up with the authorities." "I have since learned from Dave ireland of the MOE, that tests were done on Varnicolor's land and that some solvents were detected, but there didn't seem to be a problem.".

After the public meeting in Elmira was over, Severin Argenton owner of Varnicolor was quoted in the local paper saying "That man was full of s..." in reference to the contractor who stood up and spoke publicly. Woolwich Township were advised, CEAC was advised, the Fire Chief was advised and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) were all advised. In the early spring a five man team appointed by then (& now) Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley was dispatched to Elmira to look for the source of the NDMA (& lots more) contamination in the south wellfield. They spent at least a vigorous five minutes examining Varnicolor Chemical. They did NOT interview the employees! Varnicolor and all the rest save Uniroyal were eliminated as suspects by the M.O.E..

Unknown to me and the public was the fact that Varnicolor Chemical were known groundwater polluters from at least three years earlier. Canviro Consultants (CH2MHILL) had written a groundwater study of the site in September 1986 as a requirement that Varnicolor had to fulfill in order to receive a permit from the M.O.E. under Regulation 309. Quoting from page 17 of this report "The appearance of elevated concentrations of several compounds in the deepest piezometer (M2-1) completed in the lower sandy unit is a source of concern as it suggests that contamination of groundwater has occurred in this zone.". "...it should be noted that shallower piezometers had better water quality. These hypothesis can only be verified by further sampling of these piezometers.". The shallow piezometers or monitoring wells were screened in a surficial aquifer and this deeper piezometer was screened in the continuous, throughout Elmira, Upper Aquifer. In an extraordinary coincidence and piece of bad luck, this deeper well (M2-1) was never tested again allegedly as it either caved in, was blocked or was destroyed at the surface. One other extraordinary coincidence which I have never understood is the inclusion in this Canviro hydrogeological report of a Certificate of Approval for a mobile PCB destruction facility granted to Sanexen International Inc. out of Burlington, Ontario. Apparently this mobile PCB facility can only be operated on a site which also has a Certificate of Approval as a hazardous waste disposal site. Sanexen received their C. of A. one week after Varnicolor Chemical received theirs.

CHEMTURA CANADA PROGRESS REPORT- MAY 2012

The monthly Progress Report is out and I would describe it as good news/ bad news. Firstly the good news: The on-site pumping last month was the highest in the last six months and like April's pumping, reverses a short stretch of below target pumping. Secondly the off-site pumping in May is the highest over the last twelve months.

Now the bad news. Despite the highest pumping off-site ie., all of Elmira less the Chemtura site itself, Chemtura while close, still have not achieved their targeted pumping rates required to allegedly clean up the Elmira Aquifers by 2028. This is a full year now since they've managed to pump adequately and in fact this trend started the month immediately after the municipal election in October 2010. In the last nineteen months they've achieved their off-site pumping goals for all of three months.

Appendix C concerns surface water testing in the Canagagigue Creek. As I have indicated before, Conestoga Rovers have a statistical method that allegedly indicates when downstream contaminant concentrations are higher than upstream. What I usually look at is the arithmetic mean of a number of samples downstream and compare it to the arithmetic mean of upstream samples. With this simpler method there are consistently a few chemicals which are being added to and detected in the "Gig". These chemicals this month are Ethyl Benzene, Toluene , NDMA and NMOR. None of these are a surprise as they are throughout Chemtura's groundwater and by being picked up each month in surface water samples would indicate Chemtura's/ M.O.E. continued success in cleaning up their site by allowing contaminants to flow downstream. By the way although the downstream sampling location (SS-925) is close to the Dioxin/DDT laden area (GP1 & 2), these chemicals are not routinely tested for each month.

Appendix E, Table E.1 indicates the most recent testing for LNAPL (light non aqueous phase liquid) found in monitoring wells on the Chemtura site. When you think of LNAPL think of pictures you've seen of oil slicks floating on rivers, lakes and oceans. The only difference is that Chemtura's LNAPL is floating on the surface of the water table ie. subsurface. Hence the Ministry of the Environment's advanced protocols and cleanup technology look upon this as out of sight, out of mind. We can put a man on the moon but we can't remove solvents floating on top of the water table. BULLSHIT and poo poo del toro combined. The LNAPL is a third of a metre thick in many locations approaching a half metre (.49) in another. CRA (Conestoga Rovers) claim a number of wells do not have LNAPL present but the fine print indicates they do have "Black tar like blobs present in bailer". This is typical polluter doubletalk and this is a typical Chemtura "progress" report.

CITIZENS NOT PLEASED WITH TEMPORARY-USE BYLAW FOR JIGS HOLLOW PIT

Last night at the televised (Rogers #20) Woolwich Council meeting, Lynne Hare and Jan Huisson were back educating Council and the public regarding their latest information about the Jigs Hollow Pit (Kuntz). I believe that they were responding to Council's earlier decision to pursue a temporary-use bylaw that would permit recycling for a one year period at a time at this gravel pit. The recycling involves grinding and breaking up both old concrete and old asphalt.

The Elmira independent carried a story last Friday titled "Temporary-use bylaw pursued for gravel pit". It described this initiative of Woolwich Staffer Dan Kennaley. The sole Councillor opposed was Bonnie Bryant as she feels recycling should not be permitted on farmland. Lynne and Jan pointed out to Council two very relevant matters. Firstly if you do the math it begins to appear as if the recycling operation is not ancillary to gravel extraction. It is a small proposed pit without that much gravel in the first place. Jan demonstrated that if the pit is spread out over time that there will actually be more volume (tonnage) per year of recycled material then there will be of gravel extraction. Secondly Lynne advised that the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) while firmly in control of gravel extraction do not have authority or rules and regulations concerning recycling operations. Lynne emphasized that that is totally under the control of the municiaplity and they don't need this temporary-use bylaw. She and Jan have both done excellent research around this issue and have done a terrific job in professionally presenting their findings to Woolwich Council.

INTERESTING AGENDA ITEMS FOR THURSDAY'S CPAC MEETING

The Agenda for this Thursday evening's 6 pm. Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) is out and there are some really interesting items on it. Firstly there will be a presentation about the Great lakes Protection Act by Mr. John Jackson, the Program Director of Great lakes United. Chemtura will be presenting information on their excavation of 125 drums from the south-west corner of their property last summer. This should include photographs and lab analyses of both soil and as well contents found in any of the drums. It is a tad strange to me that these excavations have taken a year to get to CPAC. Chemtura are also supposed to be presenting their choice of Remediation Option for removal of Dioxins and DDT on the south-east corner of their site (GP1 & GP2). To date they have made their preferences very clear as they wish to maintain their legacy of world class talk and third world action.

Following Chemtura's presentation, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) will grace us with their take on the environment including details on the upcoming Varnicolor Chemical excavations. This of course is the former site on Union St. in Elmira and we were advised last fall that 200 more tonnes of contaminated soil will be removed. Keep clearly in mind that these excavations are taking place twenty years AFTER the original remediation which included massive (shallow) excavations and installation of a pump and treat system. Oh gosh does this mean that even after source removal that hydraulic containment (pump & treat) wasn't up to the job? Sure seems so. Could this be relevant to any other contaminated sites in Elmira? Further keep in mind that these excavations we've been advised will also be shallow only. This is the big coverup involving this site. Twenty years ago yours truly was new to contaminated sites and more importantly, new to polluted politicians and bureaucrats. The Control Order on this site was sold to us with a full areal and VERTICAL investigation required. The vertical didn't happen and it didn't happen intentionally courtesy of the M.O.E.'s ongoing coverup and collusion with numerous other parties. The M.O.E. will also be advising CPAC regarding downstream testing of DDT and Dioxins. My expectation is that the M.O.E. will attempt to bolster Chemtura's inadequate cleanup by making promises about more downstream testing along with vague references to 'further" work at GP1 &2 "if required". It's typical M.O.E. operating procedure and they have proven that their word is meaningless.

CPAC will be raising the RWDI Peer Review that deals with a Site Wide Air Certificate of Approval. This item has been ongoing literally for several years and the vast bulk of it has taken place OUTSIDE public CPAC meetings. This includes the former CPAC as well as the current one. For that reason I believe that the process is grossly comprimised and strongly suggest that CPAC advise both Chemtura and the M.O.E. that they are neither a rubber stamp nor are they interested in being involved in such a peripheral way. Last but not least CPAC have again put their proposed SWAT team on the Agenda for discussion. I don't think that it's any big secret (hope not) thus I can advise that this Soil, Water, Air Technical team membership has been offerred to among others, Rich Clausi, Dr. Henry Regier and myself. Hope to see you at CPAC in Council Chambers this Thursday 6 pm..

KEN REGER OF ELMIRA HONOURED

Every once in a while it's nice to see a deserving individual receive their due. Yesterday's Elmira Independent carrys a story titled "Elmira man honoured for conservation efforts". Ken Reger has been building, erecting and maintaining nests for bluebirds for twenty years. He has driven thousands of miles over his route to keep these nests in good order. A group called Ontario Nature have formally recognized Ken's efforts and given him an award and framed picture. Ken is a former Uniroyal employee who also has spoken out at Environmental Appeal Board Hearings and other venues; criticizing past practices at that company.

Today's Woolwich Observer has a public service announcement for next Thursday's CPAC meeting to be held in the Council Chambers at 6 pm.. Although there will not be popcorn available, the entertainment is often first class. Solemn speeches will be intermingled with public handholding and dancing between the Ontario M.O.E. and Chemtura.