AND A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys a disgusting picture which clearly shows what mankind is doing to the largest freshwater lakes in the world. The article is titled "U.S., Canada urged to reduce harmful algae blooms in Lake Erie". The picture shows an aerial view of part of Lake Erie's shoreline. It is a huge mass of swirling green off the shore and it is truly disgusting. Lake Erie is the receiving body for all of waterloo region's wastes whether agricultural (phosphorus), industrial, residential or sewage. In 2011 the algae bloom spread more than 160 kilometres from Toledo, Ohio to Cleveland. Fish kills are becoming more common in the western basin on both sides (U.S./Canada) of the lake.

As serious as this is, we are missing the point. Algae blooms can kill but they are visible. P.C.B.s, dioxins, pesticides and solvents also kill but they are invisible. Persistent organic pollutants (POPS) move up the food chain and bioaccumulate in fish and other species. All of these chemicals legally (most of the time) leave Waterloo Region streams and tributaries and move into the Grand River where they eventually discharge into Lake Erie. We certainly aren't the only culprits but at the same time we contribute our share to the degradation of Lake Erie and the planet. All the surface water testing in the world showing chemicals below PWQG (provincial water quality guidelines) is so much accumulated bullshit. Tiny but ongoing amounts in the parts per billion and trillion are very deceptive. They are moving downstream 24/7 and they do add up. They are killing wildlife and they are killing us. Look at the end result. Look at Lake Erie. Look at cancer wards in your local hospitals. We are spending trillions of dollars on end of the line health care. Money only to a certain extent can beat cancer. We will continue to spend trillions as long as we continue to pollute the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. And our politicians at all levels will continue their mindless mantra of growth, growth and more growth. Our environment and planet are dying.

FEWER CASUALTIES THAN USUSAL AT LAST NIGHT'S CPAC MEETING

Many CPAC meetings of late have figuratively left the wounded guilty parties in a dazed state by the end of the meeting. Last night was a little less painful than usual for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and their partners in pollution, Chemtura. That being said truth as always was a victim however all CPAC members plus this SWAT team member worked hard to defend the truth against vested interests.

Even Councillor Mark Bauman seemed a little keener than usual to ask questions that could possibly reflect badly on Chemtura/M.O.E.. I used an overhead projector to show the chlorobenzene plumes in the Municipal Lower Aquifer beneath the former Varnicolor Chemical area. This plume has dramatically changed it's shape over the last fifteen years as pumping from W5A has drawn chlorobenzene eastward towards both CH70D as well as W5A. The purpose of my plume maps was to show that this area as well as the two further north west of Chemtura require special attention.

There was again considerable discussion surrounding Chemtura's imminent plans to slightly dig and mostly cap GP1 & 2 on their south-east corner. Ron, Vivienne and Mark all asked questions on this matter suggesting that more testing should have been done deeper and then the final decisions made. I suggested that the pumping well downstream of GP1 & 2 namely off-site well W5A had not been routinely tested for DDT or Dioxins. Jeff Merriman of Chemtura confirmed this.

George Karlos (M.O.E.) somehow convinced CPAC that they should give him the go ahead regarding downstream testing prior to all the current lab results being shared. In fact there will be a presentation at the next CPAC meeting in September first and then the results handed out from this spring's "confirmatory" testing. Also the soil results from the nearby farmer's swimming pond will be shared AFTER the presentation. This is a mistake but I guess you have to be burned over a period of years as I have been with promises of data that either show up late or never. Examples would be groundwater readings on both the former Varnicolor Chemical site on Union St. as well as on the old Lot 91 at the east end of Oriole Parkway.

There was also discussion on multiple sources of petroleum hydrocarbons in the Elmira Aquifers. Ron Campbell and other CPAC members were concerned about the focus on only three Chemtura chemicals namely NDMA, Chlorobenzene and Ammonia courtesy of both Chemtura and Yara (Nutrite). This discussion as well as later on when we learned that Chemtura bring in "flammable petroleum hydrocarbons" by railcar certainly had Jeff Merriman squirming. He has in the past had the gall to suggest that petroleum hydrocarbons are a non issue to Elmira's groundwater and to Chemtura.

Apparently the pilot tests of In Situ Chemical Oxidation are being reconsidered due to anomolies discovered in the two areas west of Chemtura. Well OW60 near Park and Queen St. has long held high NDMA readings. New wells were drilled in the backyard of this residence and the NDMA readings are extremely low while only being 15 yards away. Jeff agreed with me that this is very weird. Also the Municipal Lower Aquifer at CH44 on the Yara property now appears to be much smaller than originally thought based on recent new drilling. Obviously I would like to see all this data for myself as there could be some self serving psuedo science interpretations going on (or not- who knows?).

Getting back to the "flammable petroleum hydrocarbons " being transported by rail Dwight Este was asked by me for the common name of the PHC's. He refused to say which seems a tad unecessarily secretive. Hmm.

Last but not least I received a promise from George Karlos that Jaimie Connolly, M.O.E. hydrogeologist, would get me some literature references dealing with acetone allegedly solubolizing chlorobenzene. Currently my opinion is that this is junk science at best but if Jaimie comes through we will indeed see. This is of course relevant to the chlorobenzene DNAPL found just west of the old Varnicolor about 100' below ground. The next public CPAC meeting is on September 26, 2013.

TONITE'S CHEMTURA PUBLIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

Earlier this week, CPAC & SWAT were informed of Chemtura's timetable in regards to their half assed cleanup of Dioxins and DDT in their south-east corner. Two former gravel pits (GP1 & GP2) were the overflow area for the east side pits decades ago. Steve Quigley of Conestoga Rovers (CRA) claimed at the last CPAC meeting in June that Dioxins are not liquids and hence couldn't flow. This is typical mealymouthed nonsense. The Dioxins and DDT were mixed in with LIQUID solvents as well as rainwater and indeed did flow as liquids from the uphill former east side ponds down to their south-east corner where they slowly soaked into the ground. From there they were spread far and wide to be shared with the Downriver Grand River watershed.

Jaimie Connolly M.O.E. hydrogeologist also shared some doozies with CPAC at the June meeting. When answering my question about free phase DNAPL possibly being a reason for unaccounted mass of chlorobenzene in the aquifers and aquitards he stated that oh no any DNAPL would have immediately dissolved into the groundwater. This was at the top of page 8 in the Minutes of the meeting and Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids by definition do NOT readily dissolve in groundwater. Jaimie also inexplicably stated that (pg. 8) he knew of no issue with chlorobenzene in the Municipal Lower (ML) Aquifer beneath and near the old Varnicolor Chemical on Union St. That was a bizarre answer because only two pages earlier in the Minutes (pg. 6) both in the middle of the page and near the bottom Jaimie explains that there is a modelling issue due to high chlorobenzene in the ML aquifer.

There will probably be discussion around the M.O.E.'s downstream testing for Dioxins and DDT. At the moment it appears that at least two sets of data have not been handed out to CPAC/SWAT. This data concerns a swimming pond and soil tests done by it as well as further downstream testing to clarify the increased DDT results found in one of the 2012 sample locations. Strangely the M.O.E. seem to be awaiting some sort of go ahead from CPAC before doing more testing. This is weird on many levels. A year ago plus they refused to share their workplan with CPAC ahead of time. Their partial and limited data to date was presented pretty well verbally but very badly in writing. Quite frankly I found their written report confusing and downright deceptive in it's wording. These wording issues have been somewhat verbally sorted out but the written report is still very badly written. Yes the verbal clarifications helped but it's the written report that is the history. It needs fixing. As far as some kind of blessing from CPAC before the M.O.E. proceeds, that is just plain nuts under all the circumstances.

THE OLD BUDD SITE IN KITCHENER

Yesterday's Waterloo Region record carrys this story "Agreement reached on Budd site plan". Basically this is a planning/legal story in which the City of Kitchener has come to an agreement with the new owners (Gary Ball etc.) to avoid a court battle and or an OMB hearing. Of interest to me once again is the following single sentence "Ball demolished older buildings and was cleaning up minor contamination.". Minor contamination. Really says who? Gary Ball? What is interesting is my post here in the Advocate almost exactly three years ago dated August 27, 2010. Apparently at that time the contamination was also allegedly no big deal. This is passing strange when you think of the decades Budd was on site, combined with their massive volumes of steel used in building car frames. Also when you look at the size of the site one has to wonder. There would have been huge use of paints, acids and solvents. Methinks the public may be getting a snow job here. If so eventually the residential neighbours, perhaps years down the road will find out the hard way. Why is it the tax paying public are always the last to find out? Believe me it's not an accident.

THERE ARE AT LEAST FOUR SIGNIFICANT OFF-SITE AREAS IN ELMIRA AFFECTING THE FINAL CLEANUP

To date Chemtura/CRA are only publicly recognizing two of the historically high contamination, off-site areas. The two they are acknowledging are the north-west high NDMA contamination around well OW60 near Park St. and the other is the Yara (Nutrite) site on their western property boundary. It has high chlorobenzene in the Municipal Lower (ML) Aquifer. The two that they are doing their best to publicly ignore are the chlorobenzene contaminated ML aquifer beneath the old Varnicolor Chemical site on Union St. as well as the high NDMA readings near Industrial Dr. and Oriole Parkway beside the Sanyo property (CH38).

Keep in mind that in the case of most contaminated sites the highest dissolved concentrations start in the source areas on site and as the various plumes move farther from the site, the concentrations decrease. This is the norm. In the case of Elmira however despite the sweetheart deal concluded between the M.O.E. and Uniroyal on October 7, 1991 which saved Uniroyal millions of dollars in cleanup costs and which assigned all blame to Uniroyal for the destruction of the Elmira Aquifers; it just wasn't so. Nutrite had a hand as did Varnicolor Chemical, numerous gas stations and most probably two other sources. The M.O.E. certainly didn't want their incompetence with multiple polluters public knowledge hence they hid and lied about the truth. It was in Uniroyal's self-interest to do the same. Now twenty-five years later it's getting harder to keep up the facade as one informed citizen who reads and understands all the technical reports is slowly putting all the pieces together.

The two unacknowledged to date other source areas have had much higher than appropriate chlorobenzene and or NDMA concentrations for over two decades. Pumping wells W4 and W3 were located beside them in order to quickly reduce their concentrations and slowly decrease their contaminant mass. They have been but partially sucessful to date. Chemtura's newest "cleanup" plans involving tripling their off-site pumping rates as well as using in situ chemical oxidation will assist with the two acknowledged other areas. Until Chemtura/CRA acknowledge the two more southern source areas and address them appropriately; then their latest cleanup plan is doomed to failure.

PUBLIC CPAC MEETING THIS THURSDAY AT 6 PM.

The Chemtura Public Advisory Committee meets this Thursday at 6 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers on Church St. Elmira, Ontario. The last meeting was on June 27, the evening before I had my hip replaced. On the Agenda will be a couple of presentations/discussions from the SWAT team and CPAC members. There is possibly also a presentation from the Ministry of the Environment in regards to their downstream sampling in the Canagagigue Creek. Apparently they did additional testing last November after their initial results showed issues with rising DDT levels. There were also additional samples taken around a nearby farm pond that is used for swimming purposes. Obviously either DDT or Dioxins (the toxic component of Agent Orange) would be horrific in a swimming pond. As of right now I haven't seen any of this more recent data (including last November) which is par for the course. It's one thing for the M.O.E. to hide behiind experts just like Chemtura, but not producing the data until the meeting is just plain ignorant. What a great way to avoid informed criticism.

Chemtura will be making themselves available for questions in regards to their monthly (July) Progress Report. They hopefully will also feel the sting of my Delegation near the start of the meeting. Chemtura and their behaviour have an awful lot to answer for including their years belated attempt to improve their cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers. I expect there will be also a pretty significant clarification as to the lack of support by Woolwich Township of both CPAC and of the cleanup. To say that local polluters in every municipality in Waterloo Region (and the rest of the country) have always enjoyed municipal council support is a huge understatement. Expectations were lifted with our new municipal council nearly three years ago but things have slowly drifted back to the status quo. Does anyone really think it takes from 1989 until 2028 (39 years) to restore an aquifer to drinking water standards? Even that date is considered unlikely by CPAC, the M.O.E. and the Region of Waterloo. The non cleanup can only be accomplished with the hidden support of the polluter at all levels of government over many decades. Heaven forbid that we embarass or antagonize such a powerful player within our community.

DR. HENRY REGIER YOU ARE INDEED A "CHARACTER"

First off let me be perfectly clear about the title. Henry is a friend and colleague and I am very, very lucky to be able to call him both. Therefore when I refer to him as a "character"; in my mind I'm saying that he is strong, intelliegent, blunt, hardnosed and painfully, circuitously honest to a fault. When Henry decides that someone is desperately in need of "correction" than he is just the fellow to administer the medicine. Two days ago I posted here about my sarcastic e-mail to Dave Brenneman, Chief Administrative Officer of Woolwich Township. I took David to task for his discourtesy and disrespect in not responding in a reasonable and timely manner ( 1 year & counting) to a request dealing with Elmira's groundwater contamination. David did respond with an apology albeit with a complaint about my first request for an update four months after the initial request.

Henry's 2 1/2 page response to David Brenneman is classic Henry. He flatters, he cajoles and he then performs a public chastising of the guilty individual. In no uncertain terms Henry makes it clear that pompous individuals in positions of authority have no monopoly on ethics or professionalism. Henry makes it abundantly clear that Elmira has been inundated with "suits" bearing professional designations that belie their inherent fraudulent intentions. He makes it clear that from municipal to provincial politicians, Elmira residents have been misled and deceived. These politicians have jumped onto the corporate bandwagon and have run interference for Chemtura and fellow travellors for years. Henry takes serious rounds out of the likes of Councillor Mark Bauman, Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

As is typical however Henry holds out the olive branch at the end. Does Mr. Brenneman and Woolwich Council want to get on board with myself as well as the current CPAC and be ultimately known as doing the right thing? He feels there is still time for them to get at least an honourable mention if the desperately needed mid-course correction in the cleanup actually happens. Henry you are a genius and a friend and I thank you.