HAS ANYTHING CHANGED ENVIRONMENTALLY?

The question in the above title is asked due to a story in today's Waterloo Region Record titled "Ministry monitoring plastic pellets in river". I will grant you that tiny either plastic pellets or "resin pellets" certainly don't appear at first glance to be acutely toxic such as oil, gasoline, diesel or solvents spilled or dumped into our rivers and streams. Nevertheless they are a major pollution problem for several reasons including that fish, ducks and other wildlife consume them thinking they are perhaps fish eggs or other forms of food. Also according to this story the plastic pellets "...can absorb and concentrate toxins".

My question is based upon two things. Firstly it wasn't the Ontario Ministry of Environment who discovered large quantities of plastic pellets in the Eramosa River. It was a citizen in a kayak who contacted them last September. Secondly these "spills" of plastic pellets into the river had been going on for years undetected allegedly by either the company involved (PDI) or the Ontario MOECC.

Reports have been produced by a consulting firm hired by PDI. The Ministry are in control of these reports and we the public have no way to assess their thoroughness. This is a big deal. The MOE have been underfunded for decades by the provincial government. One simple result is that they aren't out looking for problems. They've got enough already on their plates. Secondly they've got backlogs both in their labs as well as with technical reports requiring either professional hydrogeologists, hydrologists or biologists to read and assess. Fortunately as has been proven a thousand times over here in Elmira; there are lay citizens with the knowledge and experience who can also do this work. While I always enjoyed and learned from reading the final reports of professionals in the field it was absolutely routine for myself and others on CPAC to have come to similar conclusions first in our reading of technical reports. As I've long said hydrogeology is not rocket science no matter how much polluters and other self-serving individuals pretend it is.

NEONICOTONOID PESTICIDES AND BEES

This posting is a followup to the one I did nine days ago on December 20/17. In that posting I more or less suggested that Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) had followed a middle course in regards to the controversy surrounding neonics or the use of nicotine based pesticides. Today's posting will shine a light upon one of the many environmental organizations that are strongly opposed to any use of neonics whatsoever.

Friends of the Earth had e-mailed information to members and supporters regarding the PMRA's recent decision on neonics. To put it simply they are totally opposed to any compromise whatsoever. It is also their position that the science is strongly on their side. Their arguments certainly appear strong and coherent. For example Ontario beekeepers have been crying foul for a number of years. France, Britain and the European Union all have banned neonic pesticides. While beekeepers can take some steps to protect their bees from these pesticides, as Friends of the Earth suggest, nobody is monitoring or looking after wild, native bees.

Neonics are widely used on seeds for soy, corn and winter wheat. Friends of the Earth suggest that these seed coatings leave residues in the soil which then move into both ground and surface water. That is indeed the reality of any contaminants introduced into the natural environment.

Lastly this environmental group and others have long suggested that our governments and their agencies are far too easily lobbied by the pesticide industry and that their decisions are not always in the public interest. That appears to be the case here.

NEVERENDING EXCUSES

Five years ago (Nov. 2012) Conestoga Rovers and Chemtura along with their buddy the Ontario M.O.E. triumphantly announced their new groundwater remediation expansion plan. They claimed falsely that they and they alone had determined through computer modelling (or voodoo and tea leaves?) that in order to achieve the 2028 deadline for cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers that they were going to TRIPLE the volume of off-site groundwater pumping and treating AND they were going to use In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) in specific high concentration areas off-site. Personally I viewed this as a form of off-site source removal which was long overdue.

Well here we are five years later. The average Target pumping rates were in the area of 53 litres per second for ALL the off-site pumping wells namely W5A/B, W4, W3 and E7 at the south end of Elmira. Where are we today you ask? We seem to be averaging somewhere around 63-64 litres per second. Granted some of the wells have been relocated and pumping either increased or decreased. The result is the off-site wells pumping today are W5A/B, W4 (well for November at least), W3, W6A/B, W9 and finally E7.

We are advised in the November 2017 Progress Report that due to this Update and that Analysis that routine pumping at well W4 has now ceased. Are you kidding me? Where the hell are the two new wells W7 and W8 that we've been hearing about for five years now? Why the hell are you shutting pumping wells down? Why the hell do you think that we are so stupid that we think that 63 litres per second is triple the pumping rate of 53 litres per second? Oh right I forgot. Somewhere between November 2012 and now Chemtura changed their promise from a tripling to a doubling of the pumping rates. What a farce! Do you think that 63 is double 53? In what universe? Oh again silly me. Here in Ontario, under the supervision of the Ontario Ministry of Errors and Excuses and Corporate Collusion (MOECC); 63 is double 53.

What has become obvious to me is the following. Chemrura and CRA (Conestoga Rovers) never intended to triple or double anything. Part of the reason is that they don't have and never have had hydraulic containment on the former Uniroyal Chemical site as mandated in the November 4, 1991 M.O.E. Control Order. Not a problem! They surrepticiously Amended that Control Order on June 21, 2000 (Hal Kannif-director) and then spent the next four years trying to convince UPAC (Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee) that it would be a good idea to allow on-site flow to go off-site and be picked up there by pumping wells. They called this scam Optimization.

There never was a serious plan to either double or triple off-site pumping because within two years of starting off-site pumping (2000) they realized that they couldn't possibly maintain on-site containment while simultaneously pumping much larger quantities of groundwater off-site. Essentially on-site groundwater pumping would also need to be doubled or tripled to avoid groundwater flowing to the much lower off-site elevations. That would be too expensive when you realize that the far higher contaminant concentrations are on-site requiring much more expensive treatment.

VERY RECENT ELMIRA HISTORY

In one sense there has been an abyss of data since the groundbreaking CPAC revelations in September/October 2014. Three years plus with zero followup by either Chemtura/Lanxess or the Ontario Ministry of Environment in regards to the construction date and details of the "Stroh Drain". Zero followup in regards to the source of ongoing water (enhanced?) flowing from the pipe at the north end of the Stroh Drain. Zero followup to the public claims along with my 2'x4' map showing surface contour lines and how the bulk of all highly contaminated wastewater that both overflowed from the east side ponds as well as was deliberately drained (as per Jeff Merriman), flowed southwards only initially and then followed the slope of the land eastwards directly into the Stroh Drain. Zero followup /explanation or even factual fictions or alternative facts as to the clearly man made construction expressed as lines in the earth from the extreme north end of the Uniroyal/Chemtura site southwards and eastwards off their site immediately below the sort of most southerly pit (RPE-5). These lines or markings have been shown publicly at both CPAC and Woolwich Council meetings after being printed out from both Google satellite maps as well as Region of Waterloo satellite/aerial photos. I have publicly expressed my opinion that they are either a collector trench designed to collect contaminated eastside groundwater and divert it off-site eastwards for later discharge into the Canagagigue Creek or they are some sort of PRV or Permeable Reactive Barrier intended to react with contaminants and help break them down. The Waterloo Barrier (Univ. of Waterloo) I believe when invented used iron filings to react with organic compounds to break them down. Lastly zero followup with my and CPAC's revelations that the 2013 Dioxin & DDT allegedly volunteer "cleanup" of GP! & 2 may have been a sham. It now appears from old maps that GP1 was not located on the south side of the diagonal ridge (NW-SE) or high ground but on the north side of it. Therefore Chemtura may have intentionally spent $3 million primarily for appearances although they certainly did remove some contamination.

This cover your ears, close your eyes and hold your nose strategy by politicians and their partners in pollution is tried and true. People rarely can indefinitely maintain their anger and outrage. That said Chemtura/Lanxess, CRA/GHD and the Ontario MOECC have been investigating (slowly) the east side lands looking for evidence that Uniroyal compounds indeed did travel both due east from Uniroyal onto the Stroh farm as well as southwards and then via the "Gap" eastwards into the Stroh Drain. Of course this area called the "Gap" was so named because of Conestoga Rover's (CRA) initial 2015 study in which they carefully, meticulously and excruciatingly totally avoided taking any samples in this 170-200 metre area along their eastern property line with the Stroh property. This "Gap" area is the area that CRA intentionally avoided that appears topographically as the likely area both for overland flow from the further north pits as well as the more likely location for GP1 (gravel Pit 1).

Other evidence has been discovered by CPAC since. We however are prohibited from giving Delegations or even asking questions at public TAG (Technical Advisory Group) meetings. Smells a lot like a part of Woolwich Council's ongoing coverup of all things Uniroyal over the decades. A couple of Delegations have been given to RAC (Remediation Advisory Committee) by myself on behalf of CPAC regarding downstream fish grossly contaminated with Dioxins/Furans, DDT, PCBs & Mercury. Unfortunately during the past year these four times per year RAC meetings have been devalued into but twice per year meetings (Sept. 2017 & March 2018). Similarly TAG meetings scheduled for 8-10 times per year have also been cut back. Last July and then this month December with the next meeting in March 2018. That is also pathetic.

We now have hard evidence that the Stroh Drain has indeed been flowing constantly and moving contamination downstream as a by-pass for decades. This came indirectly from a current CPAC team member through their professional contacts. This will somewhat complicate any phony narratives in the works if heaven forbid Chemtura/Lanxess ever become obligated to publicly answer questions from informed members of the public and residents of Woolwich Township.

BOXING DAY - I'M STILL ON A SUGAR HIGH AND IN A TURKEY COMA

MERRY CHRISTMAS & PEACE ON EARTH

NEARLY THIRTY YEARS OF LESS THAN STELLAR REMEDIATION

Basal gravel unit & preferential flow. Diffusion into the aquitards. Lack of on-site pumping in the heaviest contaminated zones on-site. Failure to ascertain off-site source zones either early on or at all. Nutrite, Varnicolour Chemical, Borg Textiles, multiple service stations etc.. Excess 1300 kg of Chlorobenzene recently discovered in the aquifers. Failure to go back and check downstream Canagagigue Creek after the 1995-96 testing and then the 2001-2006 on-site creekbank remediation. On-site failures of source removal of DNAPLs & LNAPLs. Failure to examine off-site transport to the south and the east of Persistent Organic Pollutants, NDMA etc.. Failure to properly test In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) for the Elmira Aquifers. Failure to fulfill promises since November 2012 regarding both ISCO and tripling of the volume of off-site aquifer pumping. The red herring and sham of GP-1 & 2 "cleanup" . Hidden "Stroh Drain" from 1985 onwards. Nonsense of all contaminated flow westwards and southwards only on the east side. The lack of east side shallow aquifer containment probably due to a groundwater trench deflecting groundwater east and south or else a reactive barrier. The fallacy of the "phantom mound" on Nutrite's property south-west of Uniroyal. Site Specific Risk Assessment gamesmanship and manipulation. Hidden agreements, subtly amended Control Orders prior to public discussion.

These assuredly are not the only failures either intentional or otherwise. These are all simply from memory on the spur of the moment. Uniroyal, Crompton, Chemtura, Lanxess combined with Conestoga-Rovers and GHD have taken Woolwich citizens and the public on a thirty year merry-go-round. They have been aided and abetted by the Ontario Ministry of Environment all along with "fellow travellors" in local politics. Much of these failures are only known because of a few local citizens who have hung in. Dr. Jackson also advised on several that he alone discovered. This is the pathetic result and intent of those in positions of money and power. The good news of course is the many citizens over the last three decades who have stood up and said no. It includes media such as the Elmira Independent, Woolwich Observer, K-W Record and CKCO-TV who have attempted to keep this ongoing cover up and misdirection in the public's eye. In the early days there were also national media who stepped up and carried the Elmira Water Crisis far and wide. This crisis and following cover up are merely a very small metaphor for politics as usual in Ontario and Canada.