CYNTHIA DOUGHTY (MOE) THE REAL DEAL

This is not the first time that I have sung the praises of Cynthia Doughty, hydrogeologist, for the Ontario Ministry of Environment. She has done it again in a letter to Jason Rice, Regional Project Manager (MOE) dated June 20, 2019. Of course the question is how much will her employers (the MOE) support her. On page 2 Ms. Doughty states "However, for at least the last three years, the UACS has temporarily lost hydraulic containment." Then on page 3 she states "The UACS has not consistently maintained hydraulic containment since operation began in 1997." Holy crap ! That is huge.

The UACS is the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System. It is the reviled and long criticized "least expensive and least effective " containment system that Uniroyal and CRA installed in 1997 to stop the grossly contaminated upper aquifer discharges to the Canagagigue Creek. Uniroyal, Chemtura etc. have bragged about it's effectiveness for decades. It appears that if it had been done properly it could have been much more effective.

I have been commenting in this Blog for years as well as at the last CPAC that the so called difference in surface water elevation in the creek and the elevation of the nearby groundwater was inadequate. I even recall discussions with Eric Hodgins of the Region of Waterloo where he defended the very small differential in water elevations as likely being adequate. He was wrong and I was right and this is not by a great deal the only time that citizen scientists or simply well informed residents and citizens have spoken truth to those in authority, only to be ignored and marginalized.

THE "UNIROYAL TRIALS"

The above remark I believe was made by Pat Potter in 1995 regarding Uniroyal Chemical and the Elmira Water Crisis. If my memory serves correctly this occurred at a public meeting in the old arena complex on Snyder Avenue in Elmira, Ontario. At this meeting many experts as well as laypersons spoke in regards to Uniroyal Chemical's (once again) mickey mouse plans to hydraulically contain the shallow aquifer on only one quarter of their site (i.e. south-west corner).

As of this date the "Uniroyal trials" are not imminent. Based upon my hard earned knowledge and experience of the last thirty years, it would be easy to conclude that either the original corporate body or the current one are home free. Except. Uniroyal and their successors have shown over the decades an uncanny ability to seize defeat from the very jaws of victory. They have done this via fires, explosions, air releases, and more at the most inopportune times for them. Similarly just as environmental activists begin to give up on the majority of citizens ever rising up and demanding environmental improvements, they surprise us. A routine fugitive release of BLE-25 in September 2010 was enough to get all of Woolwich Council ejected in the next month's municipal election with the exception of councillor Mark Bauman from St. Jacobs. Almost a perfect election despite some of the less than stellar replacements in hindsight.

Time is both the weapon of choice of corporate polluters and their regulators as well as their greatest worry. What is coming down the pike to expose their coverups and failures in honesty and forthrightness? Dr. Richard Jackson was one such surprise for them. His criticisms from September 2015 until December 2016 of the MOE, CRA, and Uniroyal/Chemtura were incomparable and highly damaging to them. The failure of the local media to capture Dr. Jackson's public comments was unfortunate however his comments were indeed captured and published nevertheless. There is a record of them. I expect that more is coming. Every local person who has passed on prematurely from diseases that are not inevitable but exacerbated by bad air, food, and or water have left family members behind with long memories. They will not forget Uniroyal Chemical nor their fellow travellors.

MY TUESDAY DELEGATION To WOOLWICH COUNCIL IS POSTPONED

It is unfortunate however necessary as sometimes life intrudes upon one's plans. Likely my Delegation in regards to the properties east and south of the Lanxess property and their impact upon the Canagagigue Creek will be rescheduled for August 13, 2019. Initially I was going to speak as a Delegate to the May 16, 2019 RAC (Remediation Advisory Committee) meeting however that august body had their meeting postponed from mid May to September 5, 2019. That to my mind pretty much sends the message to all citizens that take both the Elmira aquifer contamination and the Canagagigue Creek contamination seriously; that our politicians and varying authorities do not.

RAC were advertised by Sandy Shantz as a group of concerned stakeholders. What a joke! They consist of the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA), Region of Waterloo (RMOW), Woolwich Township, Lanxess, GHD, and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE/MECP). Some of those so called "stakeholders" had been missing in action for more than a decade and had not attended CPAC meetings much less sat as members. I will say that the Region of Waterloo had done good things in the past and they preceded their departure from the long ago CPAC with a warning that if CPAC did not listen more carefully and pay more attention to their position that they would depart as they did.

Hopefully my Delegation to Council will occur on August 13/19. While certain Council members such as Sandy and Murray (at the minimum) may prefer citizen Delegations about Lanxess and contamination go to RAC rather than council, that is too bad. Especially it is too bad as Sandy fairly recently reduced the minimum number of yearly RAC meetings to three. Yes three! That too speaks to me as an attempt to slowly wind things down. I'm sure that Lanxess and their consultants GHD would like to run their mickey mouse Risk Assessment game on the Canagagigue Creek and get their pre-determined minimal cleanup so that they can put this whole thing behind them. Of course the result will be the never ending and still ongoing slow leakage of contamination both from on-site (Lanxess) as well as from off-site areas that were impacted by Uniroyal Chemical but never acknowledged. This would include the former Nutrite site as well as possibly near OW57-33 (Elmira Water Tower) (DNAPLS) unless of course the ones near the water tower came from Borg Textiles. It also includes Persistent Organic pollutants (POPs) on the Stroh property east of Lanxess.

"THEY ALL LIE"

Recently a friend and colleague advised me that well known environmental activist, Pat Potter, had been known to go to public meetings regarding environmental matters wearing a button which said "THEY ALL LIE". Now my understanding of that conversation was that Pat was referring to corporate polluters, the Ministry of Environment, consultants to corporate polluters, and any and all politicians prepared to voice advice or opinions on the matter at hand. Stating the old joke, I don't think it's fair to paint all the members of those groups with the same brush just because 95% of them are guilty.

Two and a half weeks ago I posted here about the December 2012 blowup at Woolwich Council Chambers regarding the decision to re-verify Chemtura or not with the *Responsible Care logo and membership. Dr. Holt got into it big time with Chemtura reps Josef Olejarz and Dwight Este. The January 31, 2013 Elmira Independent carried more news on the issue that occurred at the monthly CPAC meeting at the end of January. Bob Masterson of the Chemical Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) attended and spoke about the *Responsible Care program. Myself, Vivienne Delaney, Dr. Dan Holt, and Richard Clausi (SWAT) all strongly criticized Chemtura's behaviour at the December 18/12 Council meeting in which they took turns misrepresenting and making false allegations against CPAC Chair, Dr. Dan Holt.

At this January 2013 CPAC meeting there was also strong criticism of Pat McLean being appointed to the verification committee by Chemtura. The criticism, plus details, came from Richard Clausi. He made it clear that Pat McLean, based upon her past behaviour, was viewed as being far too sympathetic with Chemtura Canada. For me the final takeaway from this entire episode was that *Responsible Care and the CIAC are simply a public relations tool in Canada for the chemical industry. They are just part and parcel of the entire sham of community public consultation. The polluter's hands are on the controls throughout the entire process of cleanup, "research", and unfortunately they even have major input into who represents citizens on public advisory committees and verification teams. It is all a pathetic joke aided and abetted by local municipal councils and the provincial ministry of environment.

COUNCIL MEETING THIS TUESDAY & TAG MEETING THIS THURSDAY

The TAG Agenda for this Thursday (6:30 pm.) was sent out yesterday along with the Minutes from the May 9/19 TAG meeting. This Tuesday at 7 pm. I will be a Delegate at Woolwich Council speaking about Canagagigue Creek issues and possible solutions. The TAG meeting two days later will also likely touch upon some of these identical issues. Certainly the 32 page handout (Agenda & Minutes) has some very interesting maps showing primarily Lanxess's south-east corner via Google Earth although a picture of my large 2 1/2 foot by 3 1/2 foot map is also included which shows the entire east side of the site as well as part of the west side.

Joe Kelly had a hand held device that read ground surface elevations and it did indicate the direction of surface water flow into the former wetland area to the immediate west of the Stroh Drain, Ditch, and Berm (SDDB). It also indicated surface flow into a small and shallow pond just south of the former RPE-5. Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach indicated his belief that overland flow of massive quantities of Uniroyal Chemical's waste water would quickly fill the small pond and move further south and then east onto the Stroh property. Indeed Uniroyal and Chemtura themselves have clearly indicated that the waste waters flowed well past the tiny unnamed pond, past the SDDB and into GP-1 and GP-2. GP-2 in fact is right at the extreme southern boundary of the Uniroyal/Lanxess property.

Of course water and accompanying contaminants will flow via gravity towards the lowest lying areas. Contaminated waste water does not flow towards the most accessible and least expensive to clean up areas just because polluters' hired guns (consultants) say so.

THE CHAIN OF EVIDENCE IS STRONG

Hydrogeology is not rocket science. The fact that water flows either under gravity or under pressure is about the most basic knowledge anyone needs, to be able, via common sense and some study of the facts and physical properties of a site, to understand where groundwater is going and whether it is likely to be contaminated. Surface water flow in my opinion is even easier to understand. Groundwater is out of sight, out of mind. Surface water flow however can be directly observed. It can also be directly plotted and determined by very simple ground surface contour lines. These are based upon extremely accurate elevation above sea level measurements which have been done for the entire Uniroyal Chemical/Lanxess Canada site.

These elevation levels have been published by Conestoga Rovers, GHD, the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE/MECP), MTE, and possibly even the GRCA. The information has been available for the Uniroyal site at least since 1985, probably earlier. Last Monday I posted here an article titled "Three Very Difficult Facts For Lanxess". At least one additional fact needs to be added.

Jeff Merriman, environmental engineer for Chemtura Canada (i.e. Uniroyal), publicly assured CPAC members that Uniroyal Chemical had ploughed furrows in a north to south direction on the east side of their site in order to funnel and direct overflowing waste waters from their east side waste pits due south towards gravel pits GP-1 and GP-2. Now under gravity these waste water discharges would have flowed both westwards directly to the Creek as well as southwards into the former wetlands that comprised most of the south-eastern corner of their site. The former furrows however can be seen on some older photographs and do appear intended to lessen westward flow towards the Creek. Also there is a very large swale that can be seen both in photographs from the 1990s as well as from satellite photos. This swale is on the immediate west side of pits RPE-2 southwards to RPE-5 and past. It too appears designed to funnel east side waste waters into the former wetlands in the south-east corner.

So why does Lanxess and their predecessors all admit to this contaminated waste water flow going south but not eastwards over on to the neighbouring Stroh property. The answer is obvious. Money needed for more cleanup. Why won't the MOE admit to it? The same reason they lied to the public in October 1991 and supported Uniroyal Chemical's claim that they Uniroyal were the sole source of contamination to the Elmira municipal aquifers. We now know that at a minimum Nutrite (Yara) as well as Varnicolor Chemical had a piece of that action as well. The MOE looked incompetent enough after decades of falsely reassuring Elmira residents that their water supply was safe from Uniroyal Chemical to then admit it wasn't safe from multiple different sources in Elmira.

THE CONTEMPTIBLE SHAME OF OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM

Money can buy you an acquittal and it is used by the Crown to convict. The party without it is at a huge disadvantage even if the Crown have a weak case. Just look at the numbers of citizens both in the U.S. and Canada who are exonerated after being convicted of serious crimes and sentenced to decades in jail. Two groups of lawyers come to mind namely Innocence Canada and the Association for the Wrongfully Convicted. Both groups have freed many wrongfully convicted citizens and have long waiting lists for their services.

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried the following story titled " Murder case highlights how money can be a key to defence". It is about the Dennis Oland murder case in New Brunswick and is the poster child for monied defendants receiving much different outcomes from our judicial system. Nicole O'Byrne, a law professor at the University of New Brunswick said that Mr. Oland "had the resources to pay a defence team to follow up on every aspect of the case by hiring experts and by taking portions of the case to the Supreme Court of Canada for determination." She further added that "...not all citizens have equal access to resources that may be needed to mount a successful defence".

Kirk Makin, co-president of Innocence Canada stated that "...many of the people wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated are poor people who can't afford the best defence." He added "Dennis Oland is a very fortunate man. The difference is profound between someone who has the means to get the best defence and pursue every avenue of appeal vigorously. The vast majority of people don't."

Mr. Makin also stated that people with top lawyers are treated differently by the courts (i.e. by judges). "When a top lawyer such as an Eddie Greenspan walks into court they are taken very seriously. There's a deference that's shown to them because of their reputation and skill". I interpret that as meaning that their words are given more weight by judges and juries.

Poor people are usually convicted. Rich people often aren't. Whatever happened to guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Whatever happened to being judged upon the evidence presented? I've been there and an asshole judge with a bias or a personal animosity or who is simply incompetent can make a mockery of our entire judicial system. And the judicial system let them get away with it forever. Shame on the pack of them and the political apparatus that doesn't care.