Elmira Advocate

NEWS FLASH: IDENTICAL DIOXINS LESS TOXIC IN ONTARIO

2012-02-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

This following article came off of Yahoo! News yesterday. The title is "Man who lost wife to cancer fights Veterans Affairs for Agent Orange payment". The second last sentence in this news release reads as follows "Agent orange was part of a toxic cocktail of herbicides sprayed at CFB (Cnd. Forces Base) Gagetown in 1966 and 1967 by the U.S. military, with permission from Canada."

That above sentence absolutely stuns me. The U.S. military is doing chemical testing in Canada. Secondly it was done "...with permission from Canada." Odd I was a teenager then and reading newspapers. I must have missed the plebiscite. Or perhaps it was an election issue. The focus of this article is that this particular woman's family have missed out on a $ 20,000 payment for victims of Dioxin poisoning carried out by the U.S. military on Canadian soil. The real issues are more likely the fact that the $ 20,000 is a pittance and frankly disgusting. Also is the fact that Canadian authorities are buying their way out of moral and legal accountability.

Then there is the issue I've indicated in my title for this posting. They sprayed poison namely Dioxin also known as 2,3,7,8 TCDD onto the ground down east. Here in Elmira Ontario the very same Agent Orange containing the very same Dioxin was manufactured for export to the U.S. military. Here in Elmira, Uniroyal Chemical aka Chemtura sloppily spilled, pumped, buried and drained Dioxins into the air, soil, groundwater and even into the Canagagigue Creek. To this day they are still on that site merrily being transported down river onto floodplains all the way to the Grand River just below West Montrose. How fortunate for us, our neighbours, our children and wildlife that we are magically immune here in Ontario to cancer causing Dioxin. I mean surely we must be immune. Our governments, regional, provincial and federal have cheerfully ignored our pleas and demands for over twenty years to clean up this poison. Dioxins are below ground, readily accessible on both sides of the creek at Chemtura. We know exactly where they are yet the Region of Waterloo and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment would rather protect Uniroyal/Chemtura than the citizens who live here. I surely hope the politicians involved are happy with their payoffs be they political, financial or social.

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES

2012-02-14T08:30:00.004-05:00

Today's K-W Record in Section D advises us that in some political jurisdictions there are real consequences for criminal environmental offences. The title of the story is
"Canadian asbestos industry not worried by prison, $59 million damages for execs in Italy". Construction firm executives "...were handed 16-year prison sentences for negligence following a trial that officials called historic." The convicted men "...failed to stop asbestos fibres at factories in northern Italy from spreading across the region." Apparently there had been more than 2,000 asbestos related deaths. The defendants were also ordered to pay millions of dollars to their towns where their victims lived.

Contrast this with Canada and Ontario. Right here in Elmira and Woolwich Township we have carcinogenic materials still buried and readily accessible on the Chemtura site. We also have DDT and Dioxins pinpointed years ago within a few metres of the Canagagigue Creek, also readily accessible for removal. And all we get are broken promises and downright deceptions. Mickey Mouse fines and charges over the years. A Ministry of the Environment that looks after themselves and the polluter first instead of the interests of the public.

TRUTH DELAYED IS TRUTH DENIED

2012-02-13T12:08:00.001-05:00

The Saturday before last (Feb. 4/12) the Woolwich Observer had an amazing article describing one of our provincial Ministrys. The title of the article written by Steve Galea was "Truth delayed is truth denied in a world run by spin doctors". The Ministry which Steve was describing was the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Steve said "...every query, no matter how simple, needs to be taken up the ladder to their communication people so that the answers can be massaged and politically sanitized before coming back.". Mr. Galea who is an outdoors writer both for newspapers and for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters had been making inquiries of the M.N.R. regarding bear hibernation. Specifically he wanted to know from the experts, whom we taxpayers fund for our mutual advantage, when bears come out of hibernation and what percentage of their body fat they lose in the process. Instead of a fairly quick response he got the runaround as his questions got pushed up the ladder. "Maybe you need to put a spin on bear hibernation. Otherwise it might indicate that bears get bored with Ontario winters and that would be hurtful to tourism at a very difficult time.". Mr. Galea has further indicated his concern with asking questions about bird migration for fear of receiving the following answer: "Our MNR spin doctors would probably suggest that while waterfowl go south, it's only because thay have dual citizenship."

The point that Steve Galea is making with humour, albeit it actually happened, is that our provincial Ministrys are less than honest with us, the citizens and taxpayers. Clearly political correctness and political expediency trump the honest truth even in matters of minor significance. Just imagine in serious matters how our governments are willing to deceive, manipulate and massage the truth.

CPAC AGENDAS NEED WORK

2012-02-11T08:16:00.004-05:00

Following are a list of items that should be on the next AGENDA for the upcoming public CPAC meeting of Thursday February 23, 2012. Some of them have fallen by the wayside over time, others have been intentionally ignored by various parties but none of them are new.

As was brought to the attention of CPAC last fall, years ago CPAC passed a Motion to make the July 2003 Request For Action a standing Agenda item. Put it on.

David Marks many months ago asked the Ontario M.O.E. for their rationale for not pursuing "other sources" of contamination in Elmira. Still waiting M.O.E. .

125 barrels in various states of disrepair were excavated in the M2 area (south-west) of Chemtura last summer. To date we have no pictures and no soil or water results. How much soil if any was removed as well?

GP1 & GP2 lab results have been witheld from CPAC and the public since last fall. These are Dioxins and DDT and more to which we are all exposed environmentally.

Groundwater results for the two Varnicolor sites were promised to CPAC and the public last summer. where are they? You know both Chemtura and the M.O.E. that you don't have to wait until a CPAC meeting to hand out this data. There are things nowadays such as e-mail, and snail mail.

The ongoing and particularily bad off-site pumping over the course of 2011 should be on the Agenda. The pumping has been disgraceful and if that failure is not discussed at CPAC, it will be more disgraceful.

The BLE-25 spill from the fall of 2010 was supposed to be peer reviewed and brought to CPAC a long time ago. Shamefull!

The ongoing discussions (except publicly at CPAC) around Chemtura's proposed site wide certificate of Approval for Air have been backroom negotiated for several years now. CPAC and the public have been kept totally in the dark. CPAC please kick this idea and its' disgusting process to the curb ASAP.

The Responsible Care reverification at Chemtura seems to have become invisible. I've been hearing for months that they failed to pass and quite frankly that is appropriate. How about the long suffering public getting something official on this? Last but not least this item has been raised by me for about the last three years. DNAPLS 100' below ground at OW57-32R beside the Elmira water tower and just west of Varnicolor. Do not let Chemtura and the M.O.E. out of the room without them confirming the fact of its' existence and what they plan to do about it. Obviously they hope to continue to ignore it. DON'T LET THEM!

To date the six CPAC members have not had honest input into the Agenda. This may explain why appropriate items are not getting onto it. Chair and Mayor Todd Cowan has been advised before and will continue to be advised: CPAC is not a one man show, nor is its' process to be dominated by one man. Delegate before you destroy CPAC.

WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP WEBSITE

2012-02-10T09:46:00.000-05:00

It is embarassing. To err is human, to forgive divine and to fix it is just plain commonsense. Someone at Woolwich Township did indeed fix the monumental, boneheaded error of posting (secret) Minutes of a private CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) meeting on the Township's website. First off I have no problem with this particular meeting being private because I do believe that it was primarily educational in nature dealing with a Hydrogeology 101 course. Secondly I referred to the Minutes as secret not because I have any knowledge that they were so intended. They were "secret" in that the CPAC members were not advised that the usual public taperecording was underway and even more importantly these Minutes from the September 19/11 meeting were not distributed to the CPAC members prior to their publication either out of courtesy or for amendments.

What has not been fixed to date has been repeatedly pointed out to Mayor Cowan both by CPAC members and myself. I even went so far ten days ago of speaking publicly to Woolwich Council about those errors. They are still there. They include a direct link to a Chemtura website imbedded in the CPAC information. The Chemtura link is highly self promotional including patting themselves on the back for their adherence to the industry Responsible Care program. Aside from the fact that is typical Chemtura BULLSHIT, one it's false and misleading and two it's giving the incorrect impression that they and CPAC are on the same page with their website being linked in the middle of CPAC information. The Township's website also still hasn't got the Agenda or Minutes for the first public CPAC meeting of June 8, 2011. How do I know it existed and was public? Well for one I attended and for two I've got a copy of the Minutes AS SHOULD THE PUBLIC! These Minutes go into detail regarding Chemtura's failures to remove Dioxins , easily accessible , on their property. Also to date the Minutes from the last public CPAC meeting (last November) also are not up yet. Perhaps a Draft has finally been released privately but get the final version up on your website Woolwich Township and in future NOT THREE MONTHS AFTER THE FACT!

COAL TAR SUIT SETTLED

2012-02-09T09:47:00.000-05:00

Well I'm glad that the lawsuit described two days ago here in the Advocate has been settled. Yesterday's K-W Record advises us in a very tiny article that the City of Kitchener and Everest College have settled the $800,000 lawsuit filed against the City. "The college operations and parking lot were disrupted by the $19 million cleanup during the winter of 2006-2007." One concern I have is the statement that the details of the settlement will not be made public. This is a typical political manoevre which is totally inappropriate. It is taxpayers money above and beyond the original cleanup cost and should be public knowledge. These same governments blatantly advise us that they need more tax money while cutting social services; yet they refuse to disclose tax expenditures. What kind of democracy is that? Furthermore if EVERY public expenditure were made public there would be much more public accountability of where OUR tax money goes.

GLOBAL WARMING/GREENHOUSE GASES/PERMAFROST

2012-02-08T08:53:00.002-05:00

The longer I write here in the Advocate the more I understand the broader implications for Woolwich Township environmentally. Originally I thought Woolwich environmental issues would only be Chemtura, Bio-En, gravel pits and the like. Not so . That which affects the air and climate particularily also affects Woolwich Township,

In this case we have an article from the K-W Record dated last December 1, 2011. the title is "Permafrost thaw a "vicious cycle" of greenhouse gases". Apparently decaying plants after thousands of years in the north that were trapped in the ground by permafrost, are now being released as the permafrost thaws. "The permafrost scientists predict that over the next three decades a total of about 45 billion metric tonnes of carbon from methane and carbon dioxide will seep into the atmosphere when permafrost thaws during summers." Between now and 2100 the prediction is more than 300 billion metric tonnes of carbon will belch from the thawing earth. Methane is worse than carbon dioxide however they are both greenhouse gases and thus this "vicious cycle" of global warming will magnify its' own effects as the permafrost thaws.

COAL TAR IN KITCHENER

2012-02-07T08:37:00.002-05:00

The story was in the K-W Record on February 2, 2012 and was titled "Settlement studied in downtown coal tar lawsuit". This refers to a lawsuit filed three years ago against the City of Kitchener by Everest Colleges who rent a city owned building on the corner of Gaukel and Charles St.. The initial problem revolved around the 2007, nearly $20 million cleanup of coal tar under the old post office which was formerly a coal gasification plant. The College alleges that they lost students due to the cleanup and foul odours and that they lost parking revenue and had costs associated with air and water quality tests they took to protect students.

For me this case like so many other municipal coal tar problems and cleanups is almost a classic political story. The coal gasification plant operated from 1882 until 1958. It left behind massive quantities of toxic sludge which had been dumped into shallow pits. Coal tar contains not only the usual suspects such as benzene, toluene and xylenes but also a number of much worse components such as bezo a pyrene. Perhaps in 1882 we didn't know better but by 1958 we certainly did. Obviously city fathers (ie. politicians) made a shortsighted decision not to spend a half a million dollars then for cleanup in favour of leaving it for the next batch of politicians to have to resolve. Twenty million dollars later and perhaps another million to settle with Everest College plus legal expenses now versus doing it initially. All these costs aren't even considering the environmental and human health damage over the decades. Do you really think the groundwater in the area wasn't contaminated? Do you really think there wasn't some vapours over the decades in buildings on top of that awful mess? Coal tar residues courtesy of coal gasification plants have been removed from many municipalities over the decades including from Waterloo where we get our water piped in from. Those municipalities who have as yet not cleaned up, have ticking time bombs which most probably are negatively affecting the air and water of local residents.

BEETLES & COYOTES IN THE NEWS

2012-02-06T09:27:00.002-05:00

The most recent coyote article in the news is in today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record; the front page headline no less: "Coyote sightings alarm residents". The pine shoot beetle on the other hand has only been in the K-W Record a couple of times and only in the Local Section, most recently on January 6, 2012. This beetle may very well be thriving due to the milder winters we've been having. This is one more result of global warming and human intervention. Apparently Conestoga Lake had issues with these beetles in the 1990's as Laurel Creek Conservation in Waterloo currently is. As per its' name , the beetle is very destructive to pine trees and at Laurel Creek Conservation the authorities are removing dead and dying trees. Furthermore they are"...thinning and replanting with more diverse species.".

Regarding coyotes it seems that it's become more than the odd individual coyote spotted as a pack of about eight animals has been seen a couple of times. Indeed a pack this size potentially could be much more of a concern than the odd individual coyote. Southern Ontario is ideal for coyotes with the combination of rural areas and bush as well as urban areas with parkland for hiding. Also their natural enemys, wolves are farther north. Coyotes can and do coexist in the same areas as wolves but are sometimes targetted by the wolves who see them as competition for prey. Currently the Bechtel Park area in Waterloo, near the intersection of University and Bridge St. is home to this pack although they have been seen further afield. Some of the common sense warnings are similar to those in bear country namely don't be leaving food outside either loose or in plastic bags.

BURNING WOOD VS WIND ENERGY?

2012-02-04T08:36:00.000-05:00

Surprisingly it's Saturday morning and I still can't get this week's edition of the Elmira Independent on-line. Well if you're interested you'll have to go out and buy yourself a copy which I do every week by the way. On the Opinion page (pg.4) Chuck Kuepfer has an interesting story titled "Entering the wind-energy debate". He mentions the Ontario Federation of Agriculture recently coming out against wind energy expansion for rural Ontario. Chuck then goes on to desribe a talk given recently at an agricultural conference in Ridgetown Ontario by Dr. Patrick Moore. Patrick Moore as you may recall was one of the original founders of Greenpeace although like many others is no longer with them. Mr. Moore seriously believes that both solar and wind power projects are a waste of tax dollars and in fact are in the long run are counterproductive. For him it's about the costs and the diverting of money into overall higher energy costs that does more harm than good. Well that is certainly a different take on things and at least is worthy of discussion. Of even more interest is his suggestion that as far as renewable energy goes "...wood is the most favourable renewable energy resource on the planet." Wow! I heated our house in West Montrose for ten years with wood and often wondered environmentally, as in air emissions, how good of an idea that was. It certainly was far less expensive than oil, gas or electricity although it did require considerable labour overall.

THE MAYOR HAS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST

2012-02-03T09:36:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately as of this moment, yesterday's Elmira Independent isn't on-line yet, thus I can't include a link to their front page story: "Township celebrates completion of roadwork". This story is the icing on the cake for two of my recent postings here, namely yesterday's "INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT - MY ASS" and January 11/12 "DEMOCRACY IS MESSY". Yesterday's Independent story starts with this sentence "Woolwich township took time on Friday to celebrate the completion of a trio of road reconstruction projects, made possible with funding from the upper tiers of government." This Independent article ends with the following "THANKS FROM MAYOR Woolwich mayor Todd Cowan thanked both the provincial and federal governments for the stimulus funds- and hinted at working in partnership again to address additional infrastructure needs. "We have over 20 roads and bridges that need to be upgraded or improved," Cowan said. "We have a number of projects that are shovel ready." "

One of our mayor's jobs is to solicit money from the higher tiers of government ie. provincial and federal to be spent here locally in Woolwich Township. Keep in mind this is our money as we are the taxpayers whether municipal, regional, provincial or federal. Although we would all like to think that provincial and federal money always flows to the municipalities with the most urgent needs that is by no means guaranteed. Just look at projects such as the Cambridge Hospital expansion and the long promised highway #7 expansion from Kitchener to Guelph. This same Mayor (Todd Cowan) has appointed himself as Chair of CPAC, the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee. This allegedly arms length, independent citizens committee has been strangled, delayed and frustrated by Mayor Cowan for the last year. They are an exemplary group of citizens whose efforts, despite the Mayor, have led to public breakthroughs regarding the need for Source Removal of contaminants both on and off the Chemtura property. They have exposed other sources of subsurface contamination in Elmira at the same time bringing to light the "recklessness" of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Simply put this citizens committee must be on a collision course with upper levels of government who have participated in a sweetheart deal with our local polluter. CPAC are out of duty and honesty attacking the falsehoods spread by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment that Elmira's groundwater is under control and will be restored by 2028. These important public duties are in direct conflict with the Mayor's duty to solicit and obtain funding from the province and feds. Mayor Cowan is in a gross conflict of interest position as long as he is Chair of CPAC. MAYOR COWAN PLEASE RESIGN IMMEDIATELY AS CPAC CHAIR. It's better for you and everyone and much more honest.

INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT - MY ASS

2012-02-02T09:14:00.001-05:00

Citizens of Elmira and Woolwich you have been fed a tasty dish called public consultation. It is an invention, a facade and a sham of politicans worldwide. Its' purpose is to give the veneer of legitimacy, transparency and honesty where none truly exist. Our new Mayor was elected in large part on a platform of increased environmemntal action. To date the jury is still out on the Bio-En proposal (maybe), the numerous local gravel pit applications and on the Chemtura cesspool here in town. The jury is not out on the psuedo "cleanup" of the Elmira aquifer by 2028. The "jury", namely the new CPAC, have done what the old CPAC refused to do and that is to state emphatically that the cleanup will not and can not happen by 2028. This failure by the old is to their everlasting shame and this pronouncement by the new is to their everlasting credit.

There is no independent oversight whatsoever of the Chemtura and Elmira cleanup. It is run and controlled by the Mayor and his advisers. It is control based upon determining the CPAC Agenda, the location (Township building) of all public and private meetings, the Mayor having made himself Chair of CPAC, the precedent of two different Councils having dismissed in midterm a CPAC member for disagreeing with the actions of the Chair, firstly Pat McLean and secondly Julie-Ann Herteis. In both cases these Chairs are long gone and appropriately so. In both cases the Chair's positions were wide open for concern and criticism and in fact in the second case there was unanimity amongst the CPAC members that the Chair's position was ridiculous.

Let us assume for the moment that I and the current CPAC members still have faith in the overall environmental concern expressed by Mayor Cowan. This is not enough. Besides putting the credibility and reputations of local citizens at risk of damage if and when the Mayor chooses to pull the plug on them; then there are the two environmental professionals on the CPAC team. Can you imagine both the personal, financial and career implications for them if they were let go by the Mayor or Council because their professional opinions were in conflict with his political opinion/position? This is untenable and totally unacceptable. The Mayor and Council MUST publicly state that THEIR appointments to CPAC will last for the four year term of Council. The only exception should be resignation by the individual's choice for health or personal reasons.

LAST NIGHT'S COUNCIL PRESENTATION

2012-02-01T09:24:00.001-05:00

Following is the presentation I made to Woolwich Council last evening at 6 pm.. Written copies were left with Council, the Elmira Independent and the Woolwich Observer. As usual Councillor Bauman played defence after my delegation but he has learned to avoid asking me questions because he doesn't care for the answers. As a result he and the Mayor tried a little stickhandling by suggesting that all was copacetic at CPAC. It isn't.

DELEGATION (Draft # 3) TO WOOLWICH COUNCIL (Comm. Of the whole) Jan.31/12

Good evening Mayor, Council, Staff , Media and the public

Two months ago I appeared here and gave Council an update in regards as to how their appointed CPAC were doing. I advised Council that they had chosen wisely and that the CPAC members were performing their duties well. I also gently advised Council that the model of public consultation was however a poor one. Since that time , despite the best efforts of CPAC members, there has not been a single public CPAC meeting . Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment had been feeling the heat generated at the public CPAC meetings and I believe they are very appreciative of this three month break from that. It can not be pleasant spending a fortune on consultants and lobbying , only to have new members of CPAC politely advise you to quit stalling and start digging.
I applaud CPAC living up to their name ie. Chemtura Public Advisory Committee. Some people think CPAC are only supposed to advise the Township or perhaps the M.O.E.. This is incorrect. They are to do as their name implies which is to be a public advisory committee. It is on this basis that I suggest that the mistake made on the Township’s website should not be held against them. Mixed in with five public CPAC meeting Minutes was the Minutes of a private, educational CPAC meeting. This meeting was recorded and Minutes produced unknown to the CPAC members. Hence they were a little more open and less diplomatic than they might otherwise be. One of the professional environmental persons explicitly stated that the Elmira Aquifer would NOT be restored to drinking water standards by 2028. This is incredible news that must be shared with the community who have been told otherwise by both Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E. for the last twenty years. Personally I welcome this confirmation of what I’ve been saying on line and to the old CPAC for the last few years.
Two environmental professionals who are CPAC members have also stated that Source Removal of subsurface contamination must be undertaken. This Source Removal is both on and off the Chemtura site and again it is in direct conflict with Chemtura , the M.O.E. and even certain politicians suffering from “fictitious disorder syndrome”. Another off-site source which no politician to date has acknowledged is the Chlorobenzene and DNAPL found 100 feet below ground , west of Varnicolor Chemical, near the old water tower. Perhaps it’s been easy ignoring this contamination as long as the M.O.E. and Chemtura continue to do so. To date they adamantly refuse to comment, confirm or deny its’ existence despite their own consultants, Conestoga Rovers, having discovered it in 1998. Furthermore Chemtura are still denying CPAC and the public the lab results they received four months ago regarding Dioxins on their property in GP1 & GP2.
Almost coincidentally with the swearing in of the new Council, Chemtura’s off-site pumping of groundwater has been in the crapper. This pumping is to allegedly clean up the Elmira Aquifer by 2028. On its’ own it will not succeed even if the company meet their own computer modelled pumping rates. The problem is they are still trying to sell an inferior system while not even being able to maintain the pumping rates to the standards they have determined as necessary.
Your CPAC are referred to on the Township website as an independent body. This is inaccurate and will certainly remain so until your Mayor, CAO and Municipal Clerk decide otherwise. Also on the Township website, the Agendas and Minutes are still in error. The offending Minutes have been removed but the missing Minutes have not replaced them. Also the incorrect September 19, 2011 Agenda is still present. There are further errors in the ostensibly Amended Minutes that still need correction. Furthermore a number of CPAC members have informed the Chair that they are not particularily pleased with the Chemtura link located where it is in the midst of the CPAC information. I personally was offended by this as well, because it gives the impression that Chemtura are somehow working cooperatively with CPAC. If you think that is so then you definitely need to communicate much better with your CPAC.
It is my position that your CPAC members are doing well despite stolid and vigorous opposition by both Chemtura and the M.O.E.. What is currently holding them back is you Woolwich Township. You can read between the lines as to which personnel need to loosen the reins. Your CPAC are neither horses nor children . They are your volunteer citizen appointees. Give them your confidence and respectfully let them perform their duties .

Alan Marshall Elmira Environmental Hazards Team

One interesting point is that Mayor Cowan did advise Council and the public that there was a private CPAC meeting this evening (Wed. Feb. 1/12). It will be very hard for him to again cancel this meeting unilaterally as he has so many others. Also the Agenda of this meeting is typical in that it appears once again not to be an Agenda of concensus but an Agenda put together by anyone but the CPAC members. Also keep clearly in mind the CPAC members are NOT subject to the federal Official Secrets Act. Amazing how petty municipal officials believe they have a right to keep all their bad decisions private and out of the public eye. They have no such right except in their wee little minds.

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MEETING AT 6 PM.

2012-01-31T08:27:00.000-05:00

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?

2012-01-31T08:18:00.003-05:00

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

2012-01-30T09:21:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-28T18:35:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-27T09:36:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-26T11:09:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-25T09:26:00.000-05:00

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.

DECEMBER 2011 CHEMTURA PROGRESS REPORT

2012-01-24T08:30:00.001-05:00

Last week I did a posting titled "A History of off-Site Pumping". This compared the off-site pumping starting in 1998 up to and including 2011. With the exception of 2009 and 2010 the pumping rates were far below the computer modelled target rates required to allegedly sucessfully restore the Elmira aquifer to drinking water standards. I had not received the December 2011 Progress Report at that time so I averaged the first eleven months to obtain an annual average pumping rate for 2011. With the December 2011 off-site pumping rate in hand I can advise that it is not only well below the required target rate but it is also below the average rate for the rest of 2011. Of the five off-site wells, in December, well E7 at the extreme south end of Elmira met it's target pumping rate. Wells W3, W4, W5A, and W5B were not even close.

Of equal or greater concern is the lack of on-site containment in the UA or Upper Aquifer. Both the UACS (Upper Aquifer Containment System) failed to provide complete hydraulic containment for the extremely contaminated south-west area but also the south-east UA was discharging directly into the Canagagigue Creek. This of course is where the Dioxin contamination is largest namely at GP1 & GP2. This can be found both on page 8 as well as in figures D3 and D4 in the Appendices.

In regards to surface water, again there are four chemicals measured at higher downstream concentrations on the Chemtura site than upstream and they are NDMA, NMOR, Toluene and Ethylbenzene.

With or without the argument that Source Removal is required both on the Chemtura site and off it; what is obvious is that Chemtura and their consultants are failing in every category and measurement of their own goals and targets. These monthly Progress Reports need to be on the AGENDA and discussed PUBLICLY every single month. To date we haven't had a public CPAC meeting since November and the next scheduled one isn't till February 23, 2012. That is unless MAYOR COWAN UNILATERALLY CANCELS IT AGAIN ! SHAME ON THE MAYOR AND HIS CLOSEST ADVISERS. It's not just your lack of knowledge it's your efforts to subvert public consultation and remove the voices of those citizens far more knowledgable on this topic than you will ever be.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

2012-01-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

Saturday's (Jan. 21/12) Kitchener-Waterloo Record has the following story "Raising a stink over the smell of gargage". This story by Jeff Outhit, on the fourtieth anniversary of the Erb St. landfill, describes exactly what the title indicates. It is all about the odours and the effects on neighbours. It also advises indirectly that the planning process in Waterloo Region is broken. When this landfill was opened in 1972 there were very few neighbours. Now with urban sprawl there are homes, businesses and even a golf course nearby. Clearly both the lessons of the Ottawa St. landfill in Kitchener have been forgotten as well as plain common sense. Landfills smell, they leak methane and they pollute groundwater. None of this is rocket science much less even news. It is the groundwater situation that is the elephant in the room. In Kitchener the Greenbrook wellfield was recently shut down for a year while special treatment was installed for one particular industrial chemical namely 1,4 dioxane. This chemical and other solvents including benzene all migrated from the Ottawa St. landfill to the pumping wells on Greenbrook near Stirling Ave.. Although a significant distance it is by no means a prize winner for plumes of chemicals to travel. Also at the Ottawa St. Landfill (McLennan ski hill), methane found it's way into townhouses built near the base of the landfill. They were abandoned for years while technologys were looked at to remove or divert the methane. Canada Mortgage and Housing were stuck with the mortgage costs for years, which I would expect meant that Joe taxpayer picked up the financial fallout from both private development and political stupidity. Apparently we've learned nothing from both similar follys in the U.S. as well as our own folly here in Waterloo Region.

Although the Erb St. landfill now has a leachate collection system, it operated for at least two decades without. Groundwater contamination has been found off-site which again should be no surprise to anyone. I have by no means absolute faith in their current retrofitted leachate system. Why should I? Engineering controls are certainly helpful but perfection is probably an impossible goal, especially after the fact. The nearest wells would be the Erb St. wellfield (W6A, W6B, W7, W8) followed by the municipal wells in St. Agatha. The City of Waterloo boundary with Wilmot Township is nearby but they are both in Waterloo Region. It is my expectation that Waterloo Region know full well that they've long ago comprimised the majority of their groundwater by industrial pollution and all their talk of protection (and action) after the fact are simply to delay the inevitable: a pipeline to Lake Erie. The current date for construction is 2035. If through protection twenty to fifty years after it was needed they can hold off a massive water pipeline then they will be happy.

THIS DOESN"T LOOK GOOD

2012-01-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

A year ago we had a new Council here in Woolwich and I'd received a ton of attention from one of them and a ton of promises. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. A couple of friends outside of Woolwich Township as well as one nearby close relative warned me not to get my hopes up so high. It turns out they were right.

It is difficult to be certain without the decency and courtesy of a straight answer from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment but I believe they have betrayed Elmira residents again. By betraying I mean lying. By lying I mean leading residents to believe that there is an honest process of consultation with regards to the proposed Bio-En plant for Martin's Lane in Elmira. Here in Elmira we have had "public consultation" as suggested and promoted by the Ministry of the Environment for over two decades. This "consultation" whether called UPAC or CPAC has been an intended sham from the beginning. Uniroyal/Chemtura have been aided and abetted by the M.O.E. ever since their immoral and unethical private sweetheart deal consumated over the summer of 1991, which permanently ended the then temporarily adjourned Environmental Appeal Board hearings. Local citizens are fighting through the system to relocate Bio-En out of Elmira. Despite their best efforts it won't work, not because the system is broken but precisely because the system does work for the benefit of existing government priorities and for the benefit of the friends of that government. ATTENTION ORGANIZED CITIZENS OPPOSED TO BIO-EN OPERATING IN ELMIRA : The standard operating practice is for the authorities to tell you that you've won. They will tell you that your organized, respectful opposition has forced concessions from the proponent and the Ministry of the Environment. These will be lies intended to let you save face while they do exactly what they've wanted from the beginning which is to put their facility in your community for their profit and your inconvenience and sufferring.

POST WALKERTON CHANGES KEEP COMING

2012-01-20T09:02:00.003-05:00

On January 11/12 the K-W record carried a story titled "Region poised to approve flood of water rules". On the exact same subject is an Opinion piece in today's (dated tomorrow) Woolwich Observer titled " New "downloading" - paying for useless rules". The differences in these storys are quite remarkable. Essentially the Region while suggesting that they were on top of things anyways believe that the overall idea of more water rules and regulations is O.K. because it will assist in water protection across the Grand River watershed and with provincial backing and authority. Steve Kannon of the Observer and Dave Brenneman of Woolwich township are much less pleased. They feel that many of these changes are knee jerk, superficial rules which penalize the majority of municipalities that were doing a conscientous job in the first place in regards to their water protection and treatment.

Perhaps this is a typical "slam the gate closed after the horse has bolted" scenario. I do know from reading I've done that the Walkerton disaster was a perfect storm. It was a result of provincial failures (M.O.E.) to enforce the rules on the books. It also was a failure in oversight by the Municipal authorities responsible for water safety in Walkerton and finally it was a horrid failure of individuals in Walkerton who were incompetent and grossly negligent. Finally it was also a failure decades earlier when the offending wells were drilled. They were in a ridiculously vulnerable location and warnings given at the time were both ignored and finally forgotten. What was needed was not more rules but more enforcement, competence and common sense. None were available.

CANCER AND THE ENVIRONMENT?

2012-01-19T09:10:00.002-05:00

Today's K-W Record carrys an article about cancer rates and prevalence. The title is "Cancer prevalence rates up due to aging population". This is one of those times when I'm particularily glad that it's a short newspaper article and that I'm able to get a link to it. The reason is that my connection between Cancer and the Environment in my above title is strictly mine. This article does not mention the word environment nor other than normal aging does it give any causes for higher rates of cancer in the population. This I've always found unfortunate because other than obvious lifestyle changes such as stopping smoking, less alcohol, more exercise and losing weight, Canadians are given very little insight into the causes of cancer. My admittedly non medical understanding is that many causes of cancer are one form or another of irritation/inflammation. The obvious example here would be skin cancer from the sun's rays. Similarily lung cancer can be caused by lung irritation from things like nicotine, asbestos and air pollution. Regardless this article which I hope you will read, quite frankly because I had difficulty with it, claims that higher prevalency rates are a mixed blessing. Yes it says more people are getting cancer but importantly more on living with it rather than dying right away. There have been a very few newspaper articles that I've read that bluntly come out and say that the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink is killing us. The reality is that air, food and water are all contaminated by toxic, industrial chemicals. "Experts" however love to reassure us that these toxic chemicals are all below mandated health standards. Individually most may very well be but as I've long said no one has the math or science to be able to determine the health results of multiple chemicals via multiple routes of exposure such as air, water and food. Furthermore even the individual standards are political in nature and the result of biased risk assessments and other mathmatical games.

TRAVELWISE TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

2012-01-18T09:18:00.002-05:00

Today's K-W Record advises us that a new program has been started in cooperation with the Region of Waterloo and numerous large employers in the Region, including the three biggest cities and two Universities. The record story is titled " Program encourages drivers to get to work other ways ". According to this story written by Terry Pender "The main objective is to reduce the number of people driving alone to work". The various alternatives include public transit, car pooling, car sharing, walking and cycling for example. This program has additional incentives above and beyond the up front financial and environmental. Individuals who sign up to a one year commitment will receive a 15% discount off of a monthly bus pass. This reduces the price from $63 a month to $53.55 . It's funny how we delude ourselves in our quest to stay in our cars. At first blush I considered $63 a month expensive for public transit. Then I remembered that I put $26 of gas in my car last week and $30 in yesterday. By the way I'm driving a four cylinder, tiny Hyundai; not remotely a gas guzzler. My gas costs alone are double the price of a bus pass and that doesn't even begin to compare when you consider purchase price, insurance and maintenance.

CPAC IS CANCELLED AGAIN

2012-01-17T08:29:00.000-05:00

This is ridiculous. We've now had only six real public CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) meetings in the last sixteen months. If you recall there was a lame duck meeting held by Pat Mclean in November 2010 after the Municipal election the prior month. Exactly how much pressure can be put on either Chemtura (Uniroyal) or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to clean up the site properly with a total of eighteen hours (6x3 hours) of public exposure over a time period of 16x31x24=11,904 hours? None of this is the fault of the new CPAC. All of it is the fault of our new Mayor. Something has gone incredibly far off the rails here. Personally I've seen all this nonsense before. Everytime the old CPAC Chair was unhappy with how things were going at CPAC she would arbitrarily cancel public meetings. Usually it was only a meeting here and there although back in the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008 she shut it down for six or seven months. Mayor Cowan cancelled a public CPAC meeting last summer, this past December and now the January 2012 meeting. In all fairness there wasn't a lot of opposition to the December shutdown. Then of course was his still unexplained snooze from December 2010 until the first public CPAC meeting in June 2011. When I say unexplained I should clarify by saying satisfactorily, logically or intelligently explained to the citizen volunteers who were ready and willing to go from January/February 2011 onwards.

The Mayor's so far unexplained behaviour regarding CPAC is damaging any possibilty of actually getting Dioxins removed from the site. It is damaging any chance of removing shallow, easily accessible DNAPLS from the south-west corner of the site. It is giving both the M.O.E. and Chemtura a free ride past any public scrutiny and accountability. Their hopeless Pump and treat System both on and off-site is going nowhere fast (see yesterday's Advocate posting). We do not stand a chance of having drinking water in the Elmira aquifer by 2028 and the Township of Woolwich both past and I'm sorry to say present take some responsibilty for that. When I say the Mayor's behaviour I'm referring to his penchant for autocratic control of CPAC even while Chairing meetings this fall which caused the M.O.E. to cry for their Mommys. Both Chemtura and the M.O.E. were appropriately feeling the heat, in these public meetings from the CPAC members, which the Mayor did conduct in a civilized and democratic manner. Unfortunately the appearance being given is that he is listening to their whining about being picked on by the citizen volunteers appointed by Woolwich Council. His listening essentially means that he is prepared to unilaterally stall and delay allowing this asinine twenty-three year Farce to go on forever.

Woolwich Council you have delegated the CPAC Chair's position to Mayor Cowan. Yes none of you wanted it including the Councillor originally appointed to it. You as a group are ultimately responsible. If you don't want a CPAC at all then at least have the honesty and courage to say so. Some of us are tired of decades long games being played. I asked you last May to get off the pot and let CPAC get going. In your ignorance and with bad advice, you shot the messenger. You did at least get CPAC started with a date for the first public CPAC meeting shortly afterwards. What are you going to do this time? CPAC are being hobbled, delayed and hampered by your Mayor. He is turning this into a sham and Chemtura and the M.O.E. are very grateful for his efforts. IS THIS REALLY THE INTENTION OF WOOLWICH COUNCIL?

HISTORY OF OFF-SITE PUMPING IN ELMIRA, ONTARIO

2012-01-16T08:46:00.001-05:00

Last night I e-mailed with two documents attached, a history of the off Chemtura site pumping wells in Elmira. This information I sent to the entire voting CPAC membership as well as to two other friends and colleagues. The attached documents included a graph showing the total average litres per second of groundwater pumped from five off-site wells namely W4, W4, W5A, W5B and E7. Marked on this graph is the target pumping rate determined by Chemtura's consultants via computer modelling, that will allegedly achieve cleanup of Elmira's water to drinking water standards. Last Thursday (Jan. 12/12), here in the Advocate, I posted reasons why this cleanup is impossible. This graph and the included text show how patheticly low the pumping has been for the last nearly fourteen years. As a result even if one were to accept the initial grossly faulty premise that all the source areas are on the Chemtura site, they still have not achieved the volume of pumping that their own consultants have determined is necessary. The original target pumping rate for the five off-site wells was 64.5 litres per second. From 1998 till the end of 2008 they couldn't get within 20 litres per second of this rate. In 2009 the target rate was lowered to 53.5 litres per second and this they achieved for 2009 and 2010. Last year (2011) their off-site pumping plunged again well below even their reduced pumping target rate. This "cleanup" is nothing but smoke and mirrors. SHAME ON EVERYONE WHO IS A PARTY TO THIS PUBLIC DECEPTION.

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSIONER WEIGHS IN

2012-01-14T08:08:00.003-05:00

Gord Miller, Ontario's Environmental Commissioner is not a happy camper. Ontario has lost their elm trees, is losing our ash trees and he feels that maple trees are next on the list. This is due to a combination of climate change and an invasive species coming up from New York state. Furthermore as the Ontario government has announced across the Board cuts he feels that both the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of the Environment are in the sights. Last November he already had warned that their budgets had been slashed to the "tipping point". Mr. Miller's overall point was that the Ontario government is clearly unprepared for upcoming environmental threats including threats to biodiversity.

GO TRAINS

2012-01-14T08:01:00.000-05:00

This week in the K-W Record, Luisa d'Amato gave us her opinion on the new GO train service. It was titled "Give GO train a chance- cars get backed up too". She suggests that just because the GO train got delayed due to a downtown Toronto fire is no reason to suggest that it is less reliable or always slower than going by car. This is clear to anyone who's been stuck in 401 traffic . What she also clarifys is the emotional reasons people continue to drive even when the driving experience is both horrible and dangerous. The GO train is less expensive than driving your own car, less stressful and far better for the environment.

WATER UPGRADES FOR WATERLOO REGION PLANNED

2012-01-13T10:41:00.001-05:00

Today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has a good news story from Terry Pender titled
"Province kicks in nearly $3M for water upgrades". Mr. Pender ostensibly backs his story with interviews and quotes from the following persons: MPP John Milloy, Mayor Carl Zehr, Kitchener's Director of Engineering Grant Murphy, Regional Chair Ken Seiling, and Regional Councillor Jane Mitchell. Wow that's impressive. One high level Municipal employee and four long time career politicians covering Municipal, Regional and Provincial levels.

"The City of Kitchener received $1 million to find ways of keeping sediments removed from stormwater ponds out of landfill sites. The research will help cities save millions of dollars by reducing disposal costs to $5 a tonne, down from $70 a tonne." That is an interesting quote. My bullshit metre is ringing very loudly. Perhaps new and different disposal methods are possible which would reduce the number of tonnes but how does that remotely reduce the per tonne cost? Zero explanation given.

"Kitchener and Waterloo received almost $1 million for a public education program to help property owners take practical steps to reduce stormwater runoff". Are they completely nuts? The vast majority of property owners own nothing more than their own homes, if they're lucky. Fifty to a hundred years ago residential subdivisions and homes were always built on high ground with hopefully a low watertable. Not anymore. Floodplains are discouraged and everything else is just fine. Storm sewers, pumping stations and mandatory sump pumps in new homes are now the norm. At my home I do everything possible to get rainwater to run off my small property rather than soaking into the ground around my foundation.

"And the Grand River Conservation Authority gets $903,000 for a new Grand River management plan." The claim is made that we are approaching a water crisis both in supply and quality and hence need to spend more money to study and research technologies to address it. Bullshit ! Sure there is a crisis and it starts at the top namely immigration and population plans. There is only one Grand River in Waterloo Region. All our Sewage Treatment plants dump into it. All our industries directly or indirectly dump into it. Our environment including water will only sustain a certain level of human beings in this Region. The growth economy including population is unsustainable. We have had technologies to improve sewage treatment at our plants for decades but politicians would rather build edifices than improving infrastructure. Drayton Theatre in Cambridge is just the most recent example.

Jane Mitchell states that the total cost for the new Grand River management plan will be in excess of $ 1.8 million. This costly local taxpayer funded plan will tell the politicains what they already know and yet refuse to do. It will join the thousands of reports before it, sitting on shelves. As my colleague Rich Clausi likes to say "When all was said and done, more was said than done."

SHAM ELMIRA CLEANUP CONTINUES - BADLY

2012-01-12T09:18:00.001-05:00

Elmira, Woolwich and Ontario citizens have been sold a bill of goods. This bill of goods is that Elmira's groundwater will be restored to drinking standards by 2028. This is virtually impossible whether one does or doesn't follow the basic assumptions put forth by Chemtura's consultants. This basic assumption is that yes there is grossly contaminated soil and residual DNAPL on the Chemtura property but it has been contained on site. Off-site there are areas of heavy groundwater contamination which can and will be remediated by pump and treat technology over a thirty year time span (1998-2028). These off-site assumptions are plain wrong and all the recent and ongoing cleanups throughout Elmira testify to this. Whether Voisin Motors, Strauss Fuels, Beckers, the old Gord's Garage, Varnicolor Chemical (ongoing), Nutrite (Yara) there are numerous sites throughout Elmira which have contributed to our groundwater contamination for decades. Many others are possible but uninvestigated yet.

For the moment let's ignore reality. Let's assume that all the sources are at Chemtura and the rest of Elmira only has dissolved contaminants versus source areas. CRA on behalf of Uniroyal (Chemtura) have a hydraulic containment system within Elmira. It consists of wells W5A, W5B, W4, W3 and E7 down at the south end of Elmira, right beside the new Voisin Motors. With a computer generated model they have determined exactly how many litres per second of groundwater must be pumped off the Chemtura site and throughout Elmira. This magic number of litres per second, over a thirty year time span is supposed to clean up the dissolved contaminants in Elmira's groundwater. The magic number, determined by CRA was 64.5 litres per second for the five wells listed. From the start of the Off - Site Containment and Treatment System in the summer of 1998 the yearly average of total monthly pumping rates has NEVER achieved this. OOPS! In June of 2009 under pressure from myself at CPAC to explain their failure, CRA and Chemtura lowered their computer generated target pumping rate to 53.1 litres per second . For the record as of the start of 2009 they still hadn't been able to meet this significantly reduced target rate EVER.

It is now January 2012 and the last Monthly Chemtura Progress Report distributed is for November 2011. Chemtura achieved their REDUCED off-site pumping rate on an annual basis for 2009 and 2010. The success after eleven years of failure in a row seems to have gone to their heads. 2011 off-site pumping has been pitiful. They have been unable to achieve again even their reduced pumping target rates. The bottom line is this. They are going through a Review and Update of their hydraulic containment system. This may be part of their so called Five Year Review. Regardless of what they call it, it is a sham. The goal of this Review/Update/Work Plan is to "...evaluate the progress of groundwater remediation of the off-site Municipal Aquifer (MA) beneath Elmira, Ontario." The "progress" has been abysmal. They have set the targets necessary to achieve cleanup and they have continually failed to come even close over the past fourteen years. How many different ways is it necessary to measure failure? I believe that this whole "cleanup" is nothing but smoke and mirrors and a delaying tactic until Chemtura decide to leave town and leave us their mess.

DEMOCRACY IS MESSY

2012-01-11T08:46:00.001-05:00

Democracy is filled with contradictions and disincentives to honesty and integrity. Individual citizens have the numbers and hence the votes. The money and power however are held by the few. Personal benefits and considerations are also part of the equation. How many politicians after losing an election receive a golden parachute from the monied few? How many get appointed by the government of the day to a well paid commission, board or other perk? The Senate comes to mind.

Local/Municipal politicians are especially vulnerable to manipulation by higher tiers of government. Imagine that you are a local, activist Mayor, elected by the citizens as a protest against the old way of doing business. You want to put people first, not money and corporations. You begin reforms locally by fighting never ending expansion of gravel pits. You attempt not to block but to relocate a proposed bio-fuel plant that would generate increased truck traffic in your small town as well as most probably generate odours. Your small town already has a huge history of pollution from local industry and neglect and incompetence from the provincial Ministry of the Environment.

You enter office with hope and optimism. Then reality sets in. You as Mayor are automatically sitting on the next higher tier, namely Regional Council. Both the carrot and the stick are evident. Regional roads need upgrades in your community. The local Sewage Treatment Plant needs expansion if you want to have capacity for new developments and subdivisions. These are Regional decisions. Do you want the support of your colleagues for your local projects? If so then there is some give and take. Your current Regional Chair was voted in by his colleagues on Regional Council decades ago precisely because he did not represent one of the major urban centres in your Region. If you play your cards right you could replace him down the road as retirement can't be too far off. If you play your cards right.

Then there is the province to deal with. You are generally on good terms with them. They however have an election upcoming. They absolutely don't need you raising a ruckus about their long comprimised, underfunded and generally hopeless Ministry of the Environment. You are asked to make concessions in regards to your vigour in pushing them, especially publicly. You are asked for the sake of harmony and future benefits to your community, in other areas, to soften and to quiet any criticism coming from, for example, citizen committees of Council. You are advised that it is always in the best long term interests of a Municipality to listen carefully to the very few strong "requests" from the province.

Perhaps during all this pressure, local industry also comes knocking on your door. Lobbying let's call it. They too are displeased with your apparent grassroots bias. They feel that rather than you trying to please those who elected you in the recent past, perhaps you should be looking to the future. For example donations to Mayoral campaigns are always a good thing aren't they? Perhaps if a large employer feels too pressured locally to conform to provincial environmental laws that the M.O.E. are willing to let slide, then this large employer might move up his plans to retreat to a more business friendly environment. How would that look on a new Council and its' Mayor?

The pressures are enormous and the reality is that you can not please everyone. This is where a politician learns to stickhandle. No one is asking you to publicly deny your past supporters or your beliefs. Just modify them a touch. Comprimise and delay are always a smart move when you are doing something controversial. Things aren't really black and white. So learn how to take baby steps without offending others. Life will be so much easier if you adjust your direction according to the pressure upon you. Congratulations you are learning the art of politics.

REGION OF WATERLOO - PUBLIC NOTICE

2012-01-10T09:10:00.001-05:00

Now this is a strange one and I quote from today's K-W Record:
"Notice of Public Input Meeting of the Planning and Works Committee Proposed Modifications to the Implementation Guideline for Road Allowance Dedications On and Adjacent to Known and Potentially Contaminated Sites".

Date: Tuesday January 31, 2012
Time: 9:00 am.
Location: Regional Council chambers, 2nd Floor 150 Frederick St. Kitchener

There is a report on-line that with a little digging is accessible . Basically there are concerns that the Provincial infilling policies dealing with development are causing the Region to have to assume environmental liability for road allowances dedicated to them, beside contaminated sites, within municipal borders. This report requests changes that could include things like indemnities for the Region or for more rerports hopefully indicating the contamination is within acceptable levels. An optimist would hope that this infilling mandated by the province would result in more cleanups of contaminated sites within our cities. The reality is simply more stickhandling via rule changes to allow new development including residential upon contaminated lands. I have downloaded this report and will continue to study it.

LRT- PUBLIC CONSULTATION CENTRES

2012-01-10T08:56:00.001-05:00

I received yesterday in the mail a letter from the Region of Waterloo advising that there will be three Public Consultation Centres this month in regards to their proposed Light Rail transit system. These PCC's are supposed to discuss potential impacts the rail project could have on the environment. They are scheduled for Tuesday January 24/12, 3- 8 pm. at the First United Church , 16 William St W. in Waterloo. The next is for Jan. 25/12, 3-8 pm. at the Region of Waterloo, 150 Frederick St, Kitchener and the last for Jan. 26/12, 3-8 pm. at the United kingdom Club, 35 International Village Dr., Kitchener. A pessimist could be forgiven for suggesting that these PCC's have the potential to be no more than dog and pony shows.

RAIL TRANSIT RISKS AND SECRECY

2012-01-09T09:21:00.001-05:00

Jeff Outhit of the K-W Record is certainly taking the lead on this local, hot potato political item . Last Saturday's front page Local Section story is "Region warned over transit secrecy". Jeff also has a smaller article titled "Rail transit piles risk on risk, scholar says". This second article is very unsettling because it shows the unfortunate human tendency for those in charge to gild the lily when it comes to building support for their pet or legacy projects. Make no mistake, I am a supporter of public transit versus private automobile use. IN THEORY it is fabulous ! I spent five of my adult years in Toronto and the public transit system of buses and subways were unbelievably great. In Waterloo Region I worry that we are comparing apples to oranges. Toronto has an excellent east to west subway (Bloor Line) and an equally excellent north to south subway (Yonge Line). The bus system also runs east to west and north to south. It is easy to learn and understand, it is frequent and it works. Just about everything that Waterloo Region does not have.

Again I repeat I like public transit because environmentally it is superior to individuals driving more cars and spewing out more air pollution. What I don't like is being bulls...... and bafflegabbed. Jeff Outhit's article makes it clear that that is the norm when selling expensive public transit to citizens. Ridership rates are grossly inflated and costs grossly underestimated. The article concerning transit secrecy is in regards to the concept of public-private partnerships. This proposal is supposed to reduce the risk of cost and time overuns by having a private business partner involved. Jeff has interviewed two experts who both focus on the need for key information on these partnerships being made public. This information would include the tradeoffs of profits going to a private enterprise in exchange for the aforementioned risk reduction in cost overuns if they are being assumed by the private developer. In a nutshell I would suggest that these two experts are essentially asking the Region to be more transparent than they currently have been. I agree. Afterall it's our money.

2011 TOP NEWS STORIES IN WOOLWICH

2012-01-07T08:12:00.001-05:00

Both our local newspapers, the Elmira Independent and the Woolwich Observer (Pg. 9) summarized their top stories for 2011. As is to be expected there were a number of overlaps. Both papers had ample stories covering a plethora of gravel pits throughout the Townships including peer reviews, O.M.B. upcoming hearings and Cultural Heritage Landscape designations (West Montrose). Victoria Glen in Elmira, Hawk Ridge Homes also in Elmira and the proposed LRT system for K-W and Cambridge were also mentioned in the Observer. The Independent covered in reasonable detail the delays and eventual naming of the new Chemtura Public Advisory Committee. They also mentioned the resignations eventually of all the former members including one who couldn't seem to be bothered attending while he was a member but nevertheless made a big deal out of his resignation. The Independent also covered the public CPAC meetings as well as the news that the Ministry of the Environment were again, twenty years later, going after the old Varnicolor site for more cleanup. Finally our favourite local polluter, Chemtura, were mentioned in regards to Dioxins and DNAPLS still on site and in the ground.

ARISE SOLAR SYSTEMS IN TROUBLE

2012-01-06T08:41:00.003-05:00

This is very disappointing to see a local well known manufacturer and designer of renewable enrgy in financial trouble. Arise Technologies Corp. filed a notice of intention with the federal bankruptcy office last month in order to stave off creditors while they reorganize their finances. Today's K-W record has the full story in the Business Section titled "Arise hopes to save solar systems division". Arise has installed solar systems at the Region of Waterloo operations centre, the City of Kitchener operations centre and also the University of Waterloo. Clearly their technology is state of the art, accepted and doing it's job. Apparently other aspects of the business, including development costs, have been causing them their financial problems.

ANTI-IDLING BY-LAWS ARE A GOOD IDEA

2012-01-05T09:04:00.001-05:00

Today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has the following story "Anti-idling bylaw cruises into Year 2". This article focuses on the City of Cambridge by-law while also giving us a rundown on other area municipalities. The by-laws focus on schools and public areas at the moment but will most likely expand to other city facilities such as arenas. Personally I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who let their engines idle, whether summer or winter. It's hard on the engine, wastes gas, invites theft if you've just ducked into the corner store and essentially marks you as a Neanderthal who doesn't understand that air pollution literally kills. This newspaper article advises that education is a key element and that info slips were handed out first rather than tickets. Apparently the old adage that you can catch more flys with honey than vinegar is accurate. Similar to smoking in public places, people are starting to catch on and that's a good thing.

2012-01-04T09:37:00.002-05:00

IT'S ALL ABOUT APPEARANCES

Will the 20th and 21st centuries go down in human history as the "show" and "pretend" centuries? Will they be recognized as the triumph of appearance over substance? This following story, at this point in time, deals with allegations, uncomfortably familiar allegations. Rules are in place, rules are ignored, perpetrators appear to be unaffected and whistleblowers (messengers) are shot.

Today's K-W Record has this story " Keystone "whistleblower" alleges shoddy materials". The whistleblower is both an engineer and an inspector for a company that worked on the original Keystone pipeline from the Alberta tarsands down to the American Midwest. This is the same pipeline that is being proposed to be extended down to the U.S. Gulf States through and above some very environmentally sensitive aquifers. According to a Mr. Klink he raised substantive issues during his inspections including substandard steel, construction methods such as improper foundations for pumping stations and fudged safety tests including leaking joints during pressure testing. For his efforts he was fired. On the surface it would appear that the process of inspections during construction is more about appearances than reality. Yes the construction company can honestly say that they've followed mandated procedures. Yes they've hired inspectors and read their reports. It's a shame that all the inspectors can't take their pay, go home and drink or drug away their guilt. Imagine some inspectors (employees, citizens etc. ) actually having integrity and a conscience. For some employers, politicians and big shots it's all about the money. Down the road environmental disasters can be 'remediated" and most probably for a profit.

2012-01-03T08:15:00.003-05:00

THE BATTLE RAGES QUIETLY

Ever noticed how local issues of great importance seem to disappear for months at a time? Where do they go? O.K. we know that Hawk Ridge Homes is awaiting an upcoming O.M.B. hearing. Same with the Hunder Pit, Kuntz Pit (Jigs Hollow) and also the proposed Murray Pit beside the proposed Capitol Paving Pit in West Montrose. Further testing and excavation are planned for the old Varnicolor Chemical site on Union St. Chemtura claim they will remediate the Dioxins at GP1 & GP2 on the south-east corner of their property while at the same time refusing to hand over soil and water samples obtained last October. The old Becker's site has been excavated and rebuilt. Their will be further remediation of the gas and diesel compounds via a process known as ISCO or In Situ Chemical Oxidation. This process breaks down (oxidizes) the hydrocarbon contaminants. Absolutely nothing is happening regarding the two source areas off the Chemtura site namely the subsurface DNAPL by the Elmira water tower as well as the NDMA source area which shows up at well CH38 by the Sanyo Canada property. Woolwich Bio-En also appears to have gone into hibernation. Anyone know where this project is currently at? Finally there are still more contaminated sites in Elmira which have not been fully (or at all) addressed. Borg is more than a little suspicious as is an NDMA contaminated area west of Chemtura near the old Shirt factory on Park St. Then there are a myriad of former gas stations which have been somewhat cleaned up but with little or no public input or knowledge. Linkbelt also known as Procast has my interest. Location wise it would be good for development being close to the downtown but is it clean?

2012-01-02T09:43:00.003-05:00

CHEMTURA NOVEMBER 2011 "non" PROGRESS REPORT

Last Monday and Tuesday (Dec. 26 & 27) I wrote about the horrendous state of off-site groundwater pumping as well as the unsurprising discovery of more DNAPL (dense non aqueous phase liquid) on the Chemtura (Uniroyal) site. Off-site of course means off the Chemtura site and basically throughout the town of Elmira.

Today I'm going to try and finish this report. There are five drains named 0200, 0400, 0800, 1100 and SWS for surface water system. The first four are also called part of the MISA (Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement) system. These first four are all subsurface drains with manholes at the surface to collect rainwater which lands on this industrial site. The problem over the decades is that all these drains deposit chemically contaminated water directly into the Canagagigue Creek. Again unsurprisingly, all these chemicals are ubiquitous to Chemtura's soil and groundwater and routinely contain lindane, aniline, carboxin and NDPA. For twenty years Chemtura and their consultants have tried to convince us that these drains are isolated from groundwater infiltration. At the same time they deny that any of their chemicals are sitting loose on the surface. This is simply one more reason why they have no credibility with informed persons. Their excuses have ranged from off site airborne deposition to blaming the nearby railroad tracks for the contamination of their chemical plant.

Table C.2 lists surface water concentrations of various chemicals in Canagagigue Creek. Chemtura have a program which magically replaces common sense to allegedly advise us if there is a statistically significant difference between upstream and downstream chemical concentrations in the creek as it passes through the Chemtura property. Simply looking at the values in this Table advises us that the arithmetic mean of numerous samples is higher downstream for NDMA, NMOR, Ethyl Benzene and Toluene. Amazingly enough all of these chemicals are in Chemtura's soil and groundwater and any belief that this causes their appearance in the creek as it passes through their contaminated property is merely the ravings of uninformed, biased activists "out to get" Chemtura.

Appendix E deals with on-site groundwater readings at Chemtura in either UA1 (Upper Aquifer 1), UA3 or the MU (Municipal Upper aquifer). Literally dozens of toxic chemicals are found in all these aquifers despite on-site pumping started TWENTY YEARS ago. That's right the on-site pumping started in January 1992. Most amazing to me is not the wells located near the pumping wells which have had reductions over two decades but the massive concentrations still appearing throughout the site. Also interesting are the Method Detection Limits (MDL) in use in some of the more contaminated areas. This is typical for grossly contaminated sites. Essentially there are so many different chemicals present that the labs can no longer readily distinguish chemicals with lesser concentrations in the groundwater. For example on pg. 6 (of 30) Table E.1 there are MDL's of 30,000 and even 50,000 parts per billion. This means that "hits" of 10 or 20 thousand parts per billion aren't even found or recognized.

Appendix F deals with groundwater concentrations off site throughout Elmira. Again particular wells located next to off site pumping wells may have their concentrations reduced as long as those wells are pumping. As soon as the wells stop pumping or slow down, the concentrations rise again as the off site wells are all located close to subsurface chemical waste, whether in solid or liquid form. The number and concentration of toxic chemicals under Elmira is still unbelievably high and the current plans to achive drinking water standards by 2028 are nothing but "factually flexible fictions".

2012-01-01T19:55:00.001-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR WORLD !

2011-12-31T08:57:00.003-05:00

TROUBLE IN PARADISE ???

Earlier this month I spoke to Woolwich Council about CPAC. I thought that I had made clear how thrilled I was with CPAC's progress and actions relevant to the cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers. I also however advised Council that there was a fly in the ointment and that was the basic model of public consultation present here in Woolwich. The basic model is what is known as a committee of Council. This model while having a few positives to it, dances on a knife edge of drawbacks and dangers. The most obvious and immediate one is the danger of this allegedly independent citizens' committee becoming nothing more than a mouthpiece of Council. Even worse would be a mouthpiece of one or two members of Council.

Any committee of ordinary citizens can be intimidated, threatened or even bribed into submission. Peer pressure is also a constant whether for good or bad. Even a committee of extraordinary citizens, as I believe we currently have, can be jerked around, manipulated and bafflegabbed. This can be accomplished primarily through control of the process. This process includes things like scheduling of meetings whether private or public. It includes the location of the meetings. It includes who is invited to the meetings. When non voting members are being routinely brought to meetings for example it could possibly be to simply buttress the position of one participant. The precedent can be set that all meetings for example must be in the Township building and hence can only be called by the Township. Who sets the Agenda is vitally important. Who decides unilaterally or otherwise as to what is added or dropped from the Agenda? Who is in sole control of the Minutes? Who amends the Minutes and is it the Amended Minutes that are posted on-line? Who physically controls all old Minutes and are they easily available to all voting members for research or inspection? Are meetings rescheduled or cancelled by consenus or unilaterally? Finally it is the Council alone who decide whom to appoint and whom to kick off. They do this without consultation, without warning and without any form or attempt at fair play or transparency. The Chair and the Township both wield extraordinary power and influence in this situation. The Mayor being Chair magnifies this.

Please do not misunderstand me here. To date this new CPAC has done wonderful things and I have publicly at CPAC, at Council and here said exactly that. But there have been rumblings including public ones. Again I have brought the Mayor to task for his possibly arrogant and critical behaviour towards certain CPAC members at public meetings. This has improved. This CPAC now know what they are up against with Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. What they deserve after being appointed by Woolwich Council is control of their own processes and freedom to pursue their duties in a democratic and fair manner. They do not need a third front being opened simply for ideological reasons or for control purposes by Council or its' representatives.

2011-12-30T08:51:00.004-05:00

COMING SOON TO A TOWN NEAR YOU

Yesterday's Kitchener-Waterloo Record carrys the following encouraging news: "Bruce County towns consider storing nuclear waste". Isn't that just charming? But it gets better. Not only is it Canada's highest level of radioactive waste but one of those "Bruce County" towns is Walkerton. Whoa that's not very far from Elmira (north-west) at all. The other town is Southampton and Port Elgin on the shores of Lake Huron.

I truly wonder if any community would be willing hosts if they had significant alternate employment available. This is the carrot and stick approach. We are in a recession and Bruce County as well as northern Ontario have always had issues providing jobs and keeping young people in the community. A spokesperson for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization stated that "This project will not be imposed on any community". That is only slightly reassuring. The recession has been imposed and they are offerring jobs. Secondly what most likely will be imposed on the community is a gilded version of the truth. How can any informed community have any faith or confidence in either governments or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment? Client driven consultants routinely write the "technical" reports that their clients want. These consultants are selling their credentials to the highest bidder. Mental prostitution it could be called.

2011-12-29T08:17:00.002-05:00

LRT VERSUS GO TRAINS

Jeff Outhit of the K-W Record has used one of my favourite expressions namely it's "...a solution in search of a problem". This is in his Dec. 24/11 article titled "GO train idea better then the service". Jeff was referring to comments from MPP Elizabeth Witmer regarding local citizens supporting relatively inexpensive GO trains versus the very expensive proposed LRT system. The $818 million Light Rapid Transit appears to be a very expensive solution in search of a problem at this point in time. In regards to the GO train from Kitchener to Toronto the problem already exists. It's called the 401 and it's overcrowded, dangerous, frustrating and environmentally unsound. Hence the GO train is a fabulous idea. The problem is both the frequency and the speed of the GO trains. They run twice in the morning and twice in the evening and so far the word run could be replaced with either walk or crawl. As Jeff states the new service "...will draw people who can't afford cars, people who hate driving, people making occasional trips and drivers avoiding the worst weather". Furthermore "People drive because time is precious and public transit takes forever.". This is true in Waterloo Region and with the current GO train. Toronto however has a better idea. Public transit is actually superior in Toronto. It's cheaper, faster and extremely frequent. This is why it is widely used by everyone, not just those who can't afford cars. People are not stupid. If a service is superior, reasonably priced and environmentally sound they will flock to it.

2011-12-28T09:40:00.003-05:00

SEWERS, SEWERS AND MORE SEWERS

Kitchener, Cambridge and Elmira all seem to be discussing sanitary sewers these days. Yes sanitary sewers are the ones most associated with toilets and your local STP (sewage treatment plant). Politicians and bureaucrats seem to favour Wastewater Treatment Plants as their chosen name.

As recently as this month Councillor Bauman at Woolwich Council has indicated that more work still needs to be done to seperate storm water (ie. rain) flows from the sanitary sewers. Apparently above and beyond the issues of eavestroughs and sump pumps in the Birdland subdivision in Elmira being hooked up to the sanitary sewers, is storm water in St. Jacobs physically entering holes in sanitary sewer manhole covers.

In yesterday's K-W Record, Terry Pender wrote an article about sewer pipe upgrades for the City of Kitchener titled " Population increase in Kitchener will prompt sewer pipe upgrades". We are advised that most sewer pipes contents flow by gravity to the STP although there are 23 pumping stations in Kitchener's system to assist the flow towards the STP. Also we are advised that the older the system the more sewage backups occur. Hence Kitchener had five sewage backups (as often into basements of houses) in 2010, Waterloo had ten backups and the prize goes to Cambridge which had thirteen backups.

Speaking of Cambridge they have been experiencing horrible backups pre Christmas into homes, most probably as a result of trucks taking pumped out sewage from the new Conestoga College location and dumping it down manholes in a residential subdivision. For more info about this please see the link to the right which will take you to the Cambridge Advocate website.

2011-12-27T08:53:00.003-05:00

IN THE SPIRIT OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

I have previously written that both the Minutes and Agendas of CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) meetings are now posted on the Woolwich Township website. This fulfills one more promise of our Mayor Todd Cowan, in regards to greater transparency and accountability surrounding CPAC and he is due credit for this action.

But..... The last CPAC meeting was on November 24, 2011. Today is December 27/11 and the next CPAC meeting isn't scheduled until late January 2012. Both the public and CPAC members should have the Minutes of this last meeting sooner rather than later. What do you say Mayor Cowan?

And..... Why in the name of anything did the Township include a link to Chemtura along with the CPAC Minutes and Agenda? Primarily Chemtura's website I would normally say is their business. They can put whatever propaganda, public relations drivel or outright bull on it they want suggesting how socially "reponsible" they are. However incorporating that into the CPAC information is both offensive and outrageous. If this company were so socially, ethically and morally upright we wouldn't have had our water supply destroyed in the first place. Secondly they would have cleaned it up properly by now if they were 1/10th as good as their website says. C'mon Todd and company. Please give this a second think.

2011-12-27T08:27:00.002-05:00

DNAPL (Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid) FOUND AGAIN AT CHEMTURA

I am slowly beginning to realize that one of the tactics used by polluters and their consultants is the simple tactic of deflection. For example rather than discussing, debating or arguing how to remove DNAPL from their Elmira property they are instead arguing over what form the DNAPL is in. Is it Free Phase, as in pools of collected heavier than water liquid, or is it Residual which means it is in much smaller ganglia or filaments in the pore spaces between soil particles? To a certain degree these arguments are irrelevant. Both forms of DNAPL cause longlasting groundwater pollution although the Free Phase generally indicates larger, longerlasting volumes.

Free Phase agreed/admitted to has been found on both sides of the Canagagiue Creek running through Chemtura's (Uniroyal) site. It has been found in M2, TPW2, RPW5 on the west side and near RPE2 (OW148) on the east side. When I say found I mean as in physically and visually captured and contained, for example in a sample bottle. Chemtura's consultants (CRA) again in last month's Progress Report, partially discussed yesterday here in the Advocate, reiterate their inflammatory and quite frankly stupid use of the terms direct and indirect evidence. This ridiculous definition, most probably invented by themselves has long been disagreed with by the old CPAC and other citizens. Table D.1 has a very long list of DNAPL chemicals found in the groundwater at well OW10. Some of these chemical concentrations are above the 1% solubility rule indicating the presence of nearby DNAPL. The sheer number of DNAPL chemicals is of huge significance as has been submitted to CPAC in the past by both myself and the former Soil & Water sub-committee of CPAC.

Hence this section in the November Progress Report (Pg. 6 & 7 + Appendix D) is merely one more in a decades long history of reports DIRECTLY proving the existence of DNAPL, both Free Phase and Residual on the Chemtura site. Stop the semantics and bull and start removing it.

2011-12-26T11:16:00.002-05:00

CHEMTURA CANADA PROGRESS REPORT - NOVEMBER 2011

Not too surprisingly (Christmas time) this report dated December 15/11 was delivered late this month namely last Friday Dec. 23/11. The horrible results during 2011 continued throughout the month of November. While the onsite pumping, thank God, is sucessfully keeping up to its' modelled and targeted pumping rate, the offsite pumping continues in the dumpster. Not only has the bulk of November pumping been bad but it's getting worse. The two lowest pumping months (offsite) are October and November. The reasons/excuses given may or may not be legitimate. I'm at the point where I no longer care. What is important is restoring the pumping not whether the reasons given, are or aren't truthful. Examples for November include a computer targeted rate of 11.4 litres/second for both offsite wells W3 and W4. Their actual pumping rate was 2.2 and 3.7 l/sec. These targeted rates are the numbers that Chemtura's long time consultants, Conestoga Rovers & Assoc. (CRA) have modelled in order to allegedly clean up the Elmira Aquifers. It is bad enough being sold a bill of goods in regards to the cleanup of Elmira's groundwater being possible simply by pump and treat (hydraulic containment) technology; what is worse is the complete failure of Chemtura to even be able to follow either their own initially low goals or even their recently (June 2009) reduced pumping goals.

2011-12-25T07:45:00.001-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL AND MAY THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH

2011-12-24T08:14:00.002-05:00

MIXED MESSAGES ON WATER CONSERVATION

The above title is the same one used in a story in yesterday's Kitchener-Waterloo record written by Jeff Outhit. This stoty highlights concerns by a pair of residents of the village of Mannheim, southwest of Kitchener. Apparently one of the Regional wells there has been pumping and discharging water 24 hours a day into a local waterway. This at a time when the Region are preaching water conservation. On top of that is the fact that has per capita water useage is plummeting in Waterloo Region, the per liter rates of water are still rising. This anomoly has not gone unnoticed. This last fact was pointed out just recently by Councillor Poffenroth at Woolwich Council. Mayor Cowan replied that conservation is actually saving regional taxpayers in the long run as it delays the need for a Lake Erie pipeline substantially. Regarding the 24/7 water discharging apparently there is a turbidity (dirty water) issue being overcome with the pumping.

2011-12-24T07:56:00.003-05:00

WIND POWER PROPONENTS

Today's Woolwich Observer has a larges story (2 pages) titled "Wind power likely to grow, despite controversy". This story highlights a Kitchener based company called Local Initiative for future Energy (L.I.F.E.) Co-op. They are currently working on a community project building a turbine near St. Agatha which will be hooked into the provincial power grid. Here in Woolwich Township however, at the moment, only farm scale turbines are permitted due to zoning restrictions dealing with height restrictions. With an Official Plan review underway these zoning restrictions could change and the province is certainly encouraging municipalities to do so. The most recent commissioned by the province has allegedly found no direct health risks to humans from wind turbines. Unfortunately this report was released by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment which in my informed opinion has a little less than zero credibility. I grant you that their latest and newest Minister Jim Bradley certainly has the credentials and pedigree for the job.

2011-12-23T09:15:00.006-05:00

LOCAL NEWSPAPERS WEIGH IN ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Well today and yeterday are a veritable paradise of local environmental news in both the Elmira Independent and the Woolwich Observer. For a start the Independent has the following article "Township to reject Hawk Ridge subdivision". The Observer has this story "Deeming land use incompatible, Woolwich to fight proposed Union St. development".

Most of the information from both newspapers comes from last Tuesday night's Woolwich Council meeting and I'll try to limit my comments to points that I haven't already written about here in the Advocate. For example Dan Kennaley (Woolwich staff) in the Independent has indicated that Staff could still change their recommendation to Council based upon two upcoming peer reviews of their compatibility concerns. Mr. Kennaley also indicated that as far as he understands the M.O.E. distance seperation rules between industry and residential take precedence not the Worst Case Scenario and related issues as suggested by Sulco and Chemtura. The Elmira Independent are firmly in support of Staff's current position, Council's , and other citizens who have come forward.

The Woolwich Observer have succinctly pointed out that many parties oppose Hawk Ridge and the only supporter to date is the developer, themselves. The Observer and the Independent both quoted Delegations presented Tuesday night from Sulco (Ron Koniuch), APT-Chemtura (Ken Driedger) and from myself (Elmira Environmental Hazards Team). Ken Driedger advised Council "You're going to have blood on your hands-if not legally, then morally". This was after advising Council that people moving into a subdivision should have a reasonable expectation of safety and yet that was not possible in this location.

What is becoming clear to me is that common sense and safety are going head to head with profits, rules and regulations. Woolwich Council are doing the right thing. This subdivision should not be built and as hopefully will not be lost in the process, more must be done to protect already existing homeowners in Elmira's mini chemical valley.

2011-12-22T09:11:00.004-05:00

SOLAR POWER BECOMING BIG TIME?

Yesterday's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has the following story: " Canadian Solar sells solar energy projects". Ostensibly a good news story from the comments of both buyer and seller, nevertheless I'm a little uneasy. The buyer is TransCanada Corp. currently in the news for their proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline . Apparently TransCanada are major players not only in oil and natural gas but also in renewable energy supplies. I can't help but think of a recent television documentary I saw which pretty clearly implied that when General Motors got involved in electric cars ten or fifteen years ago, they essentially scuppered them intentionally. It's very nice to see solar energy being taken so seriously and also to realize that significant energy can be created via a renewable resource (sun). My hope is that ultimately all renewables will be used for the good of both the environment as well as human beings worldwide.

2011-12-21T08:35:00.003-05:00

HAWK RIDGE HOMES DELEGATIONS AT LAST NIGHT'S COUNCIL MEETING

There were three excellent Delegations at last night's Woolwich Council meeting regarding the proposed Hawk Ridge Homes on Union St. in Elmira. A lack of modesty is including my Delegation being excellent along with Ken Driedger's and Ron Koniuch. Ron was representing Sulco Chemicals (Canada Colours), Ken was representing APT-Chemtura and yours truly was representing the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team. Mayor Todd Cowan in his capacity as CPAC Interim Chair I believe did briefly mention informal non support for the proposed subdivision next to the former Varnicolor Chemical, Sulco, Nutrite (Yara) and Chemtura (Uniroyal).

Ken Driedger clarified Chemtura's ongoing tribulations in the U.S. and how they are paying millions of dollars in penalties for numerous contaminated sites there. His concern is that they will be focusing time, effort and money on U.S. environmental problems rather than those here in Elmira. He also emphasized that their local Worst Case Scenario is a legitimate threat and that residential construction next to their plant is totally inappropriate and wrong.

Ron Koniuch the general manager at Sulco described their long term efforts, including their Citizens Advisory Panel (CAP), to make their plant safe for people and the environment. This CAP includes one member of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team, namely Rich Clausi. Ron felt that a new residential subdivision beside their facility was a huge, dangerous step backwards in their ongoing attempts to be good corporate citizens.

Yours truly asked Woolwich Council not to give approval to Hawk Ridge based upon approvals from either the Region of Waterloo or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. I went into some detail about the history of their mismanagement and in the case of the M.O.E. deliberate misleading and inaccurate statements about Varnicolor Chemical twenty years ago. The Varnicolor site is located right across First St. from the Hawk Ridge proposal. I also advised that both these bodies had given the new owner (Phillip Environmental) an idemnity from further environmental liability. The current owners however are on the hook for both new deep monitoring wells AND the removal of 200 tonnes of contaminated soil. Clearly the pump & treat (hydraulic containment) system installed in 1994 and designed to remediate within ten years has failed. Furthermore I pointed out two other failures by the Region and the City of Kitchener to protect homebuyers. This was the Ralgreen Cres. subdivision and the townhouses which were abandoned for years beside the Ottawa St. Landfill in Kitchener. Council did vote to go to the impending Ontario Municipal Board hearing, having accepted Staff's recommendation not to approve either the zone change or the plan of subdivision. Kudos to Council for this morally correct decision.

2011-12-20T08:05:00.002-05:00

LRT (LIGHT RAPID/RAIL TRANSIT)

Ususlly when I am commenting on or at least pointing out a newspaper article it is within a day or two of it's being published. Today however I wish to mention a K-W Record article written by Jeff Outhit dated last month, namely November 26, 2011. The title of the article is " Rail transit, fact and fiction". I would interpret this article as a low key disection of the honey, syrup and just plain unadorned lies to which our politicians treat us.

There are only five of the above detailed in this article from costs, purpose, need, technical consultation and demand by either the public or the politicians. For all five we the citizens are being sold a bill of goods. The basic purpose is "Primarily the project is intended to foster intensification and redevelopment within the Region's primary reurbanization area". So much for cheap public transit and environmental improvement. It would seem that there are many political motives involved including grandstanding and being seen once again as leaders within the Ontario community. Perhaps this might also include regional politicians looking at their political futures whether provincial or federal. It might also be simply grabbing this community's piece of the provincial and or federal pie. If funds are available now for transit projects then lets tailor our plan to suit the requirements and guidelines of the upper tier governments doling out the dough. Perhaps pigs at the trough is an appropriate metaphor when you consider that these pigs want both "free" government grants AND more taxes from regional taxpayers to support their grandiose plans.

Now is not the time financially and economically for this project. If and when times improve it may still not be the time for this particular project.

2011-12-19T08:42:00.002-05:00

WOOLWICH PLANNING STAFF AND HAWK RIDGE HOMES

Friday afternoon I picked up a 58 page Engineering and Planning Services Report from Woolwich Township in regards to Hawk Ridge Homes. For most of the last twenty years plus I clearly haven't paid enough attention to planning/zoning issues. There literally are way more issues and concerns around planning than I ever considered possible. At the same time what I read and see between the lines is the overarching belief/resignation ? that all growth, just about everywhere, all the time, is inevitable. Hence the prevalent attitude becomes mitigation. We can mitigate any and all problems.

What I like about this Report is that twice, on page 15 & 25 Staff clearly recommend that Council denys the zone change and plan of subdivision for Hawk Ridge.

What I also like is a huge can of worms that this Application has opened and that Staff are recognizing. Basically Staff are advising Council that new zoning may be required "to discourage or limit future expansion " at Sulco and Chemtura. This of course is due to the already existing nearby homes of Elmira residents. This elephant in the room needs to be addressed before one of the Worst Case scenarios occurs.

There are many things that I don't care for in this Report. One, as I suspected from the beginning these homes are what are deemed as affordable housing. Nothing wrong with that per se. The concern is that we will primarily have first time unsophisticated buyers, thrilled to be leaving rental accomodations, totally relying on government oversight as they leap, eyes tightly closed into their first owned homes. To my mind there is perhaps an attitude by some of preying on the vulnerable here.

Another concern deals with the reliance of Woolwich Staff upon Regional staff and they in turn upon Provincial staff, particularily the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. This process while convenient and easy is WRONG! Any reader of the Elmira Advocate knows of the long comprimised position of the M.O.E. locally here in Elmira. Their credibility, based upon their own poor behaviour and horrible track record dealing with groundwater protection and noxious air emissions, is in the dumpster. No level of government should be relying on them for advice on anything other than public relations and spin doctoring. For example the proponent for Hawk Ridge is advising that the groundwater is potable (drinkable). Really ? And would you or any other informed person actually be willing to do so? It is entirely possible that one aquifer in one location may not have any of their dozen chemicals individually above drinking water standards. To me that is simply more proof of how hopeless M.O.E. standards and oversight are, not how "good" the water is.

I expect tomorrow night will have a number of Delegations and I trust that Council will weigh common sense much heavier than Provincial planning rules and regulations.

2011-12-17T17:47:00.002-05:00

HAWK RIDGE HOMES THIS TUESDAY

I will be contacting Woolwich Township to be a Delegate for this Tuesday evening at 7 PM. regarding the Hawk Ridge Homes subdivision. I expect that there will be a number of delegates appropriately speaking to this proposed subdivision from the viewpoint of potential air emissions coming from either Sulco or Chemtura. My delegation will be in regards to both past knowledge we have regarding Varnicolor Chemical as well as more recent information concerning the continued and ongoing "cleanup" of their site twenty years later. Once again twenty years of hydraulic containment (pump & treat) appears to be showing how truly ineffective it is as any kind of a serious remediation program. It was designed to contain not remediate. Perhaps in medicine instead of heart surgery we can use ongoing C.P.R. to save millions of dollars in costs. It makes just about as much sense as pump and treat technology versus source removal or elimination.

2011-12-16T08:47:00.003-05:00

ADDITIONS FROM TUESDAY"S COUNCIL MEETING

Technically this is additional news from the Committee of the Whole held last Tuesday night. Steve Kannon of the Woolwich Observer picked up on a few items that I missed including the following. Councillor Poffenroth has concerns that the proposed CHL designation for West Montrose would put too many restrictions on development in the area. Dan Kennaley of Woolwich staff was able to advise that the Cultural Heritage Landscape designation would not come into effect for minor changes that require only a building permit.

Regarding the Jigs Hollow Pit numerous residents made it clear that traditional berms were not an acceptable "solution" to the destruction of the beauty of the area. Furthermore residents, Woolwich staff and Council seemed genuinely surprised and upset that the Visual Impact Assessment had missed so many neighbours and residents and that it was so incomplete. The proponent of the pit will be given a second kick at the can in regards to improving the Assessment.

Numerous municipal charges will be increasing including interestingly gravel pit applications. It would be hard to dispute the amount of time and effort that Woolwich Staff have been putting into the myriad of local applications the past few years. Water and wastewater charges are also rising and the major reason seems to be the charges that the Region of waterloo are imposing on Woolwich Township. Councillor Poffenroth noted that conservation is sort of working in that demand is dropping but unfortunately the unit fees are still rising. Mayor Cowan while not totally disputing that observation noted however that $100 million in expansion projects have been deferred due to conservation efforts, including the proposed Great lakes Pipeline. This proposed Lake Erie Pipeline was slated for 2035 but could be pushed back five or more years due to conservation efforts. My wee mind suggests that it should be pushed back forever. Living within your means includes water availability and sewage availability. Do not kid yourselves. Neverending population growth is only possible through the degradation of our environment and planet. In other words it is not remotely sustainable.

2011-12-15T09:20:00.003-05:00

KYOTO, HUMOUR AND FLUORIDE

I admit it, I enjoy dreaming up the titles for my postings. The "Humour" part relates to a political cartoon in today's K-W Record. It shows federal Environment Minister Peter Kent receiving a stocking full of coal on Christmas morning. His response is a joyous "YIPPEE". Our federal Environment Minister is being portrayed as an environmental neandrathal and he's proud of it.

The "Fluoride" part of the headline refers to today's article in the K-W Record titled "After referendum, fluoride battle continues in court". This article has me a little bit stumped. In one sense I'm biased in that I supported the removal of fluoride from our drinking water hence I supported the position of Robert Fleming while opposing Dr. Harry Hoedino and Dr. Ira Kirshen. I attended a couple of the fluoride debates and combined with some research of my own I was very pleased with the referendum results. That being said I'm not sure of the benefit of pursuing the two Doctors in court now for alleged election financing violations.

The third item in my above headline deals with Kyoto. Thomas Walkom of the K-W Record has an Opinion piece in which he takes the federal Conservatives to task for walking away from Kyoto. It's one thing to complain and criticize a less than perfect treaty. Really how many multinational treaties sucessfully cover all the issues and problems? The best we hope for is a general framework and some major principles to be agreed upon and followed by the signatories. Mr. Walkom rightly points out that Canada has done no one any good by essentially kicking sand in the face of the rest of the world. No country is pristine and no country is blameless but Canada's outright rejection of the Kyoto treaty is wrong. My take is that politically the Conservatives are once again courting the United Staes who never signed on in the first place. Two wrongs do not make a right.

2011-12-14T08:30:00.002-05:00

IT'S NOT OVER TILL IT'S OVER

There were three local environmental issues which brought me out to last night's Committee of the Whole meeting in Woolwich Council Chambers. Also I got to see and chat with former neighbours (West Montrose) and colleagues. Hello again to Les, Nancy & Gerry, Tony and Lynne. The three issues in reverse order of time spent last night are Hawk Ridge Homes, C.H.L. designation for West Montrose and finally the Jigs Hollow Pit (Kuntz).

Hawk Ridge Homes was put off until next Tuesday's Council meeting where it will be discussed further. The Cultural Heritage Landscape designation was passed by the Committee of the Whole and will (probably) be ratified by Council next Tuesday. After that it will go on to Regional Council where hopefully it will also pass. Mayor Cowan commented as to the unique jewel that Woolwich and the Region have with the West Montrose Covered Bridge and how important its' protection is to us.

The Jigs Hollow Pit is what brought out the Delegations last night. It is what the above title is all about. Isabella Price, Karen Bleckert, Laurie Breed, Jan Huisson, Lynne Hare, Gord Haywood and Bill Norris all spoke eloquently and passionately about life in the country atmosphere of Winterbourne and the Conestogo Golf Course subdivision. Comments included concerns around "cancer causing asphalt dust", noise, visual impacts and even the suggestion that a C.H.L. designation for the Winterbourne Bridge/Grand River area was appropriate. The asphalt dust issue is in regards to the Recycling aspect of this proposed pit which would include both asphalt and concrete recycling, in and of itself a good thing. The concerns raised by at least two of the speakers dealt with possible false pretenses by the proponents. The reasonable question that they raised was whether or not this is actually a Below Water Table application masquerading as an Above Water Table application. The other possibilty raised is whether this is actually a large scale recycling operation coming to Winterbourne, masquerading as a gravel pit. Apparently it is very easy after being established to amend the license to become a below water table pit and there are no formal limits on the volume of materials that could be recycled. These concerns are based upon recalculations of the volume of above water table gravel deposits available. These deposits are very small and hence the concerns that something is definitely amiss.

My earlier supposition that Council would fight less vigorously regarding this pit than the West Montrose and Hunder Pit in Conestogo has to be revisited in light of the very strong, informed community opposition.

2011-12-13T08:17:00.002-05:00

MORE ON TONITE'S MEETING AND THE JIGS HOLLOW PIT

There were two very interesting conditions imposed on last November's Council approval in principle of the Jigs Hollow Pit. Firstly it had a sunset clause, specifically fifteen years. Believe me that is a breakthrough. Far too many pits have an "estimated" lifespan of ten to twenty years and the reality is that the owners simply slow down extraction near the end in order to keep the pit "open" and available for occasional extraction and loads. The other important condition was "vertical zoning". This means that there must be a maximum depth of extraction stipulated, often a depth which is above the water table. This also is a breakthrough and an excellent idea environmentally.

A peer review of the Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) done by the proponent has been completed. This peer review identifies a number of areas in the original VIA which are deficient. It includes visual impacts from numerous other homes as well as views from the Historic Driving Tour which is a regular tourist attraction promoted by the Region of Waterloo. Also visual impacts as seen from the Winterbourne Bridge were not adequately addressed. Overall I'm a little surprised by these visual impact issues. In my wee mind I would have thought that yes visual impacts are annoying and indeed would lessen property values and aesthetics for nearby residents. My understanding of the Aggregates Act however is that even significant visual and aesthetic values are completely discounted and undervalued. I would have thought that the repeated siting of gravel pits right along the Grand River and hence the removal of the filtering action of sand and gravel on the quality of groundwater discharging to the surface water of the river, would be the main issue. Apparently not. Thus I guess if one more neverending gravel pit is proposed, then those negatively affected must fight it with whatever tools are available.

2011-12-12T08:38:00.002-05:00

GRAVEL PITS & CULTURE TOMORROW NITE AT COUNCIL

I went on-line to Woolwich Township's website yesterday looking for a little headsup regarding gravel pit issues to be discussed at Tuesday night's Committee of the Whole meeting (6 PM.). What I found was seventeen pages about the proposed Cultural Heritage Landscape (CHL) designation for the West Montrose area and fourty-five pages dealing with the Jigs Hollow Pit (Kuntz) in Winterbourne.

I still am confident that between the excellent, years long effort by Bridgekeepers, combined with the support inside and outside the community; that they will sucessfully defeat the destruction of their beautiful community via aggregate extraction. Of interest is the comprimise on the geographical area of the proposed CHL. It does not include the existing Hoffer gravel pit up on Hwy # 86 nor does it include the newer subdivisions within West Montrose. Also the definition of "development" has been clarified within the CHL proposal. I believe that these changes are appropriate to address legitimate concerns of nearby residents.

The Jigs Hollow Pit is going to be a harder nut to crack. The old Council did not help by giving Approval in Principle last November after they had mostly all been removed by the voters. This was their last kick at the can and if memory serves former Councillor Murray Martin voted against that Approval. The new Council has had a number of Delegations from residents asking for a Visual Impact Study. Originally at least Staff were in support of the Approval in Principle for this proposed gravel pit. One Visual Impact Study has been produced by the proponent (Kuntz Sand & Gravel) and there has also been a peer review of that study. Quite frankly at this point in time I haven't fully read the fourty-five pages mentioned but hope to have it completed by tomorrow nite's meeting. My suggestion for those opposed to this pit is to give Council support by showing up tomorrow night at 6 pm.. When faced by an upcoming O.M.B. hearing (May 14-25/12) and prehearing conference (Feb. 16/12) instigated by the proponent; Council are not likely to throw Township money into the fight if they don't see significant citizen support for their actions.

2011-12-10T07:51:00.001-05:00

OPPOSITION ENVIRONMENT CRITIC IS ON THE BALL

Myself and one CPAC member (Vivienne Delaney) had the privilege of meeting our new M.P.P. and Ontario Environment Critic yesterday. Not only did he come straight from a meeting with the Waterloo Region District School board to meet with us, he had another meeting scheduled immediately after us.. My understanding is that he has been at the legislature all week and Fridays currently are his chance to get local constituency work done. Overall I am very impressed with Michael Harris, our rookie M.P.P. . From what I observed he will handle the learning curve admirably. He has informed himself both prior to the election on issues such as local gravel pits and Bio-En as well as since the election and was well prepared for our meeting regarding Chemtura , Varnicolor, Hawk Ridge etc.. Regarding Hawk Ridge Homes I was a little disappointed in that he seemed to feel that buyers should inform themselves and do their own due diligence. Vivienne suggested otherwise as most homebuyers essentially rely on the Municipality having appropriately zoned an area for residential development. In the Hawk Ridge case if the developer eventually prevails over Woolwich Council’s legitimate concerns I am very doubtful that prospective buyers will be informed of either the controversy or the Ontario Municipal Board (O.M.B.) hearing.
In regards to Chemtura I provided Mr. Harris with maps, drawings, Figures and Tables primarily produced by Conestoga Rovers & Assoc., long time consultants to Uniroyal/Chemtura. Most of this paperwork I had also supplied to the new CPAC last April, immediately after we were all appointed to CPAC. This data showed where the skeletons per se are still buried as well as showing plume maps indicating other sources of contamination to the Municipal drinking water aquifer. It was very clear that Michael Harris will have no difficulty picking up a knowledge of Woolwich environmental issues and will only be limited by the amount of time he is able to devote to this one area. At the end of the meeting he cut to the chase and asked what is it that we feel he can do for us and Woolwich citizens. My response was to suggest that he light a fire under the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. I made it very clear that to date, the new Municipal Council are maintaining their environmental promises and commitments and the new CPAC are as well. The problem is the M.O.E. and anything he could do to assist CPAC or Woolwich Council in the execution of their environmental duties, would be wonderful.

2011-12-09T08:53:00.002-05:00

GETTING SMART ABOUT ROAD SALT

The above title is also the title of an article in this week's Elmira Independent, written by Janet Baine. Although this story is filled with interesting facts there are a couple that leaped out at me. Firstly "In 1999, the Regional Municipality of Waterloo noticed increasing levels of sodium and chloride in almost all their water supply wells." "...the region concluded that the main source was from winter road de-icing...". The reason this is so incredible is because the majority of the Region's wells are deep below surface often 100 feet below. In Cambridge many wells are even below the overburden into the bedrock. Hence salt (sodium chloride) deposited at surface, on roads was making it's way through the sand, silt and clay down to most of the deep drinking wells in Waterloo Region. This clarifys for me just how likely and probable that all the liquid solvents and fuels spilled and dumped over the last half century by industry have also entered all our drinking water aquifers and wells. I find it interesting that the Region have no problem advising citizens that innocuous salt penetrates the overburden soils easily yet they routinely deny that industrial liquid pollution can do so or is even likely to do so. This double standard needs to stop.

2011-12-09T08:48:00.002-05:00

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MEETING THIS TUESDAY (6 PM.)

I've already mentioned that Hawk Ridge Homes will be on the Agenda. Also the CHL (Cultural Heritage landscape) designation for the West Montrose area will be up for discussion. Committee of the Whole meetings are held of course in the Woolwich Council Chambers and are an excellent opportunity for citizens to see local government in action.

2011-12-08T08:44:00.002-05:00

GREEN ENERGY FOR WOOLWICH, WATERLOO REGION AND ONTARIO

It was only a few years ago that I and I suspect others considered green energy to be a gimmick. As far back as public school we were shown little working models of a solar panel that could convert sunshine into electricity and make a little blade rotate. Nowadays, although more expensive per watt of conventiuonal electricity produced, nevertheless solar and wind are producing significant amounts of energy. Today's K-W Record has two stories and one Opinion article dealing primarily with Wind and Solar green energy. The Opinion piece is titled "Hasty leap into green energy has been costly". The news stories are "Energy czar warns Ontario falling short" and "Costs of solar falling according to study by Queen's prof". The Opinion article by Martin Regg Cohn does reference problems with Ontario's green energy but also states "Operating costs for renewable energy are likely to decline significantly in future, while conventional energy will become more expensive, so we should hedge our bets." . The "Energy czar..." article is in regards to a report submitted to the Legislature by the Environmental Comissioner, Gord Miller. He takes issue with the government's ambitious conservation plans falling short. The last news story about falling costs for solar energy by a Queens' University prof claims that the cost of modern solar panels purchased in bulk is under $1 per watt and that when all costs are properly included (including environmental), solar is very close to being competitive with conventional energy sources.

2011-12-07T08:38:00.002-05:00

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

Mayor Todd Cowan has again backed one of his campaign promises with action. He had promised a more visible and transparent CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) and one of the many ways of doing this is to publish both their public meeting Agendas and the Minutes of their meetings. These actions should have and could have been done years ago and were not. Similarily the old CPAC had refused to hold evening meetings and Mayor Cowan now has them being held at 6 pm. on the last Thursday of the month in Woolwich Council Chambers. The Minutes and Agendas are published on the Woolwich Township website. The headings are across the top and if you click on COUNCIL it will scroll down and you can see CPAC (Chemtura Public.....) .

2011-12-07T08:28:00.002-05:00

GREEN ENERGY CRITICISM NOT SO CRITICAL

Today's Kitchener - Waterloo Record has an Opinion piece by Martin Regg Cohn titled "Provincial plunge into green energy was hasty". This article quotes the recent report by Ontario's Auditor general criticizing a number of financial initiatives by the governing Liberals including their green energy plans and associated costs. What I find interesting however is that the author while starting out criticizing and on the same page as the Auditor General balances his article with some interesting provisos and perspectives that at the least show the other side of the balance sheet, if you will. These green energy plans of course include wind farms (soon coming to a farm near you) as well as solar and Elmira's own proposed Bio Energy plant.

2011-12-06T07:53:00.002-05:00

MEETING WITH ONTARIO"S ENVIRONMENT CRITIC IS SET UP

There were some missteps and scheduling difficulties along the way but this Friday some Elmira citizens, CPAC members and one other will meet with Michael Harris our new M.P.P. and Environment critic. Michael (P.C.) was sucessful in the October Provincial election and defeated Leanna Pendergast (Liberal). Speaking for myself, this meeting is not any kind of political endorsement, simply an information sharing session with Michael Harris who has also been appointed Environment critic by his party. Since the Elmira crisis of 1989, all three major political parties in Ontario have had a kick at the can and in my opinion they've all been unsucessful in varying degrees. Thus I can truly say in that context that I am approaching this meeting from an unbiased standpoint. Yes I am confident that there are and have been environmental discussions with the McGuinty government, past and present, but nevertheless the role of Official Opposition in the legislature is not inconsequential. Obviously a real cleanup at Chemtura will be discussed but other Woolwich environmental issues will arise possibly including Bio-En, Hawk Ridge Homes, gravel pits, Varnicolor etc. .

Speaking of Hawk Ridge Homes, the word is that it will be on the Agenda for Woolwich Council on December 13/11. There may also be a Delegation of concerned citizens speaking about the upcoming Ontario Municipal Board (O.M.B.) hearing.

2011-12-05T09:34:00.002-05:00

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

It's been twenty-two hours since I posted yesterday advising the possibility of my naming the individual and the local company he works for; today. It's been about thirty hours since his last juvenile and rude postings. It's been nearly twenty one hours since he last logged onto this website (without commenting). I have just returned from my second chat with Officer Sig Peters of the Elmira Detachment of the Waterloo Regional Police. For some time now, since Sig arrived in Elmira, I've made it a routine to drop in for a friendly chat on a variety of innocuous subjects. Sig is friendly, personable and very approachable. After I showed hin the hard copy of the latest comments from Friday evening and late Saturday (Sun. am.) he advised that he would contact Officer Shantz who attended at my home on Friday evening. Sig will advise him of the latest batch of comments and confirm that he either has or will speak in person to the individual responsible. This course of action is my preference. I am advised that I have a solid case if I wish to pursue this individual civilly. His claims, allegations of law breaking and promotion of hatred against me by the use of sexual profanity, perversions etc. render him essentially defenceless. As I advised yesterday I believe he is motivated by a sense of loyalty to his kin and employer. That being said I do not wish to name his local employer, especially as I have no reason to believe the employer would condone his behaviour. .................... .....................THAT BEING SAID, MAKE NO MISTAKE ... IF THIS BEHAVIOUR STARTS AGAIN THE INDIVIDUAL AND HIS ELMIRA POLLUTION CONNECTION WILL BE PUBLISHED HERE. Fair comment and strong criticism from many others is published here in the comments section and is welcome. Gibberish whether in English, Spanish or Russian is not. Neither is profanity or comments totally irrelevant to the postings or irrelevant to environmental subjects welcome. Thank you to all mature readers and commenters.

2011-12-04T11:46:00.003-05:00

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN

This is an extraordinary Sunday posting. Twenty years ago plus outspoken individuals in this community had their homes egged when they publicly criticized Uniroyal Chemical. Those anonymous heroes (egg throwers) have been replaced by a new generation of anonymous heroes who do their egg throwing on-line. Hence here in the Advocate for the last three weeks one particular individual has been swearing, cursing, writing gibberish and making asinine allegations of illegal activity towards yours truly.

The circumstantial evidence identifying him is more than overwhelming. It includes multiple witnesses to his verbal ranting about me, while drinking, less than an hour before the latest outbreak of his childish behaviour. It includes an answering machine recording of him physically threatening me last summer. And much more. This individual works for a company here in Elmira, located on a contaminated site. No it's not Chemtura. The timing of recent articles in our local papers about other sources to our contaminated drinking aquifer is not coincidental. The sad part is that this individual probably believes that he is demonstrating loyalty to his relative and employer. What he is actually doing is digging himself deeper and deeper into a serious mess and I at this point in time have no reason to believe that his employer is involved. That being said I have very recently had a conversation with his employer and relative. I have also talked now with two different Regional Police Officers on two different occasions. Civilly this individual is miles over the line; criminally he is teetering on the edge in regards to his on-line postings. The answering machine recording hasn't gone to the Police yet but he identified himself and then threatened me. Tomorrow I will be going back to the Regional Police and I will again attempt to contact his relative and employer.

If after doing the above I see any possibility that his harassing and possibly illegal behaviour will stop, then that will be the end of it. On the other hand if I get nowhere with the Police or his relative/employer then I will post here tomorrow and identify him and the company he is working for. By identifying the company it will make obvious the reasons for his juvenile behaviour. Mere insults and profanity are of less concern than his false allegations of law breaking on my part. Once his identity and affiliation are publicly exposed, I'm much less concerned that his falsehoods will be believed by any unbiased, reasonable person. I emphasize that I have no evidence or even belief that his current employer is involved in his bad behaviour.

2011-12-03T07:40:00.002-05:00

GRCA SEEKING INPUT ON WATER (I think?)

This week's Elmira Independent has a story titled " GRCA seeks input on water management plan" written by Chuck Kuepfer. They are looking for this input in three areas namely water supply, water quality and flood protection. Apparently the current water management plan was created in 1982 and clearly is ready for an update. Interestingly I believe that it was in that plan that I saw one of the only references to Borg Textiles' (Elmira) toxic effluents that I've ever seen. If indeed it was in this report, it claimed that Borg was considered responsible for knocking out the bacteria in the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant. Apparently this input is to be obtained by an on-line survey at www.grandriver.ca . The disappointing aspect, unless it's a typo is that the survey ends on Dec. 2/11. Yikes that's yesterday! I haven't checked out the GRCA website yet but will shortly to confirm or deny this date . This article in the Dec. 1/11 Independent is the first I've heard of this survey and if it does end on Dec.2, you can see why I added (I think?) to the title above.

2011-12-02T09:35:00.002-05:00

Oh No ! I'M BEING ACCUSED OF GETTING ALONG

Once more I admit to taking a little bit of literary license with the above title. That is merely a very minor shot at some criticism in the comments section. Seems on one hand I'm a s#$% disturber fighting with the authorities on one day and allegedly I'm sucking up to them the next. Frivolous criticism is to be expected from those who don't have the facts on their side or who even don't know what the facts are.

The above being said is NOT a reference to the OPINION page in today's Woolwich Observer. On the right side of this page (10) under VERBATIM is the following quote of mine : "Despite the past and current model of public consultation being inherently a poor one, this CPAC is suceeding. They are honest, open-minded and independent. This sucess is due to the individuals on CPAC and because of individuals on our municipal council." Following my quote are the following comments presumably from the Editor of the Observer: "Usually a vocal critic of the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee, resident Alan Marshall had nothing but praise for the new committee at Tuesday's council meeting." Thank You I believe Steve Kannon of the Observer. You are on the money.

Going back to the front page article in yesterday's Elmira Independent "Ministry to add monitoring wells on Varnicolor site", let me add the following. Two years ago I attended a private meeting of the old Woolwich Council along with Eric Hodgins of the Region of Waterloo. Eric is a hydrogeologist by trade and in my opinion, borrowing a wonderful barb from Dr. Henry Regier, a "designated denier" for the Region of Waterloo. Eric is a paid employee and a decent individual who however for his own well being carefully looks out for the interests of the Region of Waterloo. Eric categorically stated that Varnicolor Chemical was a dead issue, did not contribute to the contamination of the Elmira Aquifer and no he hadn't gotten around to reading the technical references I had provided him about Chlorobenzene (DNAPL) 100 feet below surface behind (west) Varnicolor. Therefore for me the $64,000 question is why is it in the interests of Waterloo Region to continue covering up? What is in the Independent and what was provided at the November 24/11 CPAC meeting, including further excavation of 200 Tonnes of SHALLOW contaminated soil, twenty years LATER, is only the tip of the iceberg. M.O.E., Chemtura & Region of Waterloo...you got some explaining to do!

2011-12-01T15:42:00.002-05:00

ELMIRA INDEPENDENT IS FRONT AND CENTRE AGAIN !

Today's Independent carrys the following front page story and headline: "Ministry to add monitoring wells on Varnicolor site". My goodness I've died and gone to heaven and been brought back to earth twenty-one years ago. I will probably be giving more details in tomorrow's posting but let me just say that this is a great article with lots of quotes and most of them critical of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. While I do not revel in the probable difficulties facing the latest owners I would be less than honest if I didn't admit joy that this site may well be the key to a wholesale housecleaning at the M.O.E. Jane Glassco (M.O.E.) suggested that many of the Staff involved with this file have retired. My advice to remaining staff who covered up facts twenty years ago, is think seriously and quickly about early retirement. One point that got missed in this excellent article was the proposed removal of an additional 200 Tonnes of contaminated soil.

2011-12-01T08:49:00.002-05:00

NEW ORGANICS PLANT STINKS IN GUELPH

O.K. this isn't going to be a perfect apples to apples comparison. Life is seldom so clear and easy, but it is worth comparing. The Kitchener-Waterloo Record had a story on November 25/11 titled "Guelph residents point finger at new waste plant". Then the following day they published "City of Guelph told to address odour from composting plant". This new plant is referred to as an "organics composting plant". It isn't referred to as a biogenerating plant although the raw materials seem awfully similar. The major comparisons would be "...officials offerred assurances last year that the new facility would be odour-free.". A further quote is "We are confident this facility is able to operate odour-free". This to me is a typical example of why citizens have lost confidence in both their elected officials and in the Ministry of the Environment. How many years can you bafflegab and bullcrap citizens without them catching on? This is a perfect example above and beyond traffic concerns as to why local Elmira residents have legitimate concerns around our proposed biogas facility to be put near a residential subdivision.

2011-11-30T09:00:00.002-05:00

MY PRESENTATION/DELEGATION TO LAST NIGHT'S WOOLWICH COUNCIL MEETING

Following is the verbatim report regarding my take on CPAC's progress/sucess to date. This is based upon attending all six public CPAC meetings starting in early June of this year as well as having attended about twenty years of public meetings of the old CPAC. My purpose last night in praising the new CPAC had nothing to do with making them feel good and everything to do with bracing and preparing our Council for the push back from Chemtura and their partner in pollution, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. By loudly and publicly praising this new CPAC...APPOINTED BY WOOLWICH COUNCIL... I am hoping to dissuade Council from any knee jerk reaction or meddling regarding their CPAC.

Delegation to Woolwich Council November 29, 2011
Mayor Cowan advised CPAC last Thursday that either he or a CPAC member would be updating Council this evening in regards to CPACs’ activities. I believe that that is a very appropriate action and on the theory that if one is good two is even better, I also would like to give Council my take on CPAC’s success to date. There have been six Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC ) meetings so far with the new CPAC membership. They have ranged from merely strong and informative to what occurred last Thursday evening. Honestly if we get a couple more meetings like that one, I expect Council to start selling tickets and using them as a fundraiser to reduce taxes. Last Thursdays meeting was way beyond incredible and that opinion is shared by many of your CPAC appointees as well.
As an example , the Ontario Ministry of the Environment , who have been under pressure from your CPAC, publicly provided the following astounding information. When Varnicolor Chemical was sold to Phillip Environmental in 1993, Phillip received a legal Indemnity from the Province stating that they were not liable for currently undiscovered contamination on the Varnicolor site. The M.O.E. last Thursday then advised us that that very same Indemnity has now expired and they are holding the most recent owners Three Eights Inc., liable . This liability includes twenty years late, deep monitoring wells to be installed and an additional excavation of 200 tonnes of contaminated soil. Am I the only one who finds this both unreasonable to the latest owners and perverse and hypocritical overall?
Your new CPAC and your new Mayor must share the credit for this expose’. Both the old CPAC and the old Council were given the same opportunity to look at the evidence and face the truth. The problem wasn’t the clarity of the evidence either then or now; it was the clarity and vision of certain politicians then versus now.
Your new CPAC are working in an incredibly politicized environment. There are Municipal and Provincial Staff present as well as Regional Staff involved. CPAC are attempting to work with a multinational , multibillion dollar company. This company is also a multinational polluter facing lawsuits over Agent Orange (Dioxins) and Diacetyl (butter flavouring). Both of these products were manufactured here in Elmira.
Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment appear to be very unhappy campers at these public CPAC meetings. I believe that they have seen the future and they don’t like it. Back in 1998, David Ash and Uniroyal picked up their marbles and walked out of the middle of a UPAC meeting, not to return for nearly a year and a half. I recall the Chair of UPAC casually mentioning negotiations months later with Uniroyal, to bring them back. I believe that Chemtura and the M.O.E. are angry because they aren’t getting their own way. They may also be angry because the new CPAC are neither deferential nor intimidated by them. Unlike the old CPAC; this one does not feel bound by past agreements negotiated in private , out of the publics’ view. An example of Chemtura’s frustration is their attempt to conclude a site wide AIR Certificate of Approval, using the old CPAC members , who are much more agreeable to them than the new. The old CPAC do NOT represent Woolwich citizens and again that process is being done in private.
Yes there are problems with Public Consultation being under the purview of a Municipal Council. Despite the past and current model of public consultation being inherently a poor one, this CPAC is succeeding. They are honest, open minded and independent. This success is due to the individuals on CPAC AND because of individuals on our Municipal Council. I repeat , the model/process is poor. The individuals involved however are fantastic.

Alan Marshall Elmira Environmental Hazards Team

2011-11-30T08:25:00.003-05:00

TWO ADMINISTRATIVE MISSTEPS REGARDING CPAC

One of these missteps was described in my Monday posting having to do with Woolwich CAO David Brenneman. The other I have not mentioned to date but has to do with a CPAC orientation session being abruptly and improperly cancelled. I am happy to say that the CPAC members appropriately have jumped on both of these issues and they are being properly addressed. Although I have made clear my concerns around CPAC being a Committee of Council and hence liable to have little control or independence, at the same time there are some positives. It is my considered opinion that to date this Council is less likely to meddle inappropriately than the last one but the avenues are much too available. Specifically in regards to what appeared to be the Woolwich CAO attending a private meeting dealing with what clearly should be a CPAC and CPAC only issue, namely a site wide AIR Certificate of Approval from the M.O.E. for Chemtura; explanations and clarifications are underway. These will include direct communications to each CPAC member as well as some face to face discussions. Our CAO made a mistake of which he and all other parties are well aware. At this point in time I'm prepared to accept that it was an honest mistake which may or may not have been somewhat induced/promoted by third parties with an agenda. CPAC members and Woolwich Staff are now more cognizant of each others' areas of responsibility and the future will sort out whether a strong supportive relationship will continue to flourish and grow. Briefly touching on the meeting that was cancelled improperly, I will say that our Mayor stepped up at last week's CPAC meeting and took full responsibility. I am impressed that he did this even while I doubt that he was 100% responsible.

2011-11-29T08:54:00.003-05:00

CULTURAL HERITAGE LANDSCAPE DESIGNATION IS CLOSER

Both the Woolwich Observer and Elmira Independent have stories this week in regards to the public meeting held to further give information and receive comments. "West Montrose CHL nears designation" was the story in the Independent. The Observer story (pg.5) was titled "West Montrose nearer to heritage designation for bridge area". Both of these articles mention citizens speaking both for and against this designation. Clearly this CHL designation which was initiated prior to any citizen knowledge of gravel pit proposal(s) in the area, will make the hurdles higher for these proposed pits.

2011-11-29T08:37:00.002-05:00

WOOLWICH FORMALLY PURCHASES VICTORIA GLEN LOTS FROM REGION

This story is on the front page of last Friday's Woolwich Observer. The title is "Acquisition of regional land secures Elmira's Victoria Glen as green space". This is a downright victory for local citizens, the environment and the new politicans here in Woolwich. Our old Council seemed prepared to balance their books by selling off this jewel and Todd Cowan and others disagreed. Our new Council must continue to fulfill their other environmental promises as best as is humanly and politically possible. We are all still awaiting a solution (comprimise) for the Bio-En, in town proposal, as well as gravel pit woes.

2011-11-28T08:45:00.002-05:00

REVERBERATIONS FROM LAST THURSDAY'S CPAC MEETING WILL CONTINUE

Both Richard Clausi and myself specifically made a point of thanking Jane Glasgo (sp?) of the Ministry of the Environment for her presentation regarding "other sources" in Elmira which are under M.O.E. scrutiny. One of the reasons for this in my case was the deafening silence and non comment, even to date, around the DNAPL found by Conestoga Rovers behind (west) of Varnicolor Chemical. This find is the smoking gun to date and all responsible parties and authorities are making like an ostrich (head in sand) hoping and praying that it will go away.

We were advised Thursday night by CPAC Chair (and Mayor) Todd Cowan that he had a discussion with hydrogeologist Eric Hodgins of the Region of Waterloo, concerning the possibility of Varnicolor contributing to the destruction of the Municipal drinking water aquifer. As I understood Mayor Cowan's response, Eric's response at least in regards to the Lot 91 site at the east end of Oriole Parkway, was that the chemicals on Lot 91 "are different" and he Eric "can't comment". Well that's not too impressive an answer as far as I'm concerned.

The old CPAC, now renamed as the APTE-Chemtura committee are still playing behind the scenes. My personal opinion in regards to the name is that this originally wonderful citizens' group has been brought full circle. APTE- Chemtura are doing their thing once again privately and without any public scrutiny whatsoever. Currently they are discussing a site wide Certificate of Approval (Air) which will be of benefit primarily to Chemtura, possibly the M.O.E.. The chances of there being any benefits whatsoever to the public are in inverse proportion to the lack of public debate and transparency. Apparently Woolwich CAO Dave Brenneman attended a private meeting, without including an invitation to any CPAC members, to discuss this Certificate of Approval. This action went over badly when discovered at CPAC and Mayor Cowan has promised to investigate. Whether an honest mistake or misunderstanding, the Woolwich CAO is neither a member of CPAC nor a representative thereof. This must be made very clear.

Once again Dan Holt was like a dog with a bone , this time in regards to CPAC finances. I congratulate him on his persistence as his multitude of questions did elicit some very interesting information as to who controls the purse strings for CPAC.

Yours truly is planning on being a Delegation at Woolwich Council tomorrow night. CPAC Chair Todd Cowan advised us on Thursday that there would be a report given to Council in regards to CPAC. This is an excellent idea and thus I felt that an additional point of view would be helpful to assist Councils' understanding of the major significance of what is transpiring at CPAC these days. The extremely juvenile and mostly rude comments that the Elmira Advocate has been receiving (and mostly being deleted by moi) over the last few weeks may have a local polluter connection. Be that as it may, I am confident that persons who are only able to insult and totally unable to question, discuss or debate, will not have the courage to show up tomorrow at Council and express themselves intelligently. Neither will they ever show up at a public CPAC meeting to express their criticism. They only have the courage of their annonymity.

2011-11-26T08:00:00.003-05:00

MORE ON THURSDAY EVENINGS CPAC MEETING

High soil concentrations of both NDMA and Chlorobenzene have been found on the Yara (Nutrite) site. These are between 20 and 30 metres below surface. Jeff Merriman of Chemtura explained them as being due to groundwater contamination leaving Chemtura and moving through the Yara site and leaving Chlorobenzene particularily adsorbed onto the soil. Personally I'm skeptical and am pursuing this further.

Chemtura have dropped out of active participation in the O.M.B. hearing regarding the Hawk Ridge Homes proposed development across from their site. This is very strange and Dan Holt of CPAC questioned both Chemtura and the M.O.E. as to what would happen if Chemtura chose to depart Elmira suddenly. Dan also got a commitment from the M.O.E. that they would step in and at least keep the groundwater pump and treat system going.

My "Delegation" ie. presentation to CPAC was primarily about the DNAPL (dense non aqueous phase liquid) found on the west side of Varnicolor near the Elmira water tower. I included the pages from the Conestoga Rovers report describing this contaminant. I also included plume maps clearly showing a plume of Chlorobenzene emanating from this DNAPL which is 100 feet below ground level. Another plume map included showed a source of NDMA just south of Sanyo Canada in Elmira. My belif is that this NDMA is from either Varnicolor, Borg textiles or Sanyo.

All groundwater and soil samples to be taken from 84 Howard Ave. (formerly 62 Union St.) are to be shared with CPAC and moi. This was promised by the M.O.E. and as we are all in the same boat regarding restoring our drinking water aquifer, this is appropriate.

We are still awaiting the peer review regarding the release over a year ago of BLE-25 into Elmira's air. This obviously is well overdue.

2011-11-25T08:41:00.002-05:00

MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT RESPONDS TO CPAC PRESSURE

All the news can't possibly fit into one posting regarding last night's public CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) meeting hence it will be doled out in small doses over the next several days. Firstly a pat on the back to Jane Glasco (sp?) of the Ontario M.O.E. After months of CPAC pressure from multiple members (and one non-member ie. yours truly) she took the lead last evening and presented a report on the M.O.E.'s status and management of contaminated sites in Elmira. I am of course referring to "other sites". Other than Chemtura/Uniroyal. My opinion is that both Chemtura staff and Hamilton M.O.E. staff would have been happier to listen to a detailed medical report about colonoscopys. They were not happy campers as last night went further to expose their twenty year old sweetheart deal than anything before it. "Other sites" mentioned included the Strauss Fuels (Imperial Oil) site at the north end of town and the currently being remediated Becker's site on Arthur St. and a few others.

The two biggies were not surprisingly the former Varnicolor Chemical site on Union St. and Varnicolor's Lot 91 site at the east end of Oriole Parkway. 62 Union St. (Varnicolor) is now referred to as 84 Howard Ave. Something like changing the Uniroyal name to Crompton and then Chemtura. "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet". Please excuse the upcoming capitol letters but I am excited! THE INDEMNITY GIVEN TO PHILLIPS BY BOTH THE M.O.E. AND THE REGION OF WATERLOO WHEN THEY BOUGHT THE VARNICOLOR SITE IN 1993 HAS EXPIRED AND THE MOST RECENT OWNERS THREE EIGHTS INC. HAVE THE LIABILITY. This is the first time that either Rich Clausi or I had ever heard anything about a 15 year expiry date. One more tidbit that the M.O.E. kept hidden twenty years ago. 200 TONNES MORE OF THE STILL CONTAMINATED SOIL ON SITE WILL BE REMOVED. DEEP WELLS HAVE AFTER TWENTY YEARS FINALLY BEEN ORDERED.

Do not mistake my excitement as necessarily being approval or happiness. Yes this work should have been done long ago and Sebastian and other CPAC members appropriately asked that question. I personally am shocked that Three eights appears to be on the hook. I know they have professional hydrogeological expertise but I think what they really need is both legal expertise AND public support. Why should they be on the hook after the M.O.E. and the Region signed off on this site? In regards to the Lot 91 site it is now owned by Ingram Transfer. Again it was subject to a hydrogeological "study" whose conclusions did not follow either their own data and results, much less the soil samples and other data produced between the mid 80's and 1996. This site will be resampled shortly although the M.O.E. claim to have recently sampled it. Both myself and CPAC have publicly requested all this data asap.

Chemtura much to my and I suspect CPAC's disgust have reneged on yet another promise. They have had the lab results for GP1 & 2 in their possession for months and yet still claim they can't release them publicly. These are the former Dioxin & DDT contaminated areas in the south-east corner of their site. Finally again a variety of CPAC members probably including Ron C., Dan, Vivienne and Sebastian have expressed concerns about CPAC either being circumvented or at the very least left out of the loop regarding a peer review by RWDI out of Guelph. This peer review is in reference to a site wide Certificate of Approval (air) for Chemtura. This C. of A. is another self serving, money saving concession that the old CPAC are STILL attempting to give to Chemtura. This is unconscionable back door lobbying and meddling which of course Chemtura are all in favour of. Richard Clausi (Environmental Hazards co-founder & EDSS representative) spoke to this, comparing the old CPAC's ongoing private dealings with Chemtura, to the Vichy government in France during the Nazi occupation. More to follow on last nights' CPAC meeting.

2011-11-24T08:55:00.004-05:00

URBAN & RURAL COYOTES

Today's K-W Record carrys a story about the proliferation of coyotes within the boundaries of Kitchener and Waterloo. The title is "Urban coyotes put scare into city dwellers". The picture included shows children and adults at Meinzinger Park in Kitchener looking at both deer and coyotes tracks , by the swing set. This picture brought back memories for me as my two children both used those very same swing sets a couple of decades ago. Coyotes have also been spotted at Westmount Golf Course and the Stanley park area of kitchener. Again two decades ago I saw a coyote just off of Victoria St. near the very old Blue Springs swimming hole. Also I've seen a couple while here in Woolwich Township. One was in a field near West Montrose and the other, one early morning outside of Hawkesville. Like deer I believe that they are now just about everywhere only they are even better than deer at staying out of sight. As far as safety, the authorities are suggesting that residents neither intentionally nor unintentionally feed coyotes. Unintentional would include leaving dogfood in bowls outside for your pet and also be careful about letting your cats and small dogs run loose in areas where coyotes may be present. Obviously with or without coyotes, small children should always be closely supervised.

2011-11-23T08:43:00.003-05:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY HERE FOR THE LONG HAUL

Today's K-W Record has two stories which by their titles may seem contradictory at first blush, but really aren't. The first is "Sustainable energy can boost the economy" and the second is "Fossil fuels expected to dominate energy sector, board says". The first story, both of which are in the Business Section of the Record, uses Germany as an example of how government incentives have increased green energy from 6.3% to 20% of their power grid currently. Ontario's Feed In Tarrif program is complimented as far as it's concept although criticized for it's slow implementation. The second story is based on predictions from the National Energy Board of Canada. They believe that wind generation of electricity will increase from 1% to 6% by the year 2035 and that geothermal, biomass and solar will increase from 2% to 6% as well. While significant it is still the reality that oil and gas production will also increase dramatically and be the dominant source of power for at least the next couple of decades if not longer. One very interesting point for me is that in-situ extraction methods for oil removal will predominate in that industry, versus open pit mining methods. This technology surely could be used to remove both LNAPLS and DNAPLS (light & dense non-aqueous phase liquids) from the subsurface here in Elmira, Ontario.

2011-11-22T08:09:00.004-05:00

CPAC MEETING AND AGENDA THIS THURSDAY AT 6 PM.

The Chemtura Public Advisory Committee meeting is being held at the Woolwich Council Chambers on Church St. in Elmira this Thursday at 6 pm.. I received a copy of the Draft Agenda last Friday and it is shaping up to be another interesting meeting. A week ago today I posted a proposed Agenda here on the Advocate and a number of those items are on the Draft Agenda. Missing are the following items which I feel are important enough to receive at least brief mention and discussion:
First and foremost my Delegation last month included a copy of a newspaper article from the Elmira Independent dated June 11, 2004 which recorded a Motion by CPAC to make source removal of contaminants a Standing Agenda item at each future meeting. Clearly this should be on this Agenda and all future items until or unless CPAC votes and amends this Standing Agenda item.
125 drum carcasses were excavated this summer from the southwest corner (M2). How much soil was removed with them? Were lab tests done on the soil? Was there any visbly stained soil? Were photographs taken? All these questions and more need to be answered.
The M.O.E. have yet to respond to David Marks request concerning their Rationale for not pursuing other sources in Elmira. Public Consultation does not mean that either Chemtura or the M.O.E. can pick and choose which questions they answer.

2011-11-21T08:25:00.003-05:00

CHEMTURA CANADA PROGRESS REPORT- OCTOBER 2011

October's Report is the skinny version. There is no Appendix focusing on on-site containment. Hence there are no groundwater elevation maps to ostensibly show containment in the Municipal Upper aquifer nor is there the Figure showing the difference in water elevation between the Canagagigue Creek and the Upper Aquifer which under natural conditions discharges to the creek. These absences of vital information can be laid directly at the feet of the former CPAC who felt compelled to give undeserved concessions to Chemtura.

Last month here in the Advocate I advised that the on-site pumping on the Chemtura site, in the Municipal Aquifer, has been steady and solid for nearly two years. Well this has now ended. The real news however is the off-site pumping. This is allegedly where the rubber meets the road in regards to achieving the restoration of the Elmira Aquifer to drinking water standards. Jeff Merriman pf Chemtura mentioned it at last month's CPAC meeting and that the results have been disappointing for a number of reasons. Disappointing grossly understates the situation. Hypocritical is a better word. The whole premise for the off-site cleanup is flawed by the M.O.E.'s (& others) refusal to acknowledge and examine all the other off-site sources of contamination to our drinking water. Ignoring that for the moment and swallowing the premise that Chemtura acted alone in the murder of our drinking water, we are advised that Conestoga Rovers computer model has determined how many gallons of water need to be pumped and treated each month from the aquifer to clean it up. Coincidence or not off-site pumping has been in the crapper for the last year or since we turfed the bulk of our Municipal Councillors.

As bad as it's been, October 2011 is the prize winner. The average pumping rate for all off-site wells is supposed to be 53.1 litres per second. Last month it was 26 litres per second or less than half. Keep in mind that back in June 2009 after an extended period of time of being unable to meet their own pumping targets, Conestoga Rovers (consultants to Uniroyal/Chemtura) REDUCED their computer modelled targets from 64.5 l/sec to 53.1 l/sec. Now they can't even meet those REDUCED targets. I'm fed up to here with the neverending excuses. The old CPAC and the M.O.E. sold out Elmira citizens in regards to source removal, in favour of promises from Chemtura to use inferior and cheaper pump and treat technology. It's bad enough being sold an inferior product but Chemtura can't even deliver on that.

2011-11-19T08:07:00.002-05:00

FLUSH THE TOILET, BRANTFORD NEEDS THE WATER

I can remember as a kid hearing this comment when I lived in Waterloo and not understanding it. Adults around me laughed and said it was a joke. Years later when I began to get a glimmer of understanding as to how our wastewater, surface water and drinking water were all intertwined I began to understand. Like most jokes there is an element of truth or at least the perception of truth in the joke to make it "funny". A recent comment here in the Advocate (Nov. 5/11) mentions the extremely high rates of cancer and other health issues in Brantford. If these statistics are correct it isn't that surprising. Brantford's drinking water comes from the Grand River and while today's testing and treatment have improved, it's certainly not without weaknesses. In the past companies like Canadian General Tower which are located at the south end of Cambridge, right on the river, donated chemicals such as pthalates and worse to Brantford's source of water. The time may come when radical environmentalism and or violence results from peoples' understanding how their lives and health have been damaged for the sake of someone else's profits. Although I will have no part of that, I will have no qualms about providing facts and data. The guilty parties should be punished by the courts and rule of law but when those institutions are not up to the task, that is when vigilanteism breaks out.

2011-11-18T12:27:00.002-05:00

COWARDS AND OTHER FAIRIES WHO POST ANONYMOUSLY

First of all just to be politically correct the word "fairies" above is not a reference to anyone's sexual orientation. Secondly in the comments section from yesterday's post there are ten comments. There were twelve but the two most idiotic I have deleted. There are a few with names included in the text of the comment but then they were posted by "Anonymous". I am reasonably confident that the names Bethany Davis and Sharon were made up and I don't believe that Mayor Todd Cowan's name is legit in this comment section.

2011-11-18T09:04:00.002-05:00

YES THERE IS ENVIRONMENTAL GOOD NEWS

Yesterday's Elmira Independent carrys the following story on page 8: "Local company earns B Corporation certificate". Enviro-Stewards has been in business for ten years in Elmira and they recently have received certification as a B Corporation. This certification indicates that while they are a For profit business nevertheless both environmental and social concerns are at the forefront of their business. The owner Bruce Taylor is a chemical engineer whose goal is to help clients reduce their environmental footprint. Essentially this means finding effeciencies in waste reduction, heating and electrical useage. Mr. Taylor has been able to combine a social conscience with business acumen and the result is good for him, his clients and society. Well done!

2011-11-17T09:01:00.002-05:00

BEHIND THE SCENES LOBBYING GOING ON

Public meetings are for show; debate and decisions are done privately. This is nothing new although it's taken me close to two decades to understand this basic human condition. Municipal Councils are a prime example as is our local Regional Council. How many years of studies, discussion and arm twisting went on behind the scenes concerning LRT (light rail transit) before word one was spoken publicly at Regional Council? How much lobbying/promises of support for pet issues of recalcitrant Councillors has there been to assure a majority in favour BEFORE the public even knew it was on the Agenda? This is the secret joy of politicians, namely being "in the know" before the rest of the masses ever have a clue.

Thus in hindsight it has become obvious to me that private discussions around the subversion of public consultation were ongoing before the very first public UPAC (Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee) meeting ever took place. These discussions would of necessity had to include the powers that be; namely the Ministry of the Environment, Woolwich Council reps, Regional Council reps, and Uniroyal. Not for a moment do I believe these private meetings were conducted in an atmosphere of blatant self serving partisanship. More likely they were promoted as we the voted representatives of the citizens are so clearly superior in our knowledge and understanding of the big picture that we mustn't let the hysterical public overreact to this crisis of the day. We will manage all aspects of pretend public consultation so that we can not lose control. We know best what needs to be done and public consultation is simply there to put the stamp of approval on what we've already decided. To this end we will give recognition, credit and honours on those who play ball with us and we will do our utmost behind the scenes to undermine and discredit those we cannot control. Subtlty is what the art of politics is all about.

This I am certain is what happened. The powers that be were terrifed of any organized, intelligent citizen activism and opposition to their control. APT Environment under the leadership of Susan Rupert were exactly what they could not tolerate. In the early days the Ministry of the Environment were intimidated by many APTE members including myself; not because we were throwing rocks but because we were throwing facts, information and truth at them. We could not be "controlled". This became their number one priority. It wasn't to clean up the water and the soil which half a century of neglect and complacency had destroyed in Elmira. It was to "manage" the opposition and they suceeded. It was done slowly and carefully and with subtlty. What human being would not be inflated by personal attention from Mayors, Regional Chairs, Councillors and Provincial Ministers and the media? Attention was carefully paid to which individuals seemed most susceptible to these kinds of attentions.

The powers that be including our old Municipal Council were extremely pleased with the results. It took private discussions and negotiations while publicly proclaiming the preeminence of public consultation. They sucessfully co-opted the public and APTE without the rank and file much less the "co-ordinaters" even being aware. Look at the goals of source removal of Dioxins and Dnapls. Look at hydraulic containment "in all aquifers". Look at the sucessful hiding of off-site contamination of the Municipal Aquifer by Nutrite for a decade and by Varnicolor, Borg and others to this day. The wholesale removal of the old Council (less one) has destroyed the status quo and harmony of the power structure. They are not amused and they are reacting. What is amusing is that those they have propped up and supported secretly are now publicly getting into bed with them. They are all back lobbying privately including at the Township level. Our new Councillors may or may not know it but they are being approached to see if they are malleable or flexible. Are they really green or merely "pretend" green? Thus the circle continues.

2011-11-16T08:37:00.004-05:00

DRINKING WATER SOURCE PROTECTION

This program came about due to the provincial Clean Water Act which was in direct response to the Walkerton tragedy in 2000. Waterloo Region and area's surface water flows south into lake Erie via the Nith, Conestoga, Speed and Grand Rivers. Both yesterday's K-W Record and today's had articles on this subject. Yesterday's was in regards to the Region (Eric Hogins) speaking at Cambridge Council and today's is titled "Report finds drinking water remains vulnerable".

Today's article in the Record while highly critical of efforts across Canada with some specific examples included, is actually complimentary of the overall efforts in Ontario. It does point out problems with pharmaceutical chemicals showing up in Ontario drinking water however and indeed there is a seperate article about a study showing higher rates of prostate cancer in men in jurisdictions where there is a high rate of oral contraceptive useage. The estrogen is ending up in both sewage plant discharges and eventually into drinking water supplies. The other problem as enunciated in yesterday's article is that these Source protection plans are looking at current and future land uses near municipal drinking wells. They are not addressing past toxic contamination already in the aquifers. Regarding the first problem (pharmaceuticals) yours truly has long complained about the hundreds of common chemicals that the Region of Waterloo for example do not test for in our water supplies. Regarding the second problem, here in Elmira is a perfect example. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment and the past citizens' Public Advisory Committee have intentionally ignored and avoided dealing with other sources of toxic contamination in the Elmira Aquifers, other than Chemtura (Uniroyal). These other sources continue to contaminate and render useless the current pumping regieme which is ostensibly going to restore our local drinking water. The good news is that the new CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) have publicly demanded examination of these "other sources" but the M.O.E. continue to deny and resist.

2011-11-15T08:08:00.000-05:00

FURTHER TO YESTERDAY’S POST RE: CPAC AGENDA

I’ve gone back a month to October 12/11 and looked at my posting here in the advocate titled “Lost In The Shuffle/Additions To The Upcoming CPAC Agenda”. Lo and behold those important items which needed to be discussed publicly at CPAC then either haven’t been at all or were put forward to the November 24/11 meeting. Following are suggested Agenda items for next Thursday evenings CPAC meeting. Overdue Agenda items are marked OVERDUE.
CPAC members are to receive a financial status Update to let them know where they stand in regards to CPAC’s budget.
David Marks request for a rationale from the M.O.E. regarding why they didn’t pursue other sources. OVERDUE
Update regarding the hiring of Gail Krantzberg.
Responsible Care Update.
Jeff Merriman (Chemtura) has promised a response to me regarding high NDMA & Chlorobenzene soil results at Yara (Nutrite).
Lot 91 & 62 Union St. excavations (Varnicolor). OVERDUE
DNAPL 100’ below ground by water tower & behind (west) Varnicolor. LONG OVERDUE
125 drum carcasses removed from M2 area this past summer. OVERDUE
Lab results from GP1 & 2 OVERDUE
Next spring’s excavations starting with GP1 & 2 followed by RPW 6 & 7
Less presentations from Chemtura such as Annual Work Plan, Plant Activities Summary, Five Year Assessments etc.. Hand out written reports days in advance of public meetings and CPAC members can ask you questions if they wish. These are fillers and a waste of time at public meetings.
Less from M.O.E. such as Monthly progress Report
IN A NUTSHELL, SIX VOTING CPAC MEMBERS SHOULD BE SETTING THE AGENDA AROUND THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF PRIORITIES NOT CHEMTURA’S/ M.O.E. NOR THE TOWNSHIP”S .

2011-11-14T08:35:00.002-05:00

PROPOSED AGENDA FOR NEXT WEEK'S PUBLIC CPAC MEETING

First off the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee meeting is set for Thursday November 24/11 in the Woolwich Council Chambers, Elmira at 6 pm. This venue is where Chemtura Canada (Uniroyal) will do their best to put a positive spin on "improvements" in Elmira's contaminated groundwater. The problem is that twenty-two years after it was suddenly discovered to be grossly contaminated by multiple toxic chemicals, it is still so with no reasonable date for cleanup. Keep in mind that the proposed date for the supposed thirty year cleanup is 2028, nearly fourty years after the wells were shut down. This date allows Chemtura and their partner in deflection and distraction, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, another seventeen years of talking, wiggling, delaying and bafflegabbing Woolwich citizens.

Our new CPAC members have appropriately put Chemtura's and the M.O.E.'s feet to the fire over Source Removal. Do not be guilted by Chemtura's current chief spokesperson Garth Napier of the M.O.E. whining about being harassed. Why shouldn't the M.O.E. be harassed? When they do either of the following two things then and only then should they be treated with respect: 1) Enforce their own past decisions and orders regarding source removal 2) Tell the public the truth. If you can't or won't do 1) then stop lying to the public and explain yourself honestly.

In regards to the title above, Source Removal is THE major Agenda Item. This fall has been very mild and the Dioxins could easily have been removed from GP1 & 2 since the latest test results came back. Instead with the M.O.E.'s acquiesence Chemtura have done nothing again this year. When your neighbour's cat or dog craps in your sandbox do you put a hose into the bottom, allow rainfall on the top and then suck on the hose to remove the contamination? I think not! You physically remove the crap your inconsiderate neighbour has left you. On the other hand Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E. are a pair of sucks promoting pumping of groundwater for decades versus source removal.

2011-11-12T07:58:00.003-05:00

SUPERWEEDS AND OUR NEW ENVIRONMENT CRITIC

I mentioned here last week that Michael Harris our new M.P.P. is also the new Environment Critic for the Conservative Opposition in the provincial legislature. Last Thursday's Elmira Independent carried a photo and story in regards to his new duties and responsibilities.

Way back on October 29/11 the Woolwich Observer carried a story titled "Putting so-called superweeds in perspective". It was supposed to be reassuring but for me at least it was not. There now are about 200 weed species around the world which have developed resistance to various herbicides and the implications for food production are significant. In Canada there have been 51 unique cases of herbicide resistance. This article does go on to state that farmers can manage this emerging issue with a number of strategys including rotating of crops within fields as well as changing herbicides being used from time to time. I am not a farmer but it seems to me that at least the good news is that there is recognition of a problem. That is always the first step towards solving it.

2011-11-11T10:09:00.002-05:00

JIGS HOLLOW/ KUNTZ PIT STILL IN THE NEWS

The front page of today's Woolwich Observer carrys the following story "Residents continue to assail Jigs Hollow pit proposal". This is an excellent read and should make Woolwich residents proud that you have some citizens who are willing to stick their necks out for everybody's good. On page 10, Editor Steve Kannon has his Editorial titled "Opponents target gravel on a variety of fronts". Some of his comments are both blunt and powerful and my hat is off to him for these following statements: "the province often sides with developers over the best interests of the people", "...the Ontario Municipal Board, which has a track record of ignoring local decisions in favour of developers.", and finally "...the Aggregate Resources Act is practically a cudgel, and the Ministry of Natural Resources seen as a defender of operators, not Ontarians.".

2011-11-11T09:54:00.003-05:00

REMEMBRANCE DAY & CORPORATISM

O.K. so what does the above title have to do with the Environment? Certainly on the surface, absolutely nothing. However it's Remembrance Day and Steve Kannon, the Editor of the Woolwich Observer has linked the two above items in an excellent Opinion piece in today's Woolwich Observer (ie. dated Sat. Nov. 12/11). The title is "Freedom of the markets is not what they gave their lives for". Steve's Opinion piece (pg. 12) has a quote from Benito Mussolini namely: "Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.".

2011-11-10T11:27:00.002-05:00

THEY ARE STILL DIGGING AT THE BECKER'S SITE IN DOWNTOWN ELMIRA

So there I was this morning looking down into a new very large and very deep hole beside the former one where the old fuel tanks were. This one easily had to be twelve to fifteen feet deep and as back on October 17/11 I had reported that the remediation was complete, I was second guessing myself. Turns out all is well. I chatted with an on-site worker and was advised that the new hole was simply where they were going to be burying the new tanks. I also received an informative lecture regarding the latest technology being used for service stations. Besides fibreglass components versus steel (which rusts) there are also double walled hoses and fuel lines which have sensors to alert if the inner hose develops a leak. Also there soon will be automatic controls shutting down service stations when a leak is alerted until it is completely repaired. Clearly the environmental damage done by gas stations over the last sixty or seventy years has been extensive and the cleanup costs prohibitive. Hence the ounce of prevention with new stations should avoid the pound of damage and 1/2 pound of cleanup costs in the future.

2011-11-10T11:22:00.002-05:00

OOPS !

As per today's Elmira Independent (pg. 2) it turns out that there were three presenters on Monday night in regards to the Kuntz (Jigs Hollow) pit near Winterbourne. The third was Jan Huisson who gave a visiual display to Council in regards to the proposed pit. The title of the article in the Indepndent is "Additional concerns raised over Jigs Hollow pit".