tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9008170462555545362024-03-13T09:38:57.380-07:00Waterloo Region Advocate The information in the postings provided by me through this blog is for general informational purposes only and reflects the thoughts, opinions, and ideas of only the blog author, Alan Marshall.Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.comBlogger1402125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-37407077830058780732023-12-19T15:48:00.000-08:002023-12-19T16:06:14.860-08:00<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdm3_bQl6BLSvB65gtWCGpMiTSy3yfPBaEgWHnOi0xWHJTjTTdf-UarqGUjGc7jNB-rYyKskgarmryL7Srkgjt-F79q6g3-Oospcl7feLddk4hoT1sVHDr2zClXyBZfVWAglLZrLVF1xlXGaWOKb2Iut0t0ik1SrZ7znxl91L_j0_wD2YUesOYr8d78ek/s500/IMG_0825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdm3_bQl6BLSvB65gtWCGpMiTSy3yfPBaEgWHnOi0xWHJTjTTdf-UarqGUjGc7jNB-rYyKskgarmryL7Srkgjt-F79q6g3-Oospcl7feLddk4hoT1sVHDr2zClXyBZfVWAglLZrLVF1xlXGaWOKb2Iut0t0ik1SrZ7znxl91L_j0_wD2YUesOYr8d78ek/s320/IMG_0825.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p></p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><br /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <span style="font-size: large;"> PROLOGUE</span></p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">This book is a
detailed and specific account from a first hand observer, active
participant, citizen, resident, and survivor of over three decades of
false promises by all levels of government here in Elmira, Ontario,
Canada. The false promises are in regards to the groundwater
contamination by Uniroyal Chemical otherwise known as the 1989 Elmira
Water Crisis. This book will enthrall you, horrify you, make you
laugh, cry and every emotion in between. It should even make you
question the very basic premise that democracy is the best form of
government. Canadians want to believe that their authorities are
inherently honest, truthful and looking out for the public interest.
They want to believe that the first mandate of the Ontario Ministry
of Environment is to protect the environment. Neither of those two is
true.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">This book gives names,
dates, locations and quotes from both public and private meetings
regarding the environmental disaster that unfolded from 1942 until
both the present time and into the future. Our authorities refused
any and all health studies that could ever have documented the human
price of this environmental disaster. The meetings describing the
damage to the soil, air, surface and ground water in and around
Elmira, Ontario constantly and consistently minimized the extent and
duration of the damage as well as the complexity or possible success
of remediation. Due to this, when cleanup options were presented,
they were according to consultants CH2MHILL “...the cheapest and
least effective method ...”.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">NDMA was the poster
child for the groundwater contamination and, although once described
as the most carcinogenic compound known to mankind, it was in fact
not even second fiddle to the since banned DDT, lindane, parathion,
and dioxins in Agent Orange that Uniroyal Chemical produced for the
U.S. Military. Years after, citizens including myself, advised that
the mandated 2028 groundwater cleanup was not going to happen, our
authorities have now also admitted it despite the previous
twenty-five years plus of denial. Of course, that's all O.K. for the
company (Uniroyal, bought by Crompton, bought by Chemtura, bought by
Lanxess Canada) as the Ministry of Environment are simply rewriting
the mandated date to reflect the reality of a second or third class
cleanup reliant upon never ending leakage and off-site dilution of
toxic wastes. Elmira's drinking water, for the last thirty years and
now likely forever, comes from a pipeline to the City of Waterloo.
The Elmira Aquifers, at one time, were the envy of residents
throughout Waterloo Region. Let me tell you how all of this has
occurred, beginning with Chapter One.</span></p><br /><p></p>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-67554246021607528682023-12-19T12:37:00.000-08:002023-12-19T13:00:52.297-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4467305305755229493" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL<br /><br /><br />BY<br />ALAN G. MARSHALL<br /><br />©2019<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br />Chapter One:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />1 .... The Beginning<br /><br />2 .... Contamination<br /><br />2 .... Other Players and Potential Contributors<br /><br />3 .... Trouble in Paradise<br /><br />3 .... Municipal Water, Sewer, and Waste Disposal<br /><br />4 .... The Natural Environment<br /><br />5 .... Early Remediation<br /><br />6 .... Awakenings<br /><br />7 .... The Province, the Ministry, and the Feds<br /><br />8 .... The Shoe Finally Drops<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Beginning<br /><br />A large toxic waste site is located in Elmira, Ontario, south of Church Street (Waterloo Regional Road 86 also known as Highway #86) and east of Union Street. It surrounds part of the Canagagigue Creek (the Creek) and fittingly a cemetery is located on the north-east border of the property. Additionally the Stroh farm that produces corn and soybeans is on the east side of the site. The Martin farm is south and east of the toxic site. The Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) is located south of the site and was<br />created from both the former town dump and reclaimed land from the 1962 realignment of the Creek.<br /><br />This long time toxic waste site has been owned by a succession of corporate interests starting with the Elmira Felt Co. in 1898 who produced footwear 1. By 1917, the Canadian Consolidated Rubber Co. produced tennis shoes closing due to the Great Depression in 1929 2 Naugatuck Chemical Co., the chemical division of Dominion Rubber Co., purchased this Elmira property in 1941. Dominion Rubber Co. was the Canadian subsidiary of the U.S. Rubber Co. 3<br /><br />Naugatuck Chemical Co. was renamed Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. (Uniroyal) in 1966. The plethora of corporate names has continued unabated ever since with Crompton & Knowles, Chemtura Canada, and, most recently, Lanxess Canada Inc., which was a subsidiary of Bayer based in Germany. A skeptic could be forgiven for believing that this long succession of owners is at least partly related to an attempt to cloud the environmental stigma of owning this Elmira site.<br /><br />Contamination<br /><br />This environmental stigma includes the production and irresponsible disposal of some<br />extremely nasty and indeed infamous chemical compounds used in the agricultural industry as well as by the U.S. and Canadian military. The disposal locally of Dichlororodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and Agent Orange has caused the most damage although explosive stabilizers and solvents used in rubber additives have compounded the problem. Other insecticides and herbicides, such as lindane, endosulfan, parathion and associated chemicals have damaged the air, the soil, and both groundwater and surface water. N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) contamination however garnered the most attention in 1989 as was likely intended by the various authorities and Uniroyal .<br /><br />By 1945 and the end of the Second World War, production at Naugatuck had shifted away from explosive stabilizers and was focused on rubber additives as well as agricultural fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides. This factory in Elmira was one of the very first North American locations to manufacture DDT . This so called wonder chemical was indeed deadly towards mosquitoes, and hence, helped win various wars on malaria around the world. It came though at an incredible cost as it moved up the food chain and was absorbed into creek and river sediments, then into fish, and eventually into birds of prey. It isn’t too surprising that even recently the Canadian government has been reluctant to credit either the company or the location for its manufacture .<br /><br />Other Players And Potential Contributors<br /><br />Contrary to popular belief Uniroyal was not the only chemical handling or using facility in Elmira, after the Second World War. Their next door neighbour to the south and west was Read Brothers Fertilizers, later known as Genstar, Nutrite Inc., Yara, and finally SNC-Lavalin. Nutrite took over in 1979 and began to focus on blending different fertilizers including some with herbicides included. Its raw materials included nitrogen, potassium, phosphate, 2, 4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) as well as a product known as dimethylamine. Its addition to the contamination of the drinking water aquifers was kept secret from the public until 2000 when Uniroyal demanded assistance from them by insisting they help pay for additions to its ammonia groundwater treatment system.<br /><br />Farther down the street was a little company known as Varnicolor Chemical Ltd. (Varnicolor). The owner Severin Argenton liked to brag that he was a recycler of used solvents. This company also operated a licensed hazardous waste disposal site located right in town. Varnicolor had been on its site since 1962 and Mr. Argenton also was known to say that he had never had a spill that impacted the environment. Mr. Argenton claimed that he was detoxifying many of the hazardous wastes that came to his door. In fact, he was mostly storing them outdoors and letting the sun, wind, rain, and snow dilute them, evaporate them, and /or spill them onto the bare ground where they quickly soaked into the sand and gravel yard. He did send liquid Waste Derived Fuels to a cement kiln in Michigan, United States where they were burned as part of its production process. Mr. Argenton had previously worked for Naugatuck and he had seen first-hand how it dealt with its wastes. Mr. Argenton also obtained a property in the floodplain of the Creek, south-east of his main site. It was called Lot 91 and became infamous in its own right both for leaking road tankers, intentionally leaking tanks with used solvents in them, and for buried drums filled with waste chemicals, solvents and even Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB) in them. In 1993, Mr. Argenton received the then longest jail sentence for environmental crimes in Canadian history.<br /><br />Located between Uniroyal and Varnicolor was Sulco Chemicals, later known as Canada Colours Co. (CCC). The company produced sulphuric acid for industries and other chemical companies. In its earlier days in Elmira, there were some fires on site and some terrible air emissions including toxic hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The company, however, had a major turnaround at the end of the 1990s and embraced the ethic of *Responsible Care in Elmira, unlike Uniroyal, their neighbour to the north.<br />Just south of Varnicolor and across Howard Avenue was Borg Textiles Canada Inc. (Borg). Borg was famous for its brand name Borg fabrics among other textile products. Allegedly workers never dumped wastes on the company property; however after 1965 they were suspected of discharging its high strength liquid wastes into the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). These discharges were reputed to kill the bacteria used to break down wastes at the STP. In the early 1980s, orange discharges, possibly of chlorobenzene, were seen in the storm drains running between Varnicolor and Borg. As chlorobenzene was allegedly never found on the Varnicolor site it begs the question as to where it came from. In the 1980s, Mr. Argenton vigorously denied that it came from his site; however, based on his vigorous denials a decade later, even after being caught dumping other solvents and worse, his denials shouldn’t carry too much weight.<br /><br />Other industries in Elmira included Sanyo Canadian Machine Works Inc. (Sanyo) on Industrial Drive as well as the Elmira Shirt and Coverall Co., Walco Equipment Ltd. on Arthur Street and from 1945 to the 1970s, McKee Harvesters at the south end of Elmira. Silverwood Dairy at the extreme north end of Elmira was alleged to routinely dump their liquid food wastes into the Creek which ran beside the factory. There was a furniture factory on Union Street beside Uniroyal. It was originally known as the Elmira Furniture Company and later as Roxton Furniture Ltd. Martin Pet Foods is also located at 43 Arthur St. and there was a sub-surface cleanup of the current parking lot area in front of their buildings many years ago. The Strauss Fuel Depot, owned by Imperial Esso, was across the road from Martin Pet Foods.<br /><br />The Strauss Fuel Depot was operated by Bill Strauss a long time Wellesley Township councillor (1969 to 1975) and Woolwich Township councillor (1985 to 1994) and he was mayor of Woolwich Township from 1997 to 2010. Mr. Strauss also owned and operated a service station in Heidelberg, a village several kilometers to the south-west . Both these properties were highly contaminated with petroleum products and required extensive cleanup. I worked on the cleanup of the Strauss Fuel Depot in Elmira several years back and the Heidelberg service station is still under remediation in 2018. The Strauss Fuel Depot was immediately beside the Creek and most likely discharged contaminated groundwater resulting from spills and leaks into the creek. Only in Elmira could such a polluter not only be a councillor but end up as a mayor and also on Regional Council. There is a business located not far from the North Wellfield. It has never been made public but it required serious remediation after contamination was discovered on its property. My understanding is that it was cleaned up after the 1989 Elmira water well closures. This garnered no public or media attention. Lastly Elmira has been blessed by multiple service stations with leaking gas and or diesel tanks. The old Gord’s service station by Snyder and Church Street was one of them as well as a gas station at Park and Arthur Street. . The second one had impacted the former Steddick Hotel site as well as its own property. Thirdly was Voisin Motors now the site of Shoppers Drug Mart in downtown Elmira. It was extensively remediated several years ago although likely the municipal drinking water aquifer was impacted by it.<br /><br />Trouble In Paradise<br /><br />There were signs of environmental trouble on the horizon. A local trapper, Ken Reger, who also worked at Uniroyal reported chemical contamination in furs of muskrat and other fur- bearing animals in the 1980s. The pelts stank so badly they were not saleable. By 1963 farmer Earl Stroh on the east side of Uniroyal, lost crops from leakage from Uniroyal Chemical’s east side pits and ponds. 4 In the same year, further south, farmer Leander Martin lost a number of cattle who had drunk from the Creek. 5 The cattle apparently didn’t even make it back to the barn before dying. By this time, after twenty years of chemical production and third world disposal methods, the Creek was in huge trouble. It stank, the fish died, sometimes it ran in different colours, and, in fact, if not totally devoid of life, it was extremely close. The assault upon it was staggering. Workers at Uniroyal were dumping solids, liquids, and sludges into various unlined pits and ponds on both sides of the Creek. These pits and ponds often overflowed and the wastes ran overland directly into the creek as well as infiltrated into the ground and dissolved into the groundwater; which then discharged into the Creek. During the 1960s Uniroyal sent approximately 166,000 Imperial gallons of liquid toxic wastes per day via two pipelines across the Creek into two unlined, open waste ponds. With or without precipitation, it’s hard to believe that these ponds didn’t overflow regularly.<br /><br />Ken Reger also testified at the second Uniroyal Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) hearings in Elmira in the early 1990s. He stated that muskrats on the Uniroyal site were much smaller and thinner than elsewhere 6. Similarly, the backwater at Uniroyal’s north end near Church Street held carp that were half the size of carp further upstream in the Creek. 7 He felt this difference in size was likely due to oil of aniline sludges being used to build up the eastern shore of this backwater area of the Creek. Aniline sludges contain benzene and some of these sludges would slide into the water. Furthermore, finished product would spill from overflowing storage holding tanks. The product was soaked up using gravel that was then shovelled into 45 gallon drums. Mr. Reger testified that these drums and gravel and remaining product “…were usually dumped in the town dump (at the south end of the Uniroyal property), as it was a gooey mess”. 8 Mr. Reger further gave evidence that there were “many pure herbicide spills due to overflowing of tanks…When it became too soupy to walk in more road gravel would be spread there and periodically a front-end loader would take this, usually to the town dump, and fresh gravel would be spread in these areas.” 9<br /><br />Other former Uniroyal employees as well as citizens also spoke at the EAB hearing regarding the damage and harm that Uniroyal had done to the community over the decades prior to the drinking wells being shut down. Esther Thur, a long time local resident, gave accounts of the chemical odours at nights that wafted through town. She mentioned how the tomatoes in gardens around town all absorbed airborne chemicals and were inedible.10 Incredibly local currency (paper money) in Elmira actually smelled of Uniroyal chemicals.11 West of and next door to the Uniroyal property , the Elmira Furniture Co. and later Roxton Furniture, had to close the windows against fumigations from Uniroyal during the day. Sometimes, the employees, who included Esther Thur’s husband, Ed, were sent home early as they became ill from the fumes.12 Mr. Thur predeceased Esther Thur by many years and Esther Thur, who died in 2004, had blamed Uniroyal for years for the cancers she suffered from. This testimony was written in the Elmira Independent by reporter Roddy Turpin who was the only reporter present for the entirety of the EAB hearings.<br /><br />Municipal Water, Sewer, and Waste Disposal<br /><br />Shortly after Naugatuck Chemical reopened the shuttered factory located conveniently with a naturally made waste sewer (the Creek) running down its middle, the town of Elmira decided to provide municipal water to its inhabitants. Private wells had been the norm but in 1944 the first municipal well, E2 (Elmira Well #2) was commissioned. It was located five or six hundred metres north-west of Naugatuck Chemical . This was a very bad idea but it is reasonable to suggest that none of the local councillors or other authorities was negligent. This well was only slightly upgradient via groundwater flow and would be better described as cross-gradient to the direction of natural groundwater flow which was primarily southwards. Further exacerbating future problems more drinking water wells were added to what became known as the North Wellfield. E5 was commissioned in 1947, E6 in 1957, E8 in 1972 and E5A in 1984. In hindsight, the degree of political and environmental incompetence and negligence grew with the addition of each new well so close to the now Uniroyal Chemical factory. In essence the greater the pumping at the North Wellfield the greater the natural southwards flow of groundwater that was diverted north–westwards towards this relatively new wellfield. A pumping well, especially one pumping day in and day out lowers the groundwater levels around it and in effect produces a very wide ranging cone of influence. Hence groundwater further away will tend to move downhill towards where the top of the groundwater surface has been lowered by regular pumping.<br /><br />Oddly, in hindsight at least, 1961 was the start of ongoing and long term groundwater exploration programs in and around the town of Elmira. By 1961 Elmira’s North Wellfield consisted of wells E2, E5 and E6. The wells were drilled into a deeper municipal aquifer with both having enough thickness as well as areal extent to be able to readily sustain Elmira’s 1961 population. Allegedly the wells provided good quality water free from contamination. Elmira in the 60s certainly wasn’t the bedroom community it has become for Kitchener-Waterloo. Hence, it seems rather incongruous to be spending money at this time looking for something that the community had in abundance.<br /><br />In 1965 construction began on the Elmira (STP). Until then, municipal sewers carried human waste to a massive surface tank on the west side of the Creek, an area which was later owned by Nutrite Inc. The overflow from this tank went untreated into the Canagagigue Creek. The plan was to use this new STP for both municipal and industrial waste treatment. In fact, Uniroyal contributed financially to building the Elmira STP. The actual property that the STP occupies, remains next to Uniroyal’s southern property border. Uniroyal’s extreme south-west property had formerly been Municipal Landfill #2, known as M2. It operated from 1936 until 1962 and contained municipal garbage, foodstuffs, lawn and garden wastes, paper, ashes, and industrial wastes. The reality is that local industry had always paid taxes and expected municipal services in return, including waste disposal. At the Environmental Appeal Board hearing held in Elmira in the spring of 1991, Ken Reger also testified that steel barrels were removed from the ground during excavation for the STP. In places these barrels were stacked on top of each other eight to nine barrels deep.13 These barrels and their chemical contents had been initially disposed into the M2 landfill, property that was subsequently purchased and used by Uniroyal .<br /><br />When M2 was closed in 1962 a new municipal/industrial landfill space was built on property leased from Cecil Bolender. The Bolender Landfill was in operation from 1962 until approximately 1970. It too accepted certain Uniroyal wastes. In 1990 with the municipal wells closed, the Bolender landfill was seriously considered as a possible source of NDMA contaminating the municipal aquifers. The First Street Landfill site operated from approximately 1968 until 1972 which was a very short lived landfill. These three landfills were positioned particularly close to the Creek, guaranteeing a ready, ongoing and likely never ending source of contamination to groundwater and in turn to the Creek. To this day, contaminants in the Creek may very well be refreshed from any or all of these landfills. How Woolwich Township to this day have not been ordered to clean them up by at least installing leachate controls or doing hydraulic pumping is beyond me.<br /><br />In this same year of 1965, groundwater exploration continued in and around Elmira. International Water Supply (IWS) drilled test wells and test holes both north and south of the North Wellfield in the hunt for additional water supplies. The Ontario Water Resources Commission (OWRC) was looking for alternate water supplies on behalf of the Elmira Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Lastly in the 1970s the Region of Waterloo was also looking for additional groundwater sources. What exactly were they not telling the citizens of Elmira back then?<br /><br />The Natural Environment<br /><br />In 1966 the former Ontario Water Resources Commission (OWRC) which is now the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP)) did a biological survey of the Grand River watershed. The title of the report is “Biological Survey Of The Grand River And Its Tributaries 1966.” Samples were taken of bottom fauna, fish, and water throughout the entire watershed. The focus of my story is on one creek, namely the Canagagigue in the top half of the Grand River, as well as one of the three reaches of the Grand River, namely the Upper Grand River. I have looked at data from sample points in other creeks feeding into the Grand River as well as data downstream and upstream on rivers before they enter the Grand River. The results are shocking and stunning. I have in the past referred to the Creek as devoid of life. Not just devoid of fish but devoid of all life including the benthic community that lives in the sediments on the bottom of creeks and rivers. The loss of diversity and number of species is indeed shocking. There are, however, small numbers of extremely hardy and pollution tolerant members of the sediment burrowing community in parts of the Creek on the Uniroyal site. There are other parts of the Creek on the site, nearest to specific ponds and lagoons, that have absolutely zero of these tiny organisms because they are not capable of surviving the ongoing toxic chemical releases to the creek.<br /><br />There was a complete absence of fish between the upstream half of the Uniroyal property and the incoming tributary stream near West Montrose just before Jigs Hollow Road and the Grand River. “At station Ca8, 100 feet downstream from station Ca7, the bottom fauna was altered more drastically towards fewer individuals and reduced number of taxa. Only 4 individuals and 2 taxa of macroinvertebrates were obtained. A community of this nature in Southern Ontario is found only in the presence of considerable toxic pollution. Approximately 100 feet of earth separates the creek from retention lagoons operated by Uniroyal 1966 Limited. Seepage from these ponds probably occurs, thereby accounting for the unbalanced nature of the macroinvertebrate community at station Ca8. Similar conditions were evident at station Ca9, approximately 100 yards downstream from the Elmira Water Pollution Control Plant, and again at stations Ca10 and Ca11. At the latter station, approximately 2 miles downstream from Elmira, toxic conditions limited the bottom fauna to midge larvae (Chironomidae). Environmental conditions were improved considerably at the mouth of Canagagigue Creek (station Ca13) following dilution from the tributary stream at West Montrose.”14 Furthermore this 1966 report advises that “At station Ca6 (Bolender Park), fewer fish than would be expected were obtained and the only species represented was the common shiner, (Notropis cornutus). All were excluded from the creek at and between stations Ca7 and Ca11. Some improvement in water quality was evident at station Ca13 where the white sucker (Catostomus commersoni) and the bluntnosed minnow (Pimphales notatus) were taken. Limited dilution occurs upstream from this station which would account for this improvement. However, a normal fish community was not present at that location and moreover, seven species of fish disappeared from the Grand River at station G11, below the point of entry of Canagagigue Creek into the Grand.” 15<br />“Within the Grand River itself downstream of the mouth of the ”Gig” impairment of water quality was evident from the fish obtained at stations G8 and G11. At station G11 seven species of fish disappeared as a result of toxic wastes from Canagagigue Creek. …The influence of impaired water from Canagagigue Creek was detected chemically at station G11 on the Grand River. At that location the level of BOD, nutrients and solids increased.”16<br /><br />By 1968 the OWRC publicly stated that Uniroyal Chemical were an outstanding pollution problem. More test wells were dug in Elmira in 1968 as the search for groundwater continued. At the time there were no shortages or other symptoms of wells running dry in the North Wellfield.<br /><br />Early Remediation<br /><br />In 1970 Uniroyal, possibly in consultation with the OWRC, decided to clay line its on-site west side lagoons. These lagoons were the production operating ponds (RPW 5-8) still used to pretreat wastes on their way to the Elmira STP. The plan was to slow the quantity of chemical liquid wastes percolating through the bottom of the ponds into the underlying aquifers. In hindsight the discharging of both solvents and chlorinated compounds known as Dense Non Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPLS) continued unabated into the underlying soils, aquitards, and aquifers. In this same year, the first southern well, E7 became operational. It had previously been a test well for the ongoing groundwater exploration in Elmira.<br /><br />By 1976 Uniroyal ’s pre-treatment plant consisted of activated carbon treatment of its liquid wastes; later they went to the Elmira STP . NDMA was first found in Uniroyal’s wastewater in 1977. That same year, the second well was commissioned in the South Wellfield (E9). Oddly, neither the OWRC, the Elmira PUC nor Uniroyal apparently thought to test the water in the North or South Wellfields for NDMA. In my opinion, the NDMA was already there by 1977 and testing likely would have prevented the next twelve years of human exposures to the carcinogenic chemical. In 1979 Uniroyal tested the air for NDMA around their plant. The monitoring results exceeded the American air standards although Ken Bradley, formerly of Uniroyal, and currently head of the Ontario Waste Management Commission, advised the EAB that his supervisor had told him that it would take ten to twenty years of breathing that air before harm would accrue. Ken informed him that he figured that NDMA had been in the air around Uniroyal for about thirty years. 17<br /><br />There was cleanup going on between 1984 and 1987. The west side ponds were cleaned of their sludges and liquids. These and other on-site pits and ponds were put into RPE 4 & 5 on the east side of the site. These two east side pits were designated as “consolidation” pits and were then covered with plastic in order to prevent rain from infiltrating them. While I don’t know if rain was prevented from going in I can tell you that pesticide odours and more were not prevented from leaving the pits. In 1991 I took a little independent field trip to the site which earned me my very first, but not last, trespassing citation.<br /><br />Approximately in 1985 the east side Stroh Drain was built. This drain was on the Stroh property however parallel to the Uniroyal/Chemtura property line and only 20 metres away from it. When or if the “Interceptor Trench” was built on the Chemtura property to divert contaminated groundwater from Uniroyal is open to speculation. My guess is that it was built also shortly before the Elmira drinking wells were shut down by the MOE in November 1989. Currently Chemtura/Laxness likely still dispute that this Interceptor Trench exists. Their credibility has been tested and found wanting over the last thirty years here in Elmira. Indeed if it is what I think it is, the ramifications in regards to environmental laws in Ontario could be severe. It is my belief that this Interceptor Trench was the primary reason why Uniroyal and the MOE settled for only hydraulic containment of Uniroyal’s south-west corner. They felt that the east side groundwater was being effectively diverted from discharging into the Creek on Uniroyal’s property courtesy of the Interceptor Trench and its discharge into the Stroh Drain. The Stroh Drain discharges several hundred metres further downstream back into the creek, well off the Uniroyal property.<br /><br />Awakenings<br /><br />A rude awakening occurred in 1979 with notice of the abuses of the chemical industry in North America in general and specifically in New York State as developers built a subdivision on top of the long covered Love Canal. The Canal’s purpose was to by-pass Niagara Falls but it never did get finished. It ended up being used to bury toxic wastes produced by Hooker Electrochemical Company (Hooker). Hooker was quite the success story as they produced trichlorophenol (TCP) among other chemical products. One of their customers was none other than Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. in Elmira. TCP was one of the raw materials used in 2, 4, 5-T herbicide, which had unfortunately an impurity known as 2,3,7,8 TCDD or dioxin. These dioxins caused severe health problems among children in the residential subdivision at Love Canal. Lois Gibbs, a mother of two, found it necessary to mobilize the residents to demand that they be protected and compensated for their property as well as their health losses.<br /><br />The plot was thickening in Elmira. There were rumours and concerns of course in the community that they were on borrowed time regarding the safety of Elmira’s drinking wells. Publicly, however, whenever they asked, the population of Elmira was reassured that authorities knew exactly what they were doing. By 1981 Uniroyal’s groundwater consultants, Morrison Beatty Ltd., had concluded that the municipal aquifer underneath the Uniroyal site was the exact same aquifer underneath most of Elmira and the same aquifer that both the North and South Wellfields were situated in. That was very bad news as it indicated a direct hydraulic connection from the Uniroyal site to both wellfields. The same year three pumping wells were drilled on the Uniroyal site namely PW1, PW2 and PW3. Their purpose was to reduce natural groundwater migration and hence act as containment wells to prevent Uniroyal’s contaminated groundwater from leaving the site. Way too little, way too late. However these wells were not put to use during the 1980s. There were two legitimate concerns. First, no treatment for the contaminated groundwater was planned prior to its discharge into the Creek. Wow! Second the Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee (CEAC) was established in 1982 as a committee of Woolwich Township Council. The members believed that these deep pumping wells in the municipal aquifer would likely draw even higher contaminated groundwater from the upper aquifer, deeper into the municipal aquifer faster than it was already migrating downwards.<br /><br />Jeff Merriman, Environmental Engineer, with Chemtura Canada had advised Michael Heitmann and Bonita Wagler in their 2017 documentary that Uniroyal knew the town wells were threatened in the late 1970s or early 1980s. This awareness makes sense otherwise Uniroyal would never have drilled the on-site containment wells PW1, PW2 and PW3 in 1981. If and when Uniroyal’s toxic legacy made it to either wellfield the jig was up as far as Uniroyal’s public claims that nothing had left its site. The MOE then and now still pretend that contamination in the natural environment is acceptable as long as it hasn’t travelled to another property. This nonsensical position has delayed far too many remediation strategies waiting for the inevitable escape of toxic chemicals to happen.<br /><br />In 1982 the MOE in conjunction with the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) published a study, titled “Grand River Basin Management Study.” The study focuses on flood control, water quantity, and water quality. The Canagagigue was considered a major issue as its waters had been polluting the Grand River since the late 1940s. The research for this report was done between 1977 and 1981 and makes clear that all parties involved such as the GRCA, MOE, and Uniroyal were fully aware of the threat that existed to the Elmira municipal drinking water supplies at that time, approximately a decade prior to the actual shutdown of the municipal wellfields.<br /><br />Also clearly enunciated in the report is the further damage that had been done to the Grand River in Woolwich Township by an old, abandoned landfill containing oils and petroleum sludges in it between Breslube Enterprises Limited in Breslau and the Grand River. This site had been the cause of the Region of Waterloo shutting down two Infiltration Wells along the Grand River, namely K70 and K71. To this day outgoing Regional Chair Ken Seiling and his Engineering Department still refuse to acknowledge the toxic contamination from this landfill and its effects upon either the wells or the river. This report also points the finger at Borg Textiles Canada Inc. in Elmira as sending toxic loads to the Elmira STP which damaged the bacteria needed for the biological treatment of sewage wastes.18<br /><br />In May of 1982, the Ontario MOE sent a letter to Jack Pym, Manufacturing Manager, of Uniroyal advising him that its site had a very serious pollution problem.19 Dioxins were found for the first time in 1984 at 600 parts per trillion on the Uniroyal site in the location of the former municipal landfill known as M2. 20 Surface soil standards for Dioxins vary with the use of the land such as parks, agricultural, or industrial purposes. Regardless the standards are all well below 100 parts per trillion. David Ash, Uniroyal’s general manager, advised the K-W Record of this contamination in their January 20, 1993 edition. In 1984, five years prior to the shutdown of the public drinking wells, Uniroyal and the MOE likely figured that this Dioxin bad news was best kept between them. This was especially so as Dioxins at Love Canal had people concerned. Essentially the discovery of Dioxins in M2 reinforced that there were industrial wastes in Elmira’s landfill sites including the Bolender Landfill just across Church Street and from the company.<br /><br />Back to the 1984 Control Order served on Jack Pym, the Manager of Manufacturing at Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. The 1984 Control Order not only ordered a professional hydrogeological report, it required additional test well monitoring and leachate control from the west side operating ponds. This control order also required remediation of the east side pits and control of discharges from magnetic anomalies, which would indicate buried drums. The December 1, 1983 Morrison Beatty report is referenced in this control order. Two of these three requirements were attended to vigorously by Uniroyal. They removed two thousand drums filled with toxic wastes from Burial Area East-1 (BAE-1) on the east side and sent them off-site. Uniroyal’s sub-contractors removed sludges from the west side operating ponds and sent them across the Creek to the east side “Consolidation” pits RPE 4 & 5. However they did not remediate the east side pits until well after toxic disaster struck the municipal wells in 1989.Uniroyal dug them up out of the earth and stored them in an on-site facility Uniroyal called the Envirodome in December 1993 . Talk about face saving with the name “Envirodome” and putting a positive spin on their negligence. The locals referred to the building as either the “Toxidome” or the “Mausoleum.”<br /><br />In 1987 the previously mentioned two thousand drums were excavated from BAE-1 and removed from the site. Likely they ended up in Corunna, Ontario (near Sarnia) at a supposedly secure hazardous waste site. Seven thousand gallons of liquid wastes including dioxins were pumped into two blue tanks on the east side for long term storage. In 1988, the groundwater exploration programs around Elmira were still in progress. In hindsight, it seems obvious that all the players knew the score at this time while continuing to deceive the public.<br /><br />The Province, the Ministry, and the Feds<br /><br />By 1984 the MOE knew that they were in serious trouble. Love Canal had been in the news for some time and governments, industry, and the regulators were all looking very bad. Something serious had to be done so when the wells went down all parties could claim that they had already been taking significant steps. Their April 13, 1984 Control Order demanded that more monitoring wells be built and monitoring be done on a routine and regular basis. Both groundwater elevation monitoring, which shows the direction of groundwater flow, as well as chemical analyses of the groundwater were to be carried out regularly. In the North Wellfield well E5A was drilled to replace well E5. Interestingly but not at all surprisingly E5A was the well in the North Wellfield farthest away from Uniroyal. Also interestingly in the 1989 Drinking Water Surveillance Program (DWSP), well E5A was the only well tested by the MOE in the North Wellfield. This in my opinion speaks to the unwillingness of the Ontario MOE to admit to the contamination of the drinking water wells one second sooner than absolutely necessary. All parties were hoping to wriggle out of the mess their negligence had caused, with their skins and reputations intact.<br /><br />Two other ironic twists of fate need to be mentioned. The provincial officer who legally served Jack Pym with the April 13, 1984 Control Order was none other than Glenn P. McDonald of the MOE. The provincial officer who provided the report from which the Control Order was written was Wayne Jackman of the MOE Mr. Jackman went on to be the main MOE’s liaison and hydrogeologist in regards to the future control order served on Varnicolor Chemical Ltd. and would testify later at the legal prosecution of its owner, Severin Argenton. After the smoke cleared, Mr. Jackman also worked on behalf of the MOE in negotiations with Phillips Environmental Inc. (Phillips) a company that wanted to buy the Varnicolor site. Private deals were made, not in the public interest, and resulted in the control order for deep examination of the soils for solvent contamination; mysteriously disappearing from the new control order. This saved Phillips substantial monies by only having to do a very shallow cleanup. Mr. Jackman was then hired away from the MOE by Phillips.<br /><br />Glenn P. McDonald’s future was a little less bright. He was caught tipping off Severin Argenton of Varnicolor about an impending raid on May 17, 1990 by the MOE. I assisted with his getting caught due to an informant I had, working inside Varnicolor, after I’d been fired by Mr. Argenton. Mr. McDonald was criminally charged with Breach of Trust although charges were mysteriously reduced with zero prior warning to the citizens involved in Mr. McDonald apprehension. Nevertheless, he was convicted of obstructing an MOE officer and was fired from the Ontario Ministry of Environment.<br /><br />Dames & Moore was removed by David Ash of Uniroyal in 1992 and Conestoga Rovers (CRA) took over as Uniroyal’s full time consultants. I can take major credit for getting Dames & Moore removed and perhaps unfortunately some discredit for bringing on CRA. This will be elaborated on in Chapter Three. Hindsight being 20/20 vision, I expect that Uniroyal wanted the benefit of a highly successful consulting firm whose engineers had recently made their bones with their hydraulic containment of the Love Canal. Decades later, CRA looked less successful and intelligent as ongoing problems plagued Love Canal’s remaining residents still. It’s my experience that history can be funny that way. In 2017 and 2018 CRA’s engineers aren’t looking so hot in Elmira either. Dr. Richard Jackson, past chair of the Technical Advisory Group, has quite deflated their professional efforts, or lack thereof, in Elmira.<br /><br />By 1989, consulting company, CH2MHILL had completed Phase 1 of a research and development program to investigate permanent on-site contaminated groundwater solutions occurring at toxic waste sites in Canada. The partners funding this study included the federal Department of Supply & Services, Ontario MOE and Environment Canada. Unsurprisingly, especially in hindsight, the demonstration project was to be at Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. in Elmira, Ontario. This was the last known public input the Federal Government of Canada made regarding the Uniroyal property. Representatives have kept their distance since 1989 despite being formally requested to assist by Dr. Henry Regier. Dr. Regier a renowned academic and leader in international research institutes and agencies for ecosystems and water quality as well as a member of the Order of Canada in recognition of his life-long work; sent a letter of appeal to the Auditor General of Canada in 2004 requesting assistance regarding cleanup of the site.<br /><br />The Shoe Finally Drops<br /><br />In November 1989 the MOE advised the Region of Waterloo that they had sampled the water two months earlier from well E7 in the South Wellfield and found a strange sounding chemical known as NDMA. They also advised that they had found cyclohexylamine. The MOE did not have a drinking water standard for NDMA but other jurisdictions did and this well exceeded those standards. NDMA was considered to be carcinogenic. At the time I lived in Kitchener but was working in Elmira and drinking the tap water during the day. There appeared to be confusion on the part of all our government authorities. They all seemed to be totally taken by surprise by the discovery. They immediately speculated that grease used for the pumps at the wells may have contaminated the water with NDMA. At a public meeting, citizen Richard Clausi among others debunked this suggestion as nonsense. Was this attempt to identify a source nothing more than a Hail Mary or a last ditch attempt to deflect responsibility for government shortcomings? The whole basis of the NDMA discovery allegedly being the sole cause of the shutdown of the Elmira wellfields always seemed to me to be very self-serving for our local politicians and authorities. NDMA moves more quickly than many other chemicals in the groundwater. Other chemicals are “retarded” or slowed by bonding with soil particles in the subsurface whereas NDMA readily dissolved and flowed with the groundwater and at the same speed.<br /><br />When residents began to recall years of frequently bad tasting tap water their thoughts went to the stinkiest company in town and that would be Uniroyal Chemical. Yes Elmira had had Rothsay Concentrates, a rendering company, stink up the town much earlier on with dead animal carcasses but Uniroyal had the market for chemical stenches pretty much cornered. Wally Ruck, a very senior Uniroyal Chemical spokesperson, claimed that “NDMA was not in their vocabulary.” He never did live down that falsehood. Recall that Uniroyal had discovered NDMA in their wastewater going to the Elmira STP back in 1977 and then again in their air emissions in 1979.<br /><br />Of course the MOE had to wade in and reassure everybody that they were all over the problem. Jim Bradley, the Minister of the Environment at the time, sent a crack 5 man team to Elmira to discover who and where the source of the NDMA was. Many locals as well as some in the MOE were pretty sure that Uniroyal was the source. Uniroyal denied it and even went so far as to offer to donate one million Canadian dollars towards a formal study of all potential sources in Elmira. Uniroyal seemed unusually confident that they were not the only source of groundwater contamination in Elmira. While other sources have indeed been found since for contributing other chemical contamination in the municipal aquifers, to date no one has been put on the hook other than Uniroyal for the NDMA contamination. My bets are still on Varnicolor Chemical Ltd. and or Sanyo Canadian Machine Works although evidence for the latter is extremely thin.<br /><br />While working in Elmira in 1989 I had virtually zero knowledge of groundwater, aquifers, pollution standards for chemicals in groundwater, etc. What I did know was that I was currently working for a pig of an individual, environment wise. Before the 1989 water crisis broke in town I had been documenting for nearly a year various spills, leaks, and other negligent handling of solvents. I was appalled by what I saw happening at Varnicolor in Elmira. It was the most backward, amateur operation imaginable. Workers would even attempt to stop the spread of spilled liquid solvents on the bare ground using snow when we ran out of sawdust. What a farce. I had also seen the relationship between the MOE and Varnicolor Chemical. It was beyond pathetic. The MOE would phone ahead of time and ask the owner, Severin Argenton, when it would be convenient for them to inspect on such and such a day. Often, it was not convenient at a suggested date and a future one was set. Workers would then use the extra time to clean up the yard, at least superficially. Never were the employees asked any questions and similar to Jim Bradley’s five man team usually we would never see the MOE representatives. They spent the bulk of their time in the office where it wasn’t quite so dirty and stinky, drinking coffee, and chatting with management.<br /><br />Hindsight is often 20/20. I only wish I knew the history of both Uniroyal and Elmira back at the start of my thirty year odyssey into public consultation and activism. I sincerely wish that all the citizens involved in those early days knew what had transpired prior to their foray into the realm of polluters, politicians and the environment. This is partly the purpose of this book. The next generation need a manual, a how to, a how not to, an eye opening into the human weaknesses not only of politicians, corporate managers, government bureaucrats but also of their fellow citizens.<br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter One<br /><br />1 Susan C. Rupert, Communication of Citizen Environmental Concerns: Relations Between APT<br />Environment And Local News Media, Waterloo, 1994, p.114.<br /><br />2 Ibid.<br />3 Ibid.<br />4 Ibid.<br />5 Ibid.<br />6 Roddy Turpin, “Former Uniroyal employee highlights effects of Canagagigue creek pollution”,<br />Elmira Independent, May 6, 1991, p.1.<br />7 Ibid.<br />8 Ibid.<br />9 Ibid.<br />10 Ibid. p.3.<br />11 Ibid. p.3.<br />12 Ibid. p.3.<br />13 Ibid. p.3.<br />14 M.J. German, Biological Survey of the Grand River And Its Tributaries 1966, December 1967, p.8.<br />15 Ibid. p.9.<br />16 Ibid. p.17.<br />17 Bob Burtt, No Guardians At The Gate, 2014, p.19.<br />18 GRCA, Grand River Basin Water Management Study, 1982, p.E5.<br />19 Editorial, Elmira Independent, “Current situation is extremely serious”, February 19, 1991, p.4.<br />20 Bob Burtt, “Dioxins blamed on old dump”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, January 20, 1993, p. 4.</div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-23518042290722253952023-12-19T12:31:00.000-08:002023-12-19T12:31:04.392-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_16.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3709648044077631" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Two:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />10 .... Ontario Ministry of Environment<br /><br />11 .... Surprise Raid<br /><br />12 .... Full Aerial Response Team<br /><br />12 .... Bait & Switch<br /><br />13 .... Shhh<br /><br />13 .... Infrastructure for Mass Surreptitious Dumping<br /><br />14 .... Public Inquiry Needed<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 2<br /><br />Ontario Ministry of Environment<br /><br />Almost simultaneously with the Elmira Water Crisis and Uniroyal Chemical we had the deeply concerning revelations about another bad apple chemical company in Elmira, Ontario namely Varnicolor Chemical. None of we APT members had any real experience dealing with the government employed deceivers and factually challenged individuals who in hindsight were more concerned with the MOE’s reputation than they were with protecting the environment. With thirty years hindsight I can see much more clearly how individuals who may have started with high expectations and hopes to make a difference were slowly ground down from above. Making waves, as in many organizations, was the cardinal sin. Keep in mind that when I use the word corruption in regards to the Ontario MOE it doesn’t have to be brown paper bags full of cash as was received by a past Canadian Prime Minister. Corruption can be as simple as senior staff telling underlings to either look the other way or always assume the best unless categorically proven otherwise. Even insisting upon unreasonable levels of evidence or proof beyond reproach before even beginning an investigation can be corruption.<br /><br />The focus of this book is on how our authorities intentionally supported and ran interference for industrial polluters while simultaneously misleading the public. Because of that some of the examples of MOE corruption regarding Varnicolor need to be told. I’ve already mentioned that the MOE were in the habit of cooperating with industrial concerns by scheduling their inspections of their facilities ahead of time. This tended to remove the adversarial nature of inspectors trying to “catch” lawbreaking businesses. The attitude was fostered by the MOE that hey we’re just here to help you avoid expensive problems down the road or to avoid inadvertent bad practices that could be construed as detrimental to the environment. It was an intentionally congenial and collaborative effort all on behalf of the environment and the public interest. After all it had nothing to do with intentional bad apples it was simply that business interests were experts in producing the products of their businesses and the Ontario MOE were experts in helping businesses avoid costly environmental problems down the road. In a sense the MOE tried to establish that they were partners with industry. I can actually see that approach working with some industries and businesses. Profit is not a dirty word. If the MOE are dealing with a company with a truly clean environmental record then it’s in both parties interests to keep the relationship professional, congenial, and respectful. If however they are dealing with a company who have clearly polluted the air, the water, and the ground then a sterner, less accommodating approach is required. Often over the decades, I’ve expressed my opinion in regards to the MOE’s partnership with Uniroyal Chemical by referring to them as partners in pollution with Uniroyal Chemical.<br /><br />My second exposure to the style of enforcement practiced by the MOE came about when I was ordered into the office of Severin Argenton in early 1990. Severin had a copy of a letter that I had sent anonymously to the MOE advising them of some of the ongoing pollution activities at Varnicolor Chemical. These included both intentional dumping as well as unintended but inevitable spills of solvents on site. Severin was very upset and claimed that he knew that I was the source of the letter. I accurately replied that his claim was nonsense and stated that I had no idea where the letter came from or how he had gotten it. I also read part of it and said that the level of knowledge shown in the letter was far above my knowledge or experience level. I knew that Severin was totally bluffing because I hadn’t told a soul at Varnicolor Chemical about my environmental concerns with what was going on. That was obviously the quickest way to get fired on the spot. Basically the MOE had read my letter and then sent it to Severin probably expecting that he would take care of the problem by firing the offender. In hindsight I expect that he might have hauled a couple of other employees into his office and tried to bluff them as well.<br /><br />I was indeed quickly “suspended” (fired) after I publicly came out to APT Environment at a public meeting in Elmira in February 1990. Fortunately the next month Dr. Bert Nalliah decided that he had had enough of Severin and his anti social, polluting behaviour. Bert had not only quit but he sent me a letter condemning Severin and Varnicolor for a plethora of polluting practices again both intentional and otherwise. The media jumped on the story and APT were also pleased because Varnicolor did not have the power and prestige that Uniroyal did. Uniroyal were a large employer whereas Varnicolor were not. Uniroyal sponsored community events whereas Varnicolor did not. Therefore criticism of APT waned when it became clear that they weren’t simply anti Uniroyal but were anti polluters in the community.<br /><br />The MOE however were another story. They rode in to Varnicolor’s defence immediately. They (in the person of Dave Ireland) claimed that a hydrogeological study had been done and that there was only minor groundwater contamination at Varnicolor. He claimed that Varnicolor had always passed their inspections and that while housekeeping was a little lax there were no environmental problems. This story was in the K-W Record prior to Dr. Nalliah’s stepping up.21 When we finally got a copy of the latest groundwater monitoring results done at Varnicolor it was beyond shocking. The sheer numbers of solvents and various chemicals in the shallow groundwater was ridiculous. The concentrations varied from parts per billion (ppb) to parts per million (ppm). The few chemical names that we recognized we looked up references such as the Ontario Drinking Water Standards (ODWS) to see if these groundwater concentrations exceeded them. Many did.<br /><br />We advised the MOE that there were environmental problems on Varnicolor’s other site located at the extreme eastern end of Oriole Parkway. The site became known as Lot 91. There were old road tankers being used to store various fuels, solvents and what appeared to be liquid wastes. The site itself was scary and stinky. The smell was that of solvents. We also found a few old steel drums in various stages of deterioration on the site. All in all there was no attempt to make this site look even remotely acceptable. Frankly at the time we didn’t have a clue as to how bad it was. Only months and years later did we gain a better understanding of the intentional dumping that had gone on here for a very long time.<br /><br />Surprise Raid<br /><br />The May 17, 1990 raid turned the whole Elmira Water Crisis on its head. APT Environment, of which we were all members, had under the tutelage of Susan Rupert and the Co-ordinating Committee been making an excellent name for themselves as knowledgeable, informed citizens who did their homework and asked reasonable, intelligent questions. While many residents were still willing to give the MOE the benefit of the doubt because there wasn’t yet a smoking gun, this incident changed all that. Even the seen it all, heard it all media were shocked by what transpired. I was tipped off a few days before May 17/90 that there was going to be a surprise raid on Varnicolor. It would include many MOE officers, police and scientific experts. How, pray tell, I asked my source, did you get wind of this “surprise” raid? My source who has remained anonymous to this day at his/her request advised me that none other than Severin was bragging to his staff that he’d received a tip directly from the MOE and that he knew exactly when they were coming and what they were looking for. In fact, he even removed some of his computer files prior to the MOE’s imminent raid. I shared my information with APT and we decided to spoil the party and spoil it publicly. If this was true then all the worries about corruption and collusion and private backroom deal making between the MOE and polluters that other activists had been telling us about seemed almost to be small potatoes.<br /><br />Sure enough the raid was set for 8 am. of May 17, 1990. About 7:45 the media who we’d contacted started showing up in the Varnicolor parking lot. Local newspapers, television and radio were there.22 Farther afield media also had been advised of the “surprise” raid. APT members with more flexible work schedules were there including me and Richard Clausi. At 8 am. in came car after car of MOE officers along with police officers to keep the peace in case Severin misbehaved. That of course wasn’t the problem for the MOE. The problem was that there were dozens of reporters, photographers and media outlets all sitting, waiting for the supposedly secret, surprise raid. The MOE were dead in the water. How the hell could APT have known about this secret raid and tipped off so many media who all showed up to find out if it was a hoax or for real? Within hours the MOE announced that one of their Investigation & Enforcement Branch officers was the leak. Glen McDonald admitted to tipping off Severin days before the raid. Mr. McDonald claimed that he felt sorry for Severin. Wow!<br /><br />So was there but one bad apple within the Ontario Ministry of Environment willing to give (or sell?) secrets to polluting industries? That was a very difficult question. Were they incompetent or corrupt or a little of both? Again hard to say. Individual grotesque incidents may paint a picture that is worth a thousand words. Or not. Here is another one.<br /><br />Full Aerial Response Team<br /><br />I was snooping on Lot 91 in 1991. I was doing this because after my experiences already related here I had zero confidence in the MOE. It was all compounded by their never ending lying to APT members at Varnicolor Liason Committee (VLC) meetings which Rich Clausi, Ted Oldfield and I attended, representing APT Environment. The stories the MOE told did not add up to what I knew first hand having worked for Varnicolor for nearly two years. They also didn’t add up to my inside sources ongoing phone conversations with me. I went on the Lot 91 site with a camera as usual and started looking around. Lo and behold if I didn’t spot a steel drum partly poking out of the ground. Then another one and another one. Some of them were more visible as the grass had been flattened down presumably by greater human activity on the site. A couple of others actually appeared as if some soil had been taken away along an embankment. Some were vertical in the ground and others horizontal.<br /><br />The next VLC meeting we were blessed with the presence of Arley McDonald MOE, the head of the Investigations & Enforcement Branch (IEB). APT members started talking about buried drums on the Lot 91 site. Now keep in mind the site is off the beaten path plus in the summer months the tree foliage and heavy underbrush hide the bulk of the site from any public property nearby. Darrol Bryant and I had been charged with trespassing on this site several months earlier. In that incident we were videotaping solvents leaking from a tanker onto the ground, and Severin showed up in a very aggressive mood. He was charged with assault. Regardless Arley McDonald knew that the site was private property and that there were no sightlines from off-site so he likely felt confident in assuring us that there absolutely were not any buried drums or even surface drums on this site as the MOE were all over Varnicolor by now and nothing was escaping their eagle eyed attention. Well I gently and politely advised Arley that I had information contrary to his and perhaps he might want to confirm with somebody, anybody, about buried drums before categorically declaring that there weren’t any present. Arley made the mistake of either thinking I was bluffing or that I only had verbal information from my inside source whom by now the MOE understood I had.<br /><br />What I had were colour photographs clearly showing the Lot 91 site and clearly showing various drums in various states of exposure from the ground. But it was actually much more than that. Beside each and every drum a small wooden stake had been hammered into the ground. On each stake was a small red ribbon clearly put there in order to find the buried or semi –buried drums readily again. And then there was the final nail in Arley and the MOE’s coffin. Arley was not alone representing the MOE at this meeting. Other local officers were present. I had given Arley ample time and opportunity to amend his claim or to even throw in a couple of weasel words or possible outs. Neither he nor any of the other MOE officers backed down an inch. There were NOT any drums any longer on this site as they‘d all been removed. The final nail if you will was that each wooden stake had three letters in black magic marker written on them. The letters were M, O and E (MOE).<br /><br />When the sputtering MOE officers and others present indignantly demanded to know how we could possibly have gotten colour photographs of such close up quality on a site hidden from the public road to the site, Richard Clausi advised them thusly. We used APT’s Full Aerial Response Team in order to take these photographs. Or FART for short.<br /><br />Bait & Switch<br /><br />Were other lessons learned from Varnicolor that shed light on MOE integrity and credibility? Unfortunately yes. Richard, Ted and I helped write the Varnicolor Chemical Control Order during these VLC meetings. One major aspect was that a hydrogeological report had to be done on the processing site at 62 Union St. which examined the full aerial and vertical extent of the contamination on this site. This was crucial to understanding whether or not Varnicolor’s dumping here had impacted the municipal aquifers supplying drinking water to Elmira residents. The MOE was hotly pursuing Uniroyal as the only source and Uniroyal were vehemently denying it. Sure enough when Phillips Environmental expressed interest in purchasing the site, suddenly the control order requirement for deep investigation was missing in action. Talk about a bait and switch. Public consultation was revealed as only for assisting the MOE as a public relations exercise and was not to be an impediment to their ability to make corporate deals not in the public interest. The MOE wanted someone else with money to buy the site and pay for even the greatly reduced investigation and subsequent cleanup.<br /><br />Shhh<br /><br />The cleanup on the Varnicolor site continues to this day. That is a tad odd for a site that we were told would require about ten years of pumping and treating after much of the shallow aquifer was excavated and removed from the site. The actual excavations were completed in 1994. The shallow pump and treat system was installed the next year and has been underway ever since. Granted there were complications as a neighbour’s property was discovered to be contaminated years later and had to be integrated into Varnicolor’s containment and treatment system. This of course was all done on the down low in order not to let the public know exactly how serious the Varnicolor contamination actually was. The current owner has been jumping through MOE hoops and loops for over fifteen years now. He has done everything and more that was requested and yet is still waiting for a Record of Site Condition (RSC) that would permit him to develop the property. His hydrogeological consulting firm is known as Peritus Environmental and they completed a Risk Assessment also required by the MOE more than two years ago. That Risk Assessment indicated that six different solvents from Varnicolor Chemical had penetrated through the shallow aquifer, the clay and silt aquitard and broken through to the municipal drinking water Aquifer. All of this was intentionally not investigated back in the early 1990s.<br /><br />Infrastructure for Mass Surreptitious Dumping<br /><br />One last issue that revealed the MOE’s agenda was their mishandling of the buried tanker and septic tank in the back yard of Varnicolor. Once again my source inside Varnicolor, after I had been fired, advised me of some astounding news. They reported that the floor drain in the front office building was hooked up to a three way valve inside the building. This valve could send the water, solvents, or whatever Severin wanted to either the storm sewers, the sanitary sewers or out the back of the building to a buried road tanker. Seriously! In fact while the first position of the valve went to only one sewer system the choice of sending the liquids to be slowly percolated into the soil behind the office building had two locations. The first as mentioned was the buried road tanker which in fact was the trailer only not the actual truck tractor that pulled it. The other option was a buried septic tank. Now keep in mind that while a buried road tanker was more than a little bizarre a buried septic tank certainly is not. After all that’s exactly where they are supposed to be such that toilet wastes can be broken down by bacteria within the tank and then the liquid can be slowly percolated through the tile bed into the ground. This septic tank however was not hooked up to the company’s toilets. They were hooked into the sanitary sewers where treatment then took place at the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant. Prior to 1965 this site quite likely had a septic system consisting of a tank and tile bed. Keep in mind that the company started there in 1962 although the building was formerly owned by one of Severin’s ongoing suppliers namely Bridgeland Terminals (BTL).<br /><br />Richard, Ted, and I as APT representatives on the Varnicolor Liaison Committee had an ongoing public audience as the media attended the meetings. This included the Elmira Independent as well as often the K-W Record. Also keep in mind that after the expose of the MOE’s likely corruption due to their “surprise” raid fiasco, we had a ton of credibility. The MOE initially denied everything. No it wasn’t possible. No we had bad information. How could you possibly know that? Why hadn’t Mr. Marshall made that allegation months ago? They were adamant but so were we. After all “Deep Throat” had never let us down. His/her credibility was miles ahead of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Eventually the MOE caved. Sort of. They set an approximate date and suggested that they would excavate behind the orange building (office building) looking for some imaginary buried tanker. We of course, possibly still unknown to them, were legally and with permission accessing a nearby building which overlooked the Varnicolor property. Lots of film footage, videos and photographs were taken from there. In fact the actual extent of the “lax” housekeeping was readily apparent as was the illegality of most of Varnicolor’s operations. Simple things like having skids of full drums of solvents and liquid wastes no more than two skids high were routinely ignored. All of that was obvious to us while at the same time the MOE were reassuring the public that Varnicolor were small potatoes compared to Uniroyal Chemical as the destroyers of the municipal aquifers. There were even a couple of APT members who expressed concerns that despite APT’s improved public persona by going after Varnicolor, they were worried that Varnicolor might take attention off of Uniroyal.<br /><br />The dig took place and that evening we were on the roof recording the results. Indeed there was the previously buried road tanker. Just as importantly we could see two pipes coming through the building and where one had been attached to the tanker. Oddly there was a second pipe that seemed to just end near the back of the road tanker. Richard and I arranged a meeting with MOE officers Gord Robinson and Con Papenhuzen. They were very polite and helpful and even provided us with colour photographs which were appreciated. Yes the tanker had been hooked up to the one pipe. No there was very little inside the tanker and no they couldn’t see any holes or openings in the tanker that would allow for liquids discharged from the floor drain inside the building to enter the tank and then slowly drain into the subsurface soils. At the moment they didn’t have an explanation as to why it was there and hooked up to the floor drain but they were making inquiries of the building’s previous owners. Lastly no our information was wrong there was no buried septic tank anywhere in the area near the buried road tanker.<br /><br />Richard and I were somewhat perplexed. Here was the smoking gun (almost) of what could be construed as a major illegal toxic liquid waste disposal system. We asked/pleaded with the two officers that the tanker be examined in great detail to see if there were either natural breeches in its integrity such as rust holes or damage as well as determining if there were any intentional punctures of the tanker that would allow any contents received from the orange building (office) to be dispersed into the soil. Richard and I were categorically promised that the tanker would not be destroyed but that it would be carefully examined to determine if it was part of an intentional, illegal liquid waste disposal system. We were lied to neither for the first nor the last time.<br /><br />At that point I went back to examining the Ministry’s colour photographs more carefully. I had great reason for so doing. Something was very wrong in them. These photographs were indeed taken at the time of the excavation and were time stamped. The ones that Richard and I and APT had were taken hours after the excavation. Plus “Deep Throat” (DT) had been present at the time of the excavation. He/she was a trusted, reliable, well paid, and long term employee. It’s even possible that after nearly thirty years that it is time to reveal the identity of my inside source at Varnicolor Chemical. While Severin went to his grave not knowing, as have others in the intervening years, nevertheless credit is due. Perhaps one last phone call may be necessary as a courtesy before this happens.<br /><br />DT told me that the backhoe readily “discovered” the buried road tanker behind the building. Equally obvious were the two pipes coming through the building and running alongside the wall. One indeed went into the road tanker and the other went into the septic tank immediately at the back end of the tanker. DT then advised me that the concrete lid was lifted off the septic tank using the backhoe, surrounding gravel was scooped up by the bucket and put into the tank after the lid was smashed, broken up and placed into the tank. What the hell were they thinking of? None of this was shared with Robinson or Papenhuzen at the time. They had a story to tell and we wanted to hear it first without them knowing how much we already knew.<br /><br />Both gentlemen kept on reassuring Richard and I that they had found nothing extraordinary. I found that comment itself extraordinary. It was as if they had been the ones telling us ahead of time that there was a buried tanker there and not the other way around. They kept reiterating that there wasn’t any buried septic tank nor was one expected to be found! This was a little too much, however as I didn’t know exactly how many Varnicolor employees, contractors or MOE were present at the dig I decided not to confront them with their ridiculous story directly. Protecting my incredible source turned out to have been the right move all along even in the early days when I didn’t trust him/her an inch. Instead I pointed out a slight problem with their colour photographs. There the two officers were busily snapping photographs during and after the dig including one lovely shot of the one officer standing at the north end of the gaping hole where the tanker had been. He was smiling as his colleague took his picture. I believe it was the aptly named Con standing there with a couple of steel rods poking out from the gravel Con was standing on. I pointed this out to them. In fact not only were there a couple of pieces of rebar or reinforcing rod sticking out but a very close examination of the photographs showed what looked like a gap somehow in the ground below Con’s feet. The twits or whoever took the picture took it before they’d gotten around to smashing the lid and putting it into the tank. The rebar was from damage to the concrete lid by the bucket of the backhoe while they were digging out the road tanker. The gap that could be seen in the picture was from where the lid of the septic tank had been shifted or raised a few inches. Here was Con Papenhuzen standing on top of what at one time likely was an actively used septic tank with the lid not entirely secure.<br /><br />Both MOE gentlemen gave the impression of being genuinely shocked and perplexed. Could they have been playing Richard and I? Possibly, but at the time I didn’t think either one was clever enough by half to do that. I suppose I could give them the benefit of the doubt and defend their honour by suggesting that they weren’t so much intentionally lying and covering up as they were simply incompetent. Perhaps the MOE like other less than honest organizations put a premium on loyalty and naivety well above independent thinking. The evidence however seems to put them clearly on site at the time of the excavation. Perhaps their superiors lowered the boom and categorically told them to deceive Richard and I. Results at a later date of samples taken from both the septic tank and the road tanker clarified that indeed both vessels had been used for drainage of liquid wastes from the Varnicolor building.<br /><br />Public Inquiry Needed<br /><br />Indeed these photographs further destroyed the MOE’s credibility as we showed them to various reporters and others.23 In hindsight it is absolutely amazing that the talk of some sort of public inquiry into the MOE’s handling of the Varnicolor investigation ended up being exactly that: talk. The media were behind the idea as was the Varnicolor sub-committee of APT. It was from these experiences that I later entered the Uniroyal fray front and centre. Ah politics yet again. Internal politics. Had the new, incoming leadership of APT after Susan Rupert left already made a secret deal with the MOE regarding keeping Varnicolor on the down low and out of sight as much as possible? Disgusting if so.<br /><br />A couple of further comments before I move back directly to the Uniroyal battles. Not only APT under the leadership of Susan Rupert but Richard and I with help from the very busy lawyer Ted Oldfield had established publicly our bona fides. We had shown grit, determination, smarts and the ability to dig. We had proven our integrity and our honest search for the truth. Little did we know that that was way more than enough for the Ontario MOE not to want to work with us and indeed to keep us in the dark as much as possible.<br /><br /><br />We stepped back somewhat after Varnicolor closed although we kept an eye on the still leaking Union St. site as the thousands of drums kept springing leaks until they were finally all removed by 1993. We participated at the Environmental Appeal Board when Varnicolor appealed trying to weaken the control order laid upon them. We were available for Severin Argenton’s trial for multiple charges under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act. None of the three of us was subpoenaed by the MOE to testify until we protested and I was belatedly subpoenaed although never called to testify. Speaking of the charges, when they were first laid they were all as Severin derogatorily, and publicly stated, mere “paperwork” charges. Astoundingly the MOE hadn’t charged him with polluting the environment or the groundwater under his site. With large scale groundwater contamination via illegal and surreptitious dumping, including DNAPLS and LNAPLS, how was this possible? Realize that the Elmira Municipal Aquifers that ran under Uniroyal and all the way to the South Wellfield also ran beneath Varnicolor Chemical. It was K-W Record reporter Phil Jalsevac who quickly picked up on this and started asking hard questions. Once again we publicly had to shame the Ontario MOE into doing their job. It was almost as if they categorically did not want the public to know the extent of environmental damage done by this company as they were more concerned about keeping Uniroyal Chemical securely and solely on the hook. In fact at the time Woolwich Township put together another committee under Councillor Ruby Weber to go over the details of the proposed pump and treat system.<br /><br />During all of this we (APT) were still in regular contact with the MOE through the ongoing Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC). Susan Rupert had departed to live in Waterloo and study at the University of Waterloo and I was soon working regularly with Susan Bryant and Sylvia Berg who had stepped up after the departure of Susan Rupert. Despite my comments a few paragraphs previously I trusted Susan and Sylvia implicitly. I simply couldn’t imagine any reason not to at that time. In fact I was so naïve that unfortunately normal human misbehaviour of ego, pride, and status weren’t even on my radar. The MOE promised to keep us in the loop as to developments with the cleanup being proposed by Phillip Environmental for the site. They advised that they would make all meeting minutes available from the new Township Committee. We were to receive documentation related to Varnicolor more or less as long as they were still being remediated. Once again words were nothing but wind from the MOE . Over the remaining decades usually from the public position of UPAC or CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) I would demand any news the MOE had of Varnicolor. They always promised and rarely delivered.<br /><br />Eventually I even got wind after the fact of a groundwater cleanup done at Varnicolor’s west side neighbour Motiveair Inc. This was obviously shallow contamination from Varnicolor that left their property and migrated over to Motiveair. It was also of huge importance and consequence as the MOE had been lying to the public for decades regarding the absence of contaminants leaving the Varnicolor site. How much else was kept hidden from us we didn’t find out literally for decades. To this day the MOE have yet not signed off on the Varnicolor cleanup for the next buyer after Phillips Environmental, namely Elmira Pump. The owners had experience with water treatment operations as they both had worked at Kuntz Electroplating in Kitchener. They were told around 2000 that ten more years of operation of the shallow aquifer pump and treat system and the site would be acceptable for the Ministry to give them a Record of Site Condition allowing them to subdivide the property in order to allow commercial development. To my knowledge Elmira Pump have been jumping through the MOE’s hoops and loops ever since. The Risk Assessment publicly presented by Keith Metzger of Peritus Environmental in May 2016 in Council Chambers, was supposed to be but a few months away from completion and MOE final approval. Still not awarded at the time of publication.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 2<br /><br /><br />21....Marg Kasten, "Elmira industrialist feels like sitting duck", Kitchener-Waterloo Record,<br />December 13,1989<br /><br />22....Catherine Thompson, Phil Jalsevac, "Bradley flayed for leaking Varnicolor raid", Kitchener-Waterloo Record, May 18, 1990<br /><br />23....Chris Aagaard, "MOE tests second tank from Varnicolor", Kitchener-Waterloo Record, December 5, 1990<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-26890259123656896132023-12-19T12:24:00.000-08:002023-12-19T13:03:38.004-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_17.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2461783133955382618" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br />Chapter Three:<br /><br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />16 ....The Blame Game<br /><br />17 ....Environmental Appeal Board<br /><br />18 ....The Sweetheart Deal<br /><br />19 ....Public Outrage<br /><br />20 ....The Public Consultation Scam<br /><br />22 ....DNAPLS<br /><br />25 ....CCPA<br /><br />26 ....The Long Con Continues<br /><br />27 ....DNAPL Collusion<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 3<br /><br /><br />The Blame Game<br /><br />A little over a month after the South Wellfield (E7 & E9) was shut down the MOE issued an Emergency Control Order. They wanted NDMA discharges going to the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant from Uniroyal to end. These discharges had of course been known since they were first discovered in 1977 and absolutely no action was deemed necessary then or since. Funny how a little public exposure changes government priorities. The idea that Uniroyal NDMA discharges through the Elmira STP and into the “Gig” was O.K. prior to the Elmira Water Crisis but not afterwards can help one understand the subjectivity involved in environmental enforcement. It seems to be similar to the idea of municipal by-laws regarding noise, litter, and odours being attended to only on a complaints driven basis.<br /><br />The first Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) hearing started in January 1990 after Uniroyal Chemical appealed the Ministry’s Emergency Control Order. The public uproar seemed to have as much to do with downstream users as it did with the limited number of citizens in Elmira drinking contaminated water. All the local media were reporting the news as fast as new information developed and that included NDMA concentrations being found in Kitchener, Brantford, the Grand River, Cayuga, etc. After all this was a first in an Ontario town or city that wasn’t hundreds of miles north and inhabited by native Canadians only. Plus exactly how far had the contamination already spread downstream? At least groundwater could take years to decades to travel hundreds of metres whereas surface water could go a hundred miles in a few days to a week.<br /><br />The mere fact that within a month Woolwich Township and the Region of Waterloo would be pumping NDMA contaminated well E2 in the North Wellfield to waste (ie. into the Canagagigue Creek) was lost on everybody. Of course they were doing this in order to use Well E2 as an Interceptor Well. It was closest to Uniroyal Chemical and most immediately contaminated after the shutdown of the south wellfield caused more Uniroyal contaminated groundwater to be drawn north-west towards the North Wellfield. Of course that is if you believe that well E2 and some of the other wells hadn’t already been contaminated with NDMA years before. I for one do not believe that. None of that mattered to the MOE who needed to deflect public attention from their own failures.<br /><br />Then in February 1990 Federal Health officials found NDMA in Sundor fruit juices that were manufactured in St. Jacobs, Ontario. Now this was peculiar. St. Jacobs had their own wells and they were miles south of Elmira’s south wellfield. How exactly did anybody blame this on Uniroyal Chemical unless Sundor were skipping using St. Jacobs water and sneaking into Elmira to use their water. The two St. Jacobs wells were named SJ1 and SJ2 and were located in the north end of St. Jacobs just off of Northside Dr.. They were completed in the Bedrock Aquifer and according to consultants CH2MHILL there were aesthetic quality problems. Presumably prior to this homes and businesses were on their own private, likely shallower wells. SJ1 & 2 were drilled in 1966 under the supervision of the OWRC and put into service in 1972. Sundor actually filed a suit against the Region, the Township and Uniroyal Chemical.<br /><br />By May 1990 Uniroyal were in full blown spin doctoring and public relations mode. They held a “Briefing for Community Leaders” at the Tien Lee Restaurant in downtown Elmira. They were on offence and they meant to score points just the same as the MOE were desperately trying to do the same. They pointed out that the MOE as well as CEAC (Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee), chaired by Murray Haight a local Biology Professor and resident, had refused them permission to pump their containment wells PW1, PW2 and PW3 installed way back in 1981. They may have inadvertently forgotten to tell the Community Leaders about the good reasons Murray, CEAC and the MOE had for not approving the plan to pump these wells and keep the contaminated groundwater on site.<br /><br />Very shortly afterwards the Region of Waterloo seeing the upcoming expenses and general lack of honesty and willingness to accept responsibility, filed suit.24 They named Uniroyal Chemical, the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Nutrite and Varnicolor Chemical in their suit. The last two surprised more than just a few folks. The Region had hired CH2MHILL to be their principal hydrogeologists and basically took the lead in researching who was to blame as well as the technical characteristics of the Elmira aquifers. CH2MHILL overall did a very good job although they did eventually exonerate both Nutrite and Varnicolor Chemical at least in regards to NDMA contamination. In hindsight it was peculiar that the Region named them both very early on, considerably before CH2MHILL exonerated them.<br /><br />In July and August 1990 low levels of NDMA were being found in some of the remaining drinking wells in the North Wellfield despite pumping well E2 to waste. On August 28, 1990 and despite the somewhat only semi-relevant EAB hearing already underway, the MOE issued another Control Order. This one was at least more to the point. It was based upon the report of Provincial Officer (& hydrogeologist) Bob Hillier. It had concrete demands in it for some, not all of the necessary work needed on the Uniroyal site. This included excavating RPE 4 & 5, the “Consolidation” pits, on the east side of the site as well as remediation of DNAPLS as a contaminant source. Also hydraulic containment was to be used in order to contain ALL aquifers on the site. Of course Uniroyal appealed this Control Order on September 17, 1990 and it was back to the EAB for a second hearing.<br /><br />While all this was going on the Region of Waterloo were going great guns in building a water pipeline up from Waterloo to St. Jacobs and Elmira. In hindsight my understanding is that despite St. Jacobs having their own two wells (SJ1 & SJ2), they had been connected via a small pipeline to Elmira which was to supplement their supply when necessary. This would somewhat explain both the Sundor Juice legal matters as well as why the imminent Waterloo pipeline also supplied St. Jacobs as well as Elmira.<br /><br />By late October 1990 the pipeline had almost been completed which really was astounding considering the distance involved as well as bureaucratic and legal complexities. Nowadays certainly a complicated Environmental Assessment would be the minimum requirement prior to even starting construction. Again I have to speculate that perhaps plans had been on the drawing board prior to the well shutdowns in November 1989.<br /><br />Environmental Appeal Board<br /><br />By November 1990 a year after the “Water Crisis” hit Elmira the Environmental Appeal Board had appointed three members to the panel to hear Uniroyal’s appeal of the Ministry’s latest August 28, 1990 Control Order. They were Mary Schwass, Barry Adams and Chairman Knox Henry. Uniroyal were appealing the whole idea that they were solely responsible for the destruction of the Elmira Aquifers as well as the Ministry’s claims that the two east side “Consolidation” pits were leaking into the Municipal Aquifers. This especially rankled Uniroyal as they’d just emptied out sludges and solids in the bottom of their west side operating ponds and supposedly put them into safer and more secure pits on the east side. In fact based upon the 1984 Control Order they’d already spent considerable time and money in a decades overdue clean up of their property.<br /><br />Everything was conveniently focused on NDMA (n-nitrosodimethylamine). We the public were told that this chemical migrated much faster than other chemicals or solvents in the groundwater hence that was how it got to the south wellfield undetected. This story by the Region, MOE and Uniroyal had a few holes in it. Firstly NDMA was known to be in Uniroyal’s wastewaters by 1977 and in the air by 1979. Didn’t anybody whose responsibility was to the environment, the MOE for example, think to take drinking well samples years earlier? We are to believe that the very first drinking water sampled for NDMA was from the south wellfield in September 1989 and then the results weren’t ready until November 1989.<br /><br />Secondly by 1989 and likely years sooner there were low levels of various solvents already in the South Wellfield. These included toluene, xylene, styrene, ethylbenzene, and 1, 1, 1 trichloroethane.25 Two of them were attributed to “laboratory artifacts” although in this context (Uniroyal & Varnicolor) I am extremely doubtful. Realize that the two wells had only been there and pumping since 1970 and 1976 respectively. In my opinion some Uniroyal contaminants including NDMA were in the south of Elmira before the south Wellfield was even constructed. There were very high NDMA concentrations found near Oriole Parkway and Arthur St. in 1989 and 1990. While well E7 was around 3-4 parts per billion, these private wells were as high as 40 ppb.<br /><br />In February/March 1991 CH2MHILL released their 2 Volume Report for the Region of Waterloo. They pointed the finger for NDMA contamination solely at Uniroyal Chemical. They had done an incredible amount of work in record time. Their examination of the history of the Elmira Aquifers, the Elmira Wellfields and of numerous manufacturers as well as other possible NDMA sources was incredible and detailed. One of the most interesting facts for me was that even after the west side ponds (RPW 5, 6, 7, 8) were clay lined in 1970 they still leaked 3,400 litres per day through their bottoms into underlying aquifers and aquitards.26<br /><br />As previously mentioned there were several local citizens who testified in May 1991 as to the harm done by Uniroyal Chemical over the decades. This included Ken Reger, Susan Rupert and Esther Thur. Brendan Birmingham of the M.O.E. testified in regards to Dioxins on the Uniroyal property and in their products such as Agent Orange. The Dioxins had been found in 1984 at 600 parts per trillion in the former municipal landfill known as M2 now part of Uniroyal’s property. To this day that area has been blatantly ignored by both the MOE and by Uniroyal and their successors. Jeff Merriman of Chemtura often said that if and when they were digging for some other reason such as installing a pipe or a power line and they came across contamination, they would remove it. That was not remotely an acceptable form of remediation for an area of known Dioxin and DNAPL contamination. DNAPLS or Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids are generally but not always chlorinated solvents whose density is greater than 1 thus they do not float on the water table but sink below and through it. Besides very slowly dissolving into groundwater they also can gravity flow with the slope of the surface that they are sitting on particularly if it were a relatively impermeable clay aquitard for example. Uniroyal as well as other local industry dumped their waste products into this area and pretending that hydraulic containment was an adequate solution was nonsense. Even if the free phase DNAPL had all gravity flowed westwards onto the neighbour’s property and thus was no longer present was grossly inadequate. Any DNAPL on either the Nutrite , STP, or Sulco property was not hydraulically contained and would thus add dissolved contaminants to the offsite Elmira Aquifers for either decades or centuries unless they were remediated.<br /><br />Evidence at the second EAB hearing (Aug.28/90) heard during 1991 was very damning to Uniroyal and also not terribly flattering to the MOE. This was in spite of the fact that it was only the MOE presenting their evidence hence they could omit certain evidence and lean more heavily on that which favoured their case. For example in June 1991 they were able to show the Board that Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPLS) were sitting in the sub-surface below the former west side operating lagoons (RPW 5-8). These DNAPLS had been specifically mentioned in the 1990 Control Order and the MOE appropriately wanted them removed as they were such a long term source of contamination to the Aquifers.<br /><br />While the Appeal Board hearing was underway Uniroyal were still working on aspects of the Control Order that they had not appealed. Thus they applied for and received a Certificate of Approval on August 6, 1991 allowing them to operate deep pumping wells PW1 and PW3. This C. of A. had conditions attached which included discharge limits of treated groundwater to the creek. The idea was to hydraulically contain the site from the rest of the Elmira Aquifers without further poisoning the already grossly contaminated Canagagigue Creek. This was a case of slamming the gate after the horses (NDMA & more) had bolted although in this case there was an almost never ending supply of horses still left to bolt. The discharge criteria were one of the unresolved problems back in 1981-82 when the wells were first drilled. The Board then adjourned the hearings for the summer expressing hope that Uniroyal and the MOE might negotiate and come to some compromises over the summer which would shorten the already lengthy hearings. The Board should have been more careful as to what they wished for.<br /><br />The Sweetheart Deal<br /><br />As of this point in time the only party to present their case was the Ontario MOE. Neither Nutrite , Uniroyal, Woolwich Township, the Region of Waterloo, nor APT had presented their evidence. By September the EAB were asking the two parties, MOE and Uniroyal, if they were ready to get back at it and they responded no that they were still in serious discussions and hoped to be able to shorten the hearing as had been requested. On October 7, 1991 Uniroyal Chemical and the Ontario Ministry of Environment inked a private Settlement Agreement between themselves. Keep in mind that while Uniroyal had seen the MOE’s case, the public and the parties had not seen Uniroyal’s. Over the summer the Ontario MOE alone got to see Uniroyal’s cards. It seems in hindsight pretty clear that the MOE were not happy with what Uniroyal had and was willing to make public. They cut a sweetheart deal and worse.<br /><br />How worse exactly? They and Uniroyal Chemical together, ostensibly regulator enforcing environmental laws versus polluter responsible for destroying the Elmira Aquifers and the Canagagigue Creek through the decades; came to a mutually self-serving deal. They also manipulated the rules in an attempt to shut down the other parties and the entire EAB hearings. By revoking the August 28, 1990 Control Order that was the basis for Uniroyal Chemical’s appeal to the EAB, the MOE claimed that the EAB no longer had jurisdiction.<br /><br />The idea of revoking the August 1990 Control Order was to stop the hearing in its tracks and prevent the Ministry’s culpability for the disaster to be put on full display by Uniroyal. Can you imagine memos over the decades in regards to the unlined operating lagoons and waste pits? How about documentation that indicated the MOE’s initial satisfaction with putting literally thousands of drums with toxic liquid wastes into the ground? Ongoing, overflowing east side waste pits that flowed westwards, southwards, and even eastwards onto the Stroh farm would certainly cause outrage. How about burying Dioxins in drums on both sides of the creek? Or burning them while they were in the municipal landfill (M2) prior to them owning the former landfill. How about the construction of the east side Stroh Drain (approx. 1985) along with the sub-surface tile diverting contaminated groundwater to discharge farther downstream in the creek? What if the alleged Interceptor Trench on the Uniroyal property was completed and diverting toxic groundwater into the Stroh Drain and through the Martin swimming pond on its’ way to the creek? Uniroyal had the Ontario Ministry of the Environment by the throat. And they were squeezing. The MOE had been assuring both the media and the public for two decades that they were on top of any and all environmental problems at Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira. Love Canal in 1979 in the U.S. had opened a lot of eyes to the dangers of indiscriminate disposal of toxic wastes and human beings sensitivities to them. The MOE had had a decade’s heads up but In fact they were negligent, incompetent, lazy, and corrupt. Not all of them of course, just mostly the ones at the top. On November 4, 1991 the MOE issued a new control order.<br /><br />Public Outrage<br /><br />On November 5, 1991 the EAB reconvened. The other parties were outraged and the EAB panel were shocked by the arrogance and obvious collusion on display between the Ministry and the polluter. The private Settlement Agreement of October 7 was to take precedence over the new control order and the other proper and legal parties to the process were being told to pack up and take a hike. Among other bizarre paragraphs in the October 7, 1991 Settlement Agreement was Uniroyal’s clear position in a June 27/91 letter to the MOE as stated in paragraph 1.10 page 2 of the Agreement that they were planning on suing the Ontario government if they lost at the Environmental Appeal Board hearing. This was Uniroyal hardball at its maximum. This was an in your face threat and clear muscle flexing. The MOE had caved. Another paragraph left the option open for Uniroyal to sue “third parties” for contributions to the offsite cleanup. At the minimum Uniroyal and the MOE knew about Nutrite and Varnicolor.<br /><br />Reaction was immediate and loud. All the parties objected and they were uncharacteristically blunt in their assessment of both Uniroyal and the MOE. They accused those two parties of treating the Board, the process and the other parties with disdain and contempt. The EAB retired to determine whether or not they had jurisdiction to continue or not. The very next day two environmentalists from Dunnville, Ontario, Pat and Chuck Potter, were at the gates of Uniroyal Chemical. Along with APT Environment protesters present, Pat and Chuck padlocked Uniroyal’s gates closed. If Uniroyal were going to lock out the public from the process then the public were at least symbolically going to lock them in.<br /><br />On November 18, 1991 APT protested at the MOE offices in Hamilton. They demanded and received an audience with the Director of the West-Central Region of the MOE. The MOE were unmoved. They knew that their very existence was hanging by a thread if they couldn’t pull off this coup. They hunkered down and decided to wait it out.<br /><br />During this month Murray Haight the Chairman of CEAC resigned. Whether or not it was due to the MOE’s obvious misbehaviour and contempt for the EAB process, public consultation, or the environment I have not ascertained. The following month APT members took a walk on the wild side for many of them. They protested at the homes of two Uniroyal executives in Waterloo, Ontario about twelve miles due south. They left a wreath at each of their doors with a note saying “You are responsible”.<br /><br />It was not a happy Christmas in Elmira for those who understood the enormity of what had occurred. The Board had not made a decision regarding their jurisdiction but at the same time the hearings had not been underway since the previous June.<br /><br />The privately negotiated October 7, 1991 Settlement Agreement between the MOE and Uniroyal Chemical was the first blatant example of collusion, back room deals and corruption for many APT members. Yes they had heard stories from Richard, Ted and I in regards to the incompetence and dishonesty of the Ministry in regards to Varnicolor Chemical but perhaps they hoped that the bigger environmental story at Uniroyal with both local and national media would keep the Ministry honest. It did not. I believe that APT did the right things in supporting the padlocking of Uniroyal’s gates, protesting at the Ministry offices in Hamilton, and taking the walking protest to the homes of Wally Ruck and David Ash in Waterloo. Those three actions were intended to send the message that citizens were not going to back off just because our allegedly responsible and in charge authorities were in the “Let’s make a deal” mode. Citizens, not bureaucrats nor politicians, were in the front lines regarding suffering from the results of toxic air, water and soil.<br /><br />At the end of the following month in January 1992, citizens did get some good news. The long awaited hydraulic containment of the Municipal Aquifers began. It was however, in hindsight, typical of the complete “cleanup” promised for this site in that it was totally inadequate and totally minimal. Uniroyal and their consultants had two wells pumping namely PW1 in the north-west and PW3 in the south-east. Unsurprisingly the most heavily contaminated areas in the south-west corner of the site continued leaking off-site as they had been doing for the previous fifty years.<br /><br />On January 16, 1992 Uniroyal held their second Briefing for Community Leaders. Again there was some “preaching to the choir” as most of these Community Leaders were Uniroyal’s kind of people . That would be those with vested interests in keeping everything low key and focusing always on the positives. Mayor Bob waters among others had great concerns that the “Water Crisis” could negatively affect things like the Maple Syrup Festival, downtown business and so forth. This was not necessarily a bad thing in that as Mayor he did have to provide an even keel and not let this man-made disaster define Elmira for ever after. To a certain extent he and his colleagues did too good of a job. After all somewhere in the mix needed to be an appreciation for the permanent damage that had been done to both the environment and to the health of Woolwich residents. There was little or none.<br /><br />The Public Consultation Scam<br /><br />Both the MOE and Uniroyal Chemical knew that they desperately needed to give the impression to the public that they would be forthcoming and honest regarding the steps needed to fix that which they bilaterally had made a mess of. There had been warnings over the years as were described in Chapter One. There had been fourty years of environmental degradation due to greed, incompetence, laziness, and a complete lack of honest and diligent oversight from the authorities whether health departments, federal and provincial environment ministries or departments, and from local and regional councillors. Everybody was so enamoured with the joys of jobs and taxes that they were wilfully blind to the huge issues accompanying Uniroyal Chemical. To say that a chemical company carries a lot of baggage is a huge understatement. This company carried more than most in that they were confident to the point of arrogance regarding their operations. Any voice or complaint raised was almost considered unpatriotic around town.<br /><br />The Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC) was the solution for Uniroyal and the MOE. Sure they knew that they had a lot of work ahead of them but they were confident that they could manipulate the same citizens that they’d been successfully stringing along for decades. Open up the Committee to APT plus a couple of other well meaning folks but at the same time always maintain a majority of people or groups on it that could be counted on to strongly serve the status quo. The Chamber of Commerce was a good start along with a few sitting councillors who were known to be friendly to Uniroyal. Quentin Martin, Grace Sudden and Ruby Weber representing the Township would do the job. Throw in the Region of Waterloo, Grand River Conservation Authority, the Waterloo District School Board, and you’ve definitely got enough voting members to keep any wild eyed radicals from APT under control. To a certain extent anybody blatantly supporting Uniroyal did have to be careful. After all the drinking wells were shut down and Uniroyal had assumed full ownership as to being the only source of NDMA at least. In fact there were now no longer any allegations from anybody including Uniroyal that others may have been part of the “Water Crisis”. At least for many more years anyways that was the case and even then it was kept low key. Therefore Uniroyal’s supporters on Council and on UPAC spoke carefully. They professed to want to find the best way to clean up the Aquifers as well as the site itself.<br /><br />Susan Rupert, the original APT Coordinator and spokesperson was appropriately skeptical. This may have been due to her and Sandra Bray’s short time as members of CEAC, the Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee. This had been a committee of Woolwich Council and she and Sandra had issues with certain confidentiality requirements. They felt that Elmira and Woolwich citizens needed to know more than the committee were allowed to distribute to the public. From my own standpoint of having been a formal member of UPAC and CPAC for a total of ten years I can understand Susan’s concerns. Once UPAC was dragged into being a committee of Woolwich Council there was a slow erosion of their independence and forthrightness to the public. Unfortunately Susan Rupert was a voice in the wilderness.<br /><br />APT members had made her their spokesperson for good reason. She was passionate, articulate and not remotely intimidated by either “suits” or other self professed experts. She was willing to spell it out to whoever objected to her or APT’s position as to why she felt a particular issue needed addressing. If she felt that a proposal by the company was nonsensical she would word it as such and then ask them to please help her understand what she must be missing in their previous explanation. Despite this other coordinators pushed very hard to get APT to join UPAC. One former APT coordinator has stated that he was also against APT joining UPAC. His logic was that after two years APT had taken both Uniroyal and the Ontario MOE’s measure and found them wanting. Their word was not good. Also if you lie down with fleas you will get fleas. Richard Clausi saw absolutely no good that would come out of APT joining forces with unspecified other parties simply to lend their credibility to two parties with zero credibility. Richard has advised that the two APT coordinators pushing the hardest to get APT to join UPAC were Sylvia Berg and Susan Bryant. Susan Rupert indicated that her recollection was that Sylvia Berg was certainly pushing hard for APT to join UPAC whereas Susan Bryant she was less certain of. Susan Rupert knew that APT would be intentionally drowned out if they participated in a forum encompassing all kinds of other groups with other agendas or possibly with only one and that was to defend Uniroyal Chemical. APT was getting their message out to the public very nicely without joining forces with disparate groups with different axes to grind. Susan was also concerned with the request that these meetings be held in private much as CEAC had been. In hindsight this demand from the Ministry of Environment seemed counter-productive. It was Barb Trebilcock of the MOE to whom Susan Rupert was speaking. It was also Barb Trebilcock who pushed Susan Rupert to take the Ministry’s offer back to APT for their input. This ridiculous and patently undemocratic demand had been turned down outright by Susan Rupert. She knew that APT had been founded by her, Esther Thur, and Sandra Bray on the basis of full public disclosure. She felt there wasn’t a chance nor should there be that APT would even remotely consider the MOE’s offer. It seemed somehow that Barb Trebilcock had figured out ahead of time that APT were about to change course dramatically. Could some private phone calls have been made by Barb beforehand and if so to whom?<br /><br />By August 1991 Susan Rupert had departed Elmira for Waterloo. This had to be a huge upheaval for her and her two children. It seemed peculiar at the time but I believe that both lawyer and mayor Bob Waters assisted in Susan’s moving as well as a local real estate firm helped her sell her home quickly. This could have been either respect or common decency for Susan’s contributions to the community or it could even be sadly interpreted as certain local powers assisting in the departure of a talented and effective citizen activist. Imagine Susan Rupert’s surprise to learn that when UPAC began in 1992 that all the meetings were open to both the public and the media. What exactly had the MOE been doing with their previous demands of closed meetings? They had advised Susan Rupert that Uniroyal were insisting on that condition which had made Susan’s decision very easy. Was somebody lying here to Susan and if so whom?<br /><br />APT’s first campaign was against what they called Uniroyal’s Pump & Dump system. Yes they recognized that the groundwater which Uniroyal started pumping from the municipal aquifer in January 1992 was undergoing treatment prior to discharge to the “Gig”. The problem was how much treatment and the discharge criteria. Keep in mind that this hydraulic containment consisted of at first only two wells in the municipal aquifer pumping out contaminated deep groundwater , treating it down to certain predetermined concentrations and then discharging it into the already grossly contaminated “Gig”. The more highly contaminated shallow or upper aquifer kept on discharging its highly contaminated groundwater to the creek while at the same time the treated municipal aquifer groundwater was being discharged there as well. Also it’s not as if any of these discharge criteria were zero. Some concentrations were very low. Sometimes chemicals would be discharged to the creek at concentrations below the Detection Limits. Other chemicals however could have discharge criteria of 2 or 5 parts per billion and thus could be discharged up to those limits. The problem was that there was no scientific knowledge that could claim with certainty that discharging a half dozen toxic chemicals below either their Ontario Drinking Water Standards (ODWS) or Provincial Water Quality Objectives (PWQO) was safe. Imagine when there were 100 different chemicals in the groundwater undergoing treatment and then being discharged. Local citizens, APT members, and downstream users were unimpressed with this plan.<br /><br />They had reason to be because in fact it wasn’t remotely hydraulically containing the Uniroyal property. The only reason that the discharge criteria were capable of being met at the start of municipal aquifer pumping in January 1992 was because only PW1 in the north-west and PW3 in the south-east were pumping. That was inadequate and Uniroyal and the MOE tacitly knew it. They soon quietly added pumping well PW4 in the heart of the groundwater contamination in their south-west area in order to slow the ongoing migration of grossly contaminated groundwater off-site. Generally opposition faded several years later as the shallow aquifer was finally partially hydraulically contained in 1997 and the worst groundwater that naturally discharged to the creek was treated prior to its discharge. Although that in itself was also very problematic at the time as we’ll discuss later on.<br /><br />On February 5, 1992 the Decision from the first Environmental Appeal Board was finally made public. Do recall that the second Appeal to the EAB had already been started, testimony given and then the whole thing shut down by the MOE /Uniroyal Chemical sweetheart deal of October 7, 1991. For the first appeal and hearing the Board had decided that the discharge criteria from Uniroyal’s wastewater treatment plant into the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant could not exceed 200 parts per trillion (ppt). of NDMA. Uniroyal had been suggesting that 500 ppt. was a more appropriate discharge level. The MOE, the EAB, and the Region and Township all hoped that after time in the Elmira STP that Uniroyal’s outgoing concentration of NDMA would be much lower yet. I recall hearing the news with many other APT members and kind of thinking “What’s the big deal?” To me this didn’t seem to be as big a victory as some seemed to think it was. The drinking water standard was 9 parts per trillion and I saw this belated Decision and discharge criteria as being a compromise giving a break to the polluter whom I had as yet seen no reason whatsoever to be deserving of .<br /><br />The EAB took months to determine whether or not they still had jurisdiction over Uniroyal’s appeal to them of the now rescinded August 1990 Control Order. Rescinded that is in mid appeal. What an incredible way for two guilty parties to walk on the public consequences of their decade’s long mismanagement and negligence. The EAB essentially threw the ball back into the hands of the other parties to the hearing namely Nutrite, the Region, the Township, and APT Environment. The EAB stated that if any party stepped forward and indicated they wanted to keep going then they the Board would support that. Nobody stepped up. Nutrite were thrilled not to have had their dirty linen aired publicly. That would take another eight years plus another control order to do that. The Region, Township, and APT all said thanks but no thanks. The Region and Woolwich Township eventually obtained cheques from Uniroyal to cover their “Water Crisis” costs and that seemed to satisfy them. I never did fully understand why APT didn’t want to proceed. Possibly personal time commitments were one of the factors. Personally I would have loved to have seen Uniroyal’s dirt on the Ontario MOE displayed in public. It could have resulted in a public inquiry or worse for them. It also could have given them a housecleaning and a different attitude in dealing with Uniroyal in the ensuing 26 years.<br /><br />In March 1992 Uniroyal managed to spill approximately 1000 gallons of waste water plus ammonia into the Creek (“Gig”). I expect that but for the scrutiny they were under since November 1989 the public would never even have heard of it. This for far too many decades was likely simply seen as the cost of doing business. The MOE did charge them for this environmental offence and in fact in November of this year Uniroyal pled guilty to the discharge of waste water containing Ammonia and NDMA to the Creek (“Gig”) and were fined $16,000.<br /><br />In April 1992 Uniroyal’s Public Relations campaign took a major hit. CBC television and their program “The Nature of Things” narrated by David Suzuki spoke to the Elmira Water Crisis. As was to be expected under the circumstances and with the facts available at the time, the program was highly critical of Uniroyal Chemical and their behaviour both prior to November 1989 and since. What the public were not advised of and what has been demonstrated as well since, was Uniroyal’s aggressive stance towards their detractors and critics. They were in communications with CBC TV prior to the airing of the Elmira program and they made it clear to them that legal action was part of their arsenal if Mr. Suzuki took any liberties in their opinion with his presentation of events and or facts they disputed. In hindsight we and Mr. Suzuki only knew the bare bones of the extent of contamination, the extent of efforts to deflect the public away from the truth and of the sometimes cozy relationship between the Ontario Ministry of Environment and major air and groundwater polluters whether multi- billion dollar, multi nationals or like Varnicolor Chemical who were simply multi-million dollar, single locations.<br /><br />DNAPLS<br /><br />There had been DNAPL (Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids) investigations and reports back in the early and mid 1980s conducted by Morrison-Beatty on behalf of Uniroyal Chemical. That DNAPLS were present en masse in and under the Uniroyal Chemical Elmira site was never in dispute with honest parties and sometimes even less honest parties. That did not however stop Uniroyal and their consultants from gilding the lily as liberally as they thought they could get away with. To this day the DNAPL cover up is almost second to none. Yes they did one hell of a job literally for many decades in hiding and minimizing the extent of permanent damage to the “Gig” from their discharges of POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants). Even now it is unlikely that they will do even 5% of the cleanup necessary in the creek to remove Dioxins/Furans, DDT, Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons, PCBs, Mercury, and so much more.<br /><br />Part of any good cover-up relates to changing the focus of the message. They therefore went into long and convoluted debates about the differences between Free Phase DNAPLs and Residual DNAPLs. Free Phase refers to the liquid, non dissolved in water, phase of the usually chlorinated solvent such as chlorobenzene. Free phase DNAPLS could move both vertically and horizontally through the sub-surface via gravity. They would then collect in low lying areas or depressions as puddles or pools. Often these depressions that they collected in would be on the surface of aquitards which are the much less permeable to both groundwater and solvents, layers of clay and or silts. The more permeable sands and gravels in which groundwater more readily flowed are known as aquifers. Sometimes aquifers would have small areas of silts and even clays in them which could also contain free phase DNAPLS. Free phase DNAPLS are the bane of remediation experts and of municipal drinking water systems in industrialized towns and cities across North America. To this day, Trichloroethylene (TCE) is still routinely detected in the drinking water systems of both Cambridge and Waterloo, Ontario albeit at below drinking water standards via dilution and or treatment. The problem is that Free Phase DNAPLs represent a huge, long term source of groundwater contamination because they dissolve so slowly although nevertheless often contaminating groundwater above the drinking standards . The long term aspect depends on the volume of Free Phase DNAPLs in the sub-surface but many decades to centuries of time are needed to finally remove them.<br /><br />Residual DNAPLS may be thought of as the “tails” of a passing volume of Free Phase DNAPLs after the DNAPL has continued moving either vertically or horizontally below ground. Residual DNAPLS are the same chemical components of the earlier passing Free Phase DNAPLS but instead of pooling together they are spread out and are occupying tiny pore spaces between the grains of sand or gravel. They may also contaminate groundwater at above drinking water standards but because of their much smaller volume and greater distance between the droplets they will dissolve in groundwater much more quickly than the “pooled” Free Phase DNAPLs. Conestoga Rovers on behalf of Uniroyal often suggested that the Elmira site only had Residual DNAPLS not Free Phase. This was outright rubbish and has been proven false on a number of occasions over the decades when either by intent or chance they bumped into more Free Phase DNAPLs.<br /><br />After Rich Clausi, Ted Oldfield, and I kicked the daylights out of the credibility of Varnicolor Chemical and the Ontario MOE I decided to join APT at the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC) table. In those heady, early days we still had Uniroyal and the MOE on the run. Or at least they were on the defensive although we still didn’t know the extent of their perfidy, gamesmanship, collusion, and just plain dishonesty. More decades were to pass before all that became even clearer than it already was. One of my first tasks as an APT member was to read and understand the DNAPL reports being presented by Brian Beatty of Morrison-Beatty originally, later of Dames & Moore, consultants to Uniroyal Chemical. Morrison-Beatty had been working for Uniroyal for years and had not only researched, investigated, and written reports but they also testified at the Environmental Appeal Board hearings on Uniroyal’s behalf. Not all their testimony was well received including claims that the groundwater under Uniroyal flowed westwards due to the influence of the two well fields namely the North and South Well fields. This testimony would have been better received if Mr. Beatty hadn’t claimed that the Municipal Aquifer groundwater flowed west where due to the conflicting pulling of the North and South Well fields, the water essentially did not move, as if in a state of limbo. Whether it was my knowledge of his testimony at the EAB or not, I was somewhat immediately skeptical of his most recent DNAPL Report presented to UPAC in September 1992.<br /><br />This DNAPL report, in my opinion and others, minimized the presence of DNAPLs on the Uniroyal site. Yes he listed various criteria and observations that purportedly could indicate the likelihood as to whether or not DNAPLS were indeed present in the sub-surface. One of these was a reference to a report written by a well known hydrogeologist by the name of Stan Feenstra. The quote taken from Mr. Feenstra appeared to indicate that there was a rule known as the 10% Solubility Rule. This rule suggested that anytime a chlorinated solvent or other well known DNAPL chemical was detected in a groundwater sample at or greater than 10% of its solubility in water; then it was very likely that the chemical existed in the sub-surface as an undissolved DNAPL, whether free phase or residual. There were many other problems with Mr. Beatty’s report but this is the one that got him into trouble. I decided to do a little checking.<br /><br />Back in 1992 the Internet was not a household fixture. Yes I had worked as a computer operator at Dominion Life Assurance Company prior to attending University (1971-74) but I certainly didn’t have a home computer. Google wasn’t in my vocabulary so off I went to the University of Waterloo to do a little fact checking if you will. Well! I had already been exposed to blatant lying by the MOE in regards to Varnicolor Chemical hence I think it’s fair to say that I wasn’t terribly naïve. What I found after reading Stan Feenstra’s report however was a whole new level of deception by an allegedly professional consultant . Mr. Beatty had provided a one or two sentence quote from Mr. Feenstra’s report which indeed I found. The problem was that while this sentence or two did say to the effect that at one time hydrogeologists had supported the 10% Solubility Rule, it then went on to say that knowledgeable hydrogeologists today did not! Mr. Feenstra went on to clearly advise that the 10% Solubuility Rule was outdated and that a 1% Solubility Rule had been accepted and was in practice. Therefore any chlorinated solvent that was detected in groundwater with even only a concentration of 1% of its solubility was a very strong indication that DNAPLs were present. Bluntly put if this wasn’t an example of taking a quote out of context for the purpose of deceiving a public advisory committee as well as the general public, then I don’t know what is. By misleading UPAC, the MOE, and the media present at this public meeting, it certainly appeared that Mr. Beatty was attempting to greatly minimize the presence of DNAPLs in the sub-surface at the Uniroyal site.<br /><br />I managed to dig up a phone number for Mr. Feenstra after being advised that he was working in Mississauga, Ontario. I phoned him, introduced myself and advised him that I believed his report was being quoted out of context for improper purposes. I read to him a few sentences of Mr. Beatty’s report. Mr. Feenstra quite properly advised me that before he would put anything in writing in an attempt to correct the situation that he needed to see more of Mr. Beatty’s report. I promised to either mail or fax him the cover page, date, title etc. as well as several pages surrounding the controversial comments and quote taken out of context. This I did and very shortly Mr. Feenstra sent me a two page letter in which he clearly indicated his displeasure with his work being so taken out of context. That letter I of course sent to APT members first and then took copies with me to the next UPAC meeting. Basically this one gross deception alone by Uniroyal’s consultants appropriately damaged and called into credibility the entire report.<br /><br />According to Dr. David Ash of Uniroyal Chemical, Mr. Beatty and his company shortly afterwards were “consolidated”. That was Mr. Ash’s wording and I immediately believed that that was diplomatic speak for “fired”. Dr. Ash would not use that word but the implications were clear. From that point onwards Conestoga Rovers & Associates were Uniroyal’s primary consultants and Dames & Moore was gone. As a small aside Mr. Beatty was quite protective of his reputation and a few short years later I was advised by the new Woolwich Observer that their reporting of this incident earned them a threat of a libel lawsuit from Mr. Beatty. I was asked by the Observer to provide back up for my story about Mr. Beatty being “consolidated” which I did to the best of my abilities. Certainly APT members as well as UPAC members were all present and received copies of Mr. Feenstra’s rather clear letter. APT even presented me with a small award which was a document with a magazine ad from the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA) about chlorinated solvents (DNAPLs). This ad had a picture of three people with each covering either their eyes, ears, or mouth and there were individually hand written on them the names of D. Ash, S.Quigley of CRA and B. Beatty. It stated at the top in bold letters “If This Is The Response You Get To Your Questions About Chlorinated Solvents…” Handwritten below that and the picture were the words “Just call Alan Marshall”. Below that also in handwriting it stated “Thank You, Alan, for taking them on…and winning.” To this day I still have that award and treasure it. It was signed by Sylvia Berg, Susan Bryant, Glenys McMullen, Mary Ragula, Darrol Bryant, Barb Smith and Steve Brown. Over the intervening years the Observer would question my credibility over this matter as apparently they had either apologized or been forced to write some sort of retraction by Mr. Beatty’s lawyers. Very odd and I sometimes wonder to this day if their lack of coverage of the Chemtura/Lanxess ongoing story is a result of libel chill.<br /><br />The headline of a story in the September 22, 1992 K-W Record was “Ministry misled, Elmira group says”. In that story my position was supported by Susan and Darrol Bryant, Wilf Ruland, and Jaimie Umpleby of the Region of Waterloo.27 This position was that Brian Beatty had taken a couple of sentences of Stan Feenstra’s DNAPL report out of context and the effect was to minimize or hide the quantity of DNAPLs on the Uniroyal site. A month later (October 15/92) a Bob Burtt headline in the Record stated that “Uniroyal may face charges in cleanup”. The article described how both APT and the Region of Waterloo were upset with Dames & Moore’s (Brian Beatty) DNAPL report and how Dave Ireland of the MOE suggested that charges might be filed against Uniroyal specifically because of this same DNAPL report being incomplete and misleading.28<br /><br />Frank Rovers of Conestoga Rovers spoke to the UPAC committee about DNAPLS in very late November 1992. He stated that they were ubiquitous throughout the site and stated that they could never all be found or removed. His further position was that looking for or chasing them was nothing but a waste of money. These opinions which certainly seemed aimed at saving his client hundreds of millions of dollars did not go down well with Wilf Ruland (on behalf of APT), Dave Belanger (on behalf of the Region) and Bob Hillier hydrogeologist (Min. of Environment). Wilf, Dave and Bob felt that a carte blanche avoiding or ignoring DNAPLS in the sub-surface was unjustified and dangerous in the long run. Bob Burtt wrote an article about these debates in the December 1, 1992 Record29. A follow up article appeared in the December 11/92 Record in which Susan Bryant of APT was quoted as saying “DNAPL is the most serious environmental problem at Uniroyal."30 Strangely a mere twelve and a half months later another APT member (Vice-President Sylvia Berg) was defending her do nothing actions in regards to the Ontario MOE rolling over on the entire DNAPL problems. Dave Ireland of the MOE, at the same UPAC meeting, advised that DNAPLs had been found in both the Upper Aquifer as well as the Municipal Aquifer on the Uniroyal Chemical site in Elmira.<br /><br />The Record as well as the Elmira Independent were certainly hot on the trail of both the MOE and Uniroyal in those days. They smelled and saw inexplicable behaviour and actions being masked behind consultants reports and or the Ministry running interference for and allowing unconscionable time delays at every opportunity. Early in the New Year (1993) the Record carried another story in which the MOE advised that Uniroyal were out of compliance with their Control Order as they had failed to submit a proper and complete DNAPL report on time. Of course Uniroyal protested stating that they were involved in multiple discussions with multiple partners in trying to determine the best route forward. Frank Rovers on behalf of Uniroyal also stated that someday in the future DNAPL cleanup might be possible.<br /><br />That possibility wasn’t as far down the road as Mr. Rovers was possibly thinking. The strong position of Dr. John Cherry and Dr. Beth Parker was presented to Susan Bryant, Pat Mclean, myself and Wilf Ruland at a meeting in the professors'offices in January 2007. The two Profs made it very clear that DNAPL cleanup was both technically feasible and long recognized as being necessary to every extent possible. Pat McLean and Susan Bryant successfully made every effort possible never to raise this meeting and the conclusions of two of the world’s most preeminent hydrogeologists at what by then (2007) was known as CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee).<br /><br />This was by no means the end of the DNAPL cover ups in Elmira. The technical evidence was far too overwhelming and too many parties knew that CRA and Uniroyal were not being forthcoming. This included the Region of Waterloo and the MOE but as we eventually learned all politicians have their price and the truth is always the first victim. Politicians on behalf of their constituencies are routinely bought off and they salve their consciences when lying to the public by believing that the end justifies the means. The means of course are by lying to the people they are representing. By the end of 1993 the Ontario Ministry of Environment had rolled over yet again. The Region followed shortly before. Both parties were bought off through private negotiations kept secret from the unwashed masses. This is called democracy according to its practitioners. The DNAPL cover ups continued well into 2009 albeit with more investigations and with some notable individuals standing up to be counted. Once again however key documents handed along to those in charge were not distributed to all the appropriate parties, intentionally. I mean really if one of your technical persons decides to do the right thing and puts it in writing then you must abuse your key position by ensuring that their information harmful to your position and interests cannot be used against your arguments. So simply file it . We will discuss these further DNAPL matters later on.<br /><br />CCPA<br /><br />The Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA) is a lobby group dedicated to improving the environmental performance of their membership. At least that is their stated purpose. I believe that some of their members have been inspired to actually improve their day to day operations in order to have less negative effects upon both the natural environment as well as upon human health. I also believe that many others are under their umbrella simply to enjoy the shade. In other words to avoid the glaring scrutiny and accountability of either the public or of government regulators. Two CCPA members stand out in Elmira, Ontario. One example of a sincere corporation trying their best to manufacture their chemical products responsibly and in as environmentally friendly manner as possible would be the former Sulco now known as Canada Colours. On the flip side of the coin we have had nothing but delay, disinformation, denial, and minimization of the environmental problems from Uniroyal Chemical and their successors.<br /><br />The CCPA appoint private citizens to what they call their National Advisory Panel. This Panel meet regularly around North America to discuss suggestions and improvements that will make the CCPA more accountable as well as more responsive to public concerns. Again some of the members of this Panel are industry shills whereas others are appointed because of their serious environmental credentials. Two members that I know who have stood out positively would be Pat Potter of Dunnville, Ontario back in the 1990s and the other was Dr. Gail Krantzberg from McMaster University in Hamilton.<br /><br />On January 25, 1993 the Elmira Independent published the full text of a news release by Pollution Probe out of Toronto. Ellen Schwartzel was a researcher at Pollution Probe and she and Pat Potter attempted to get the CCPA to suspend or expel corporate members including Uniroyal, convicted of breaking environmental laws. Their news release indicated that the CCPA were spending large amounts of money on full page newspaper ads (eg. Globe & Mail) extolling the virtues of their members commitment to *Responsible Care. *Responsible Care was the written system in place which CCPA members were supposed to be using to ethically and responsibly run their chemical manufacturing businesses. The news release listed thirteen CCPA member companies who have been charged and convicted for environmental offences in just the last few years in Ontario alone. Some of these companies included Dow, Du Pont, Polysar, Cyanamid, Novacor, Shell, and of course our favourite, Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira.31<br /><br />The point that Ms. Schwartzel and Pat Potter were making is that the CCPA needs to be more than a PR and cheerleading brigade for Canadian and Ontario polluters. You can imagine Pat’s disgust when she found out later in 1993 that Sylvia Berg, on behalf of APT, had sent a letter to the CCPA praising Uniroyal for their behaviour here in Elmira. Pat learned of this letter from the CCPA not from any other APT members. The CCPA had responded to Pat’s criticism and demands to expel Uniroyal by advising her that the Vice-President of APT had sent them a letter in support of Uniroyal’s efforts in Elmira. Wow! Keep in mind that two close colleagues and friends of mine, Esther Thur and Rich Clausi were both on APT’s coordinating committee as of course was Sylvia. Sylvia absolutely had not run her letter by either the APT coordinating committee (in full) nor by the general membership. When later confronted by Rich Clausi, Sylvia suggested that she thought it was better not to be negative all the time towards Uniroyal and to give them some encouragement. This occurred in January 1994 when Pat Potter learned of our difficulties over DNAPLs with Sylvia and advised Richard of Sylvia’s earlier behaviour. While I do not have evidence of any other APT members or coordinators being in the know when Sylvia sent her grossly inappropriate letter to the CCPA, I suspect that at least one other, possibly two, knew about it and said nothing to the rest of APT. Again, to my shame, in hindsight, I like other APT members did not want to believe that Sylvia Berg was intentionally undermining Elmira citizens in their fight with Uniroyal and the Ministry of Environment. I guess I also did not want to confront the fact that an APT member was either co-opted or that APT had been infiltrated by a Uniroyal Chemical supporter.<br /><br />It took decades before I began to understand the complexities and manipulation necessary for successful control freaks to get their way in large groups. Simple lying alone would never do. Key secret supporters need to be in position to support the gamesmanship and deception. False flags and public statements are helpful in throwing off the scent of betrayal. Private communications with expectations that the rest of your group that you are betraying will never see them are required. An emphasis on personal friendships and trust will insulate co-opted individuals from suspicion. A willingness to deceive and lie over a very long time frame is imperative. Never admitting, even when you are caught, that this behaviour is the norm, versus an aberration, is necessary. While I am no psychologist it takes some kind of a broken person, some kind of a sociopath to behave this way. What I have learned is that while psychopaths thank God are rare, sociopaths are all around us. They are self-centred, they are self-serving, they are narcissistic and have huge egos and they have no shame whatsoever. And lastly they are sometimes found and used by others more powerful and more broken than they are, to pursue their own ends.<br /><br />The CCPA eventually morphed into the Chemical Industry Association of Canada (CIAC). They continued to be avid supporters of Canadian chemical manufacturers, regardless of their true commitment to the environment. The CIAC in later years advised CPAC (first Crompton then Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) members that they would rather have a problematic Uniroyal/Crompton, Chemtura, and eventually Lanxess under their umbrella than not. Similar to Sylvia Berg they professed that it was better to encourage the company rather than take sanctions against them or publicly condemn them for their failures. In much later years we learned that the CIAC had sitting CPAC members on their National Advisory Panel. These appointments also were not shared by anyone with the rest of the voting CPAC members at the time, including myself. If I had known I would have raised a major stink firstly about the secrecy and secondly about the conflict of interest. When Woolwich Township were advised in writing in the spring of 2017, in detail and with multiple witness statements, they ignored and swept the information under the carpet. This intentional corruption of public participation and public consultation will be discussed at length in a later chapter. There were inducements, benefits, and gratuities involved in both this case and another in which a sitting CPAC and later TAG member was involved. Again Woolwich Township turned a blind eye.<br /><br />The Long Con Continues<br /><br />1993 was an important if not crucial year. The phony DNAPL Report by Brian Beatty had been publicly exposed and the Ministry decided that they still had years of skullduggery and public deception ahead of them before they could go back to brazenly ignoring public input. They and their fellow travelers understood that as long as the public, the media, and APT members in general were watching closely that they had to play the game carefully. For my part I was still naïve despite everything that had happened. Every victory and every exposure of the lying and deceit of the MOE and Uniroyal had me thinking that we’d broken their backs. Surely they wouldn’t keep coming back for more. Surely they’d learned their lesson? Absolutely not. Manipulating and lying to the public was not a short term game for amateurs. Politicians have been doing it for centuries so why should little things like democracy, higher education of the populace, and greater media coverage stop them now?<br /><br />On February 24, 1993 there was a public meeting held in the Elmira Community Centre. The two items discussed were the Alternative Water Supply and the Remediation of the Elmira Aquifers. These were part and parcel of regaining public trust and of getting the public onside for the ongoing private negotiating going on between the Ministry, Uniroyal, and the Region of Waterloo. After all, the shutting down of the Environmental Appeal Board hearings had left both the Region and the Township in a state of limbo. Was difficult court action against a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company the only way to go? Uniroyal had settled with the MOE on very favourable terms to themselves. Negotiations were difficult but as long as the Township and Region were willing to settle for their financial losses accrued over the previous three years directly dealing with the water shutdowns then a deal was possible. If however those two parties decided to get uppity and start insisting upon things like a real cleanup of the Uniroyal site then they were going to wait a very long time before they saw a nickel of what they had already spent on water testing, consultants, water pipelines, legal fees, and the Environmental Appeal Board hearings. Cheques were cut and deals were made. The Region signed formal deals jointly with Uniroyal Chemical and the MOE as well as a separate deal with the MOE. The Township received a cheque and mayor Bob Waters pronounced himself satisfied. Of course the public as always were excluded. There was no comprehensive plan or settlement that insisted upon source removal of buried toxins either on or off the Uniroyal site. The three levels of government all declared themselves happy and the public were not only left holding the bag in regards to health injuries but also in regards to environmental scars that would never be healed. To this day in mid 2018 the Creek is still grossly contaminated with Persistent Organic Pollutants, people are dead and dying from both air and water pollution locally and our Elmira Aquifers are not much closer to being restored than they were in 1993 when we were promised they’d be ready to go in 30 years. Turns out that date of 2023 was pushed back to 2028 as the offsite pumping didn’t start until 1998. Since then we’ve been advised by more honest experts that 2050 at the earliest may be the date that our local aquifers will be back in business.<br /><br />In April of 1993 Uniroyal appealed a Ministry directive yet again. But then why wouldn’t they. Every time they did they gained either concessions or a sweetheart deal. This appeal was over the MOE’s Certificate of Approval regarding Uniroyal’s proposed Upper Aquifer Containment & Treatment System. Uniroyal felt that the MOE’s terms were too onerous: read expensive.<br /><br />The MOE played a little tit for tat and charged both Uniroyal and David Ash on June 8/93 for failure to do ordered MISA tests. MISA stood for Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement and was concerned with storm water drains from the Uniroyal site discharging untreated into the Canagagigue Creek. It seems that unfortunately these drains had underground piping which was being infiltrated by contaminated groundwater. Oops! Everything from solvents, lindane, 2, 4-D and some Dioxins were being discharged into the “Gig” from the Uniroyal site. These MISA issues were discussed and debated for months at UPAC and typical of Uniroyal they would argue on one hand that many of their compounds were hydrophobic and couldn’t be dissolved in groundwater but on the other hand deny that underground pipes discharging these hydrophobic compounds were picking them up from the groundwater. To mollify UPAC members they did agree to epoxy various underground joints and in-ground catch basins to prevent groundwater infiltration. When pressed they would either blame up gradient railroad tracks or even air deposition of these toxic chemicals that they themselves used or produced. It was always somebody else’s fault.<br /><br />On September 7, 1993 excavations began on the “Consolidation” pits, RPE 4 & 5 on the east side of the Uniroyal site. Uniroyal had built what they referred to as the “Envirodome” on the north-east corner of their site. It was into this building that 46,000 tonnes of toxic sludges, solids and drums were transferred. Much of the contents of the west side ponds (RPW 3-8) had but a few short years earlier been consolidated into these two east side pits. Also the contents of some of the other east side pits were put into these two larger pits. These pits had been covered over first with a little bit of ground and then plastic, allegedly to prevent rainfall from entering the pits and filling them like an overflowing bathtub. To this day the Envirodome is still there and could have been used to store so much more toxic waste that has stayed in the ground unnecessarily and inappropriately since the building was emptied over the summer of 1999. UPAC and CPAC over the years have through research long identified the various “hot spots” that require remediation and or excavation. The company and MOE have always had a plethora of excuses to justify their non-action on most of these spots.<br /><br />History has also been unkind to the calibre and quality of these so called professional excavations on both sides of the creek done in the mid to late 1980s. Free phase DNAPLS and more have been found in different locations since, including at TPW-2 (west side) and RPE-1 and 3 on the east side. Hindsight and experience has taught me that any “cleanup” done out of public sight and public supervision is suspect. If the MOE claim that they alone supervised the cleanup, then this goes double.<br /><br />These concerns have only been exacerbated by the hilarious descriptions given to CPAC during their last term (2010-2015) by Jeff Merriman, Chemtura’s environmental engineer. These were descriptions of the scientific, authoritative, and highly technical determinations regarding remaining contamination in the sub-surface after on-site “cleanups.” We at CPAC dubbed them Jeff’s magic nose and eyes. They were entirely based upon visual and olfactory examinations of the ground. Allegedly when he and or his colleagues couldn’t see or smell contamination then everything was just fine. If you think that this sounds beyond ridiculous than you are right. Compound it when you understand that many Uniroyal/Chemtura employees had long since lost any ability to smell chemicals after years of being immersed in them on a daily basis.<br /><br />It is likely that this even explains the need for supplementary excavations decades later in the area known as GP1 (Gravel Pit 1). The initial excavations took place in 2013 and went down approximately eight feet in some places. The following summer, test results determined that three more areas within GP1 needed further excavation. It certainly appears that they shut down the initial excavations based upon Jeff’s magic nose and eyes only to look at the completed lab analyses months later.<br /><br />The excavations of RPE 4 & 5 did not occur without incident. We had been advised ahead of time that odour suppressing foam would be used to keep the odours on site. Indeed with the benefit of binoculars we were able to see the excavations as they occurred. Watching the men in moon suits walking around instilled a sense of calm professionalism and competence. Those feelings lasted right up until the pungent and putrid odours made their way off–site hundreds of metres to the west. Elmira was treated yet again to Uniroyal’s ability to talk a much better game than they played. Amazingly all that was required was the application of more foam on the open excavation in order to cut back on the migrating fumes. It was also ironic/hypocritical that for decades Uniroyal had been telling residents that their air emissions were merely odourous not hazardous to their health. How peculiar that the safety protocols were so stringent for the workers including respirators, hazmat suits, and wash down procedures each day.<br /><br />DNAPL COLLUSION<br /><br />December 10, 1993 is a date for me that will live in infamy forever. To better illustrate why I will quote from a September 28, 1993 article in the K-W Record written by John Roe. The title is “Cleanup of 2 toxic waste pits going smoothly, Uniroyal says”. Several people were interviewed for this article including Steve Quigley of Conestoga Rovers and myself and Sylvia Berg from APT. The Bryants were on sabbatical in India and had been for some time. Their absence during this crisis turned out to have ramifications far in excess of anything than I could ever have imagined. Their absence delayed by more than a decade and a half my belated recognition of hints and anomalies that I should have picked up on much sooner. These ramifications will be discussed in depth in later chapters.<br /><br />In this Record article John Roe wrote “Uniroyal paid for studies and a report on DNAPLS last year. But that report was heavily criticized and the province told the company to come up with another study.” Uniroyal and their consultants CRA did so. It was still a stinker. The earlier report was of course Brian Beatty’s (Dames & Moore) DNAPL report that took Stan Feenstra’s DNAPL conclusions completely out of context. While the CRA report may have found more likely DNAPL locations with the more appropriate 1% Solubility Rule, nevertheless this report was the equivalent of patching a rusting and leaking submarine. The old one desperately needed to be thrown out and the new started from scratch. I stated in my interview with Mr. Roe that Uniroyal had not done enough tests for DNAPLs. “There’s been little or no examination of a huge area" on the site. This area I was referring to was M2 or the former municipal landfill that Uniroyal now owned and was located in their highly contaminated south-west corner. Mr. Roe advised that Sylvia Berg stated that for Elmira to have drinkable water in 30 years the company must excavate all DNAPL hot spots. Oddly she allegedly then said “But to do this you need better excavations.” That makes no sense whatsoever hence I expect that Mr. Roe unintentionally misquoted her. Likely she said “But to do this you need better investigations.”<br /><br />Steve Quigley was also slightly misquoted as he supposedly said that he defended the excavations his firm had done. In fact he was defending the investigations his firm had already done, not their excavations which weren’t complete for another two months. Or was he ?The project involving the two east side waste pits, RPE 4 & 5 had been underway for the previous 12 days and 350 truckloads of waste had been removed from the ground according to the K-W Record`s, John Roe who interviewed Uniroyal and personnel. Is it possible that contrary to what we were told in December 1993 and early January 1994 that in fact the DNAPLs at Retention Pond-5 (RPW-5) and Tar Pit West-2 (TPW-2) were actually excavated first in order to ensure there was room for them in the Envirodome before the massive excavations at RPE 4 & 5. Of course the problem with this scenario is that allegedly the MOE had not yet approved the Uniroyal and CRA plan regarding DNAPL removal. That did not come until the December 10, 1993 letter from the MOE advising Uniroyal and the other stakeholders, including APT; that the MOE approved CRA’s final DNAPL report. That date, December 10, 1993 was bizarre for two reasons. First it was within ten or twelve days of the completion of the removal from the ground of 46,000 tonnes of toxic waste. That waste was put all inside the Envirodome and it was many tonnes in excess of both the original estimates as well as the planned capacity of the Envirodome. Therefore any last minute additions to the in-ground excavations could have ended up without a home other than back in the ground. Secondly as the excavations of RPE 4 & 5 started in mid September, how believable is it that the MOE just made up their mind on December 10, 1993 to give Uniroyal and CRA the go ahead to excavate RPW-5 and TPW-2 as they were looking at the conclusion of this major project?<br /><br />Sylvia then at the end of Mr. Roe’s September 28, 1993 article said the magic words which should have been enough just over two months later to have gotten her a permanent leave of absence from APT. In response to the comment that the Ontario Ministry of Environment needed to approve Uniroyal’s DNAPL plan she stated that she’d “be very surprised if they found this report adequate.”<br /><br />In fact the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change found Conestoga Rovers latest DNAPL report to be just fine. Not only did they ignore criticism, advice, and outrage from both the Region of Waterloo and APT earlier in the year but they apparently overlooked their own issues with the previous Dames & Moore report. This opposition was full blown in February 1993 prior to two events. Firstly CRA hadn’t delivered their new report that was supposed to vastly improve on the highly criticized effort by Brian Beatty and secondly the Region of Waterloo hadn’t yet settled with either the MOE or Uniroyal in regards to the Region’s costs for hiring consultants, drilling wells and building the new pipeline from Waterloo to St. Jacobs and Elmira.<br /><br />I was appalled at the MOE’s rollover. That was disgusting. What came next however was so much worse. APT rolled over and bellied up. It was done by Sylvia Berg, APT’s vice-president. She didn’t defend the MOE’s December 10, 1993 decision and letter. She didn’t condemn it either. When I expressed my disgust that the again inadequate DNAPL report had been accepted despite APT’s written and well researched criticisms of Uniroyal’s (CRA) second effort she had absolutely no comment. I pointed out to her that it was herself, Glenys McMullen, and me who had worked so hard on preparing a well thought out, well written critique in August 1993. She was unmoved to the point of not even agreeing that APT needed to take some steps of some sort to protest this blatant cover up of what Susan Bryant fifteen months earlier had referred to as the “…most serious environmental problem at Uniroyal.”<br /><br />Sylvia was a stone wall of non-communication so I approached Richard Clausi, another APT coordinator. He wanted to know the details and the specifics regarding the DNAPL reports including the critique that Glenys McMullen, Sylvia Berg, and I had written. He too was shocked as he began to understand the blatancy of the MOE’s December 10, 1993 acceptance of CRA’s DNAPL report. There was absolutely no reasonable explanation offered by either the MOE or by Sylvia Berg. Richard called for a meeting of the APT coordinators for early January as everyone were overwhelmed with Christmas and family commitments by what was now late December 1993.<br /><br />I had done the bulk of the reading and research necessary for APT’s latest DNAPL critique just as I had for the previous one. Both Sylvia Berg and her friend Glenys McMullen had cheerfully assisted with editing and writing APT’s formal critique of CRA’s latest woefully inadequate DNAPL report. Both of them were fully on-side with my conclusions, at least to my face that is. To say that I was shocked by Sylvia’s refusal to seriously discuss the MOE’s about face is an understatement. I did have a moment’s pause however when after APT’s critique was fully prepared and typed, Sylvia had me sign it which I immediately did. I then waited for her to sign it as well. Nothing. I said to her that both she and Glenys McMullen deserved the credit as well for their efforts and input. Oh no she said, I did the difficult work it was better for just me to sign it which I had already done. I found that peculiar but obviously couldn’t force her to sign it.<br /><br />Richard and I had prepared handouts for the APT coordinators regarding the history of the DNAPL investigations at Uniroyal. Obviously other than me and Susan Bryant who was still in India, none of the coordinators had read any of the DNAPL reports. While I was extraordinarily concerned with what I viewed as Sylvia Berg’s bizarre behaviour and attitude, at no point did I even remotely entertain the thought that she was co-opted or worse. In fact I later expressed to Richard and another confidant that I feared that Sylvia was having either some kind of breakdown or that she was in the midst of two possible personal, health crises. The second concern may very well have been accurate but that did not explain her rock solid performance at the coordinators meeting. Also Richard had by then received the previously mentioned correspondence from Pat Potter of Dunnville which advised that Sylvia had sent a letter of support for Uniroyal to the CCPA.<br /><br />I did my best to explain to the coordinators the seriousness of the MOE’s rollover on the DNAPL issue. At the same time Sylvia reassured them that she was monitoring and observing the situation and while the CRA’s conclusions were not perfect they really weren’t that bad. Some DNAPLS had been removed from RPW-5 and TPW-2 in the last half of December (1993) and more might be done in the future. I pointed out the APT critique which only had my signature, not Sylvia’s, nor Glenys’s at the bottom of it. Sylvia was calm and reassuring regarding DNAPLs yet aggressive and hostile regarding Richard and I having questioned her and forcing this meeting unnecessarily in her opinion. Then Richard, while in hindsight 100% correct, made in my opinion a tactical error. He threw down Pat Potter’s very strong suspicions that Sylvia was co-opted based upon her letter to the CCPA. Again in hindsight I was way too slow to come to the same conclusion but this was neither the time nor the place to accuse her. Now Sylvia had what she wanted which was less of a technical argument regarding the DNAPL cover up and hence some appropriate response from APT, and more of a personal attack upon her integrity. The APT coordinators now had a simpler choice. To a certain extent this DNAPL debate had turned into a popularity contest. The coordinators, just like me, certainly didn’t want to believe that Sylvia was a plant, a mole, or some kind of a spy for Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. The debate was over and they voted to support Sylvia’s doing nothing regarding the Ministry rolling over on DNAPLS.<br /><br />That could have and should have been the end but that’s when I really got a good look at Sylvia Berg. Having won the DNAPL discussion she jumped all over me. Alan she stated was to be removed from the APT representatives on UPAC. She could no longer share a table or be a working colleague of mine after I had attacked her integrity. No such thing happened of course because up till then I still didn’t believe it. Certainly indirectly as Richard and I had forced the meeting regarding an APT response to the DNAPL cover up, he and I were acting in concert. I have never blamed Richard for speaking what he believed to be true and in hindsight he was the only one at that meeting who did come to the right conclusion about Sylvia. After Sylvia’s ultimatum Richard immediately resigned from APT. I was stunned. As surprised as I was by Richard’s resignation, the tipping point for me was Sylvia’s aggressive stance of removing me as one of the APT representatives at the UPAC table. That was on the face of it ridiculous as I was by far their most proven and reliable technical reader and had proven that with the Stan Feenstra scandal that resulted in the “Consolidation” of Brian Beatty and company. If other APT members had jumped in right there, things could still have been salvaged. Salvaged for APT’s and the public’s benefit. It didn’t happen. I resigned along with Richard. A week or two later Esther Thur one of the founders of APT resigned as well. She had been attending UPAC meetings regularly and knew I was the real deal. She joined Rich Clausi and I as members of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team named after and with the approval of Pat Potter, of the original Environmental Hazards Team in Dunnville, Ontario.<br /><br />Hindsight is often twenty-twenty. What Sylvia lacked in technical prowess she made up for in understanding people. Did she know and hope that by making her off of APT at UPAC meetings ultimatum to me, after winning the DNAPL debate, that I would likely say to hell with you, I’m out of here? Was that her plan from the beginning? Was this the same thing as the impossible condition given to Susan Rupert by the MOE that UPAC meetings had to be private and behind closed doors knowing that while Susan Rupert would never go for it, other more amenable to persuasion APT members would? In other words by making an unreasonable and ridiculous demand could you induce the most involved and honest members to say that’s it, I’m done? This can only work if the manipulators are confident that the less involved citizens will not aggressively intervene and stop it.<br /><br />There is one other question to be asked? Was Sylvia’s behaviour all about getting rid of another person she viewed as a threat to her (and Susan Bryant) being the front and centre APT spokespersons? Was this all about ego? Why did she set me up the way she did on the black and white DNAPL matter? Was she working along with either Uniroyal or the MOE on this as well? Certainly I had announced my presence loudly and clearly to UPAC and them with the Stan Feenstra/Brian Beatty affair. Up until very recently (June 2018) I had always felt that Susan and Darrol Bryant were thousands of miles away in India and totally isolated from these happenings. Just recently in conversations with Susan Rupert I have been disabused of that notion. They were in touch regularly with both Susan Rupert and Sylvia Berg. Hence they could have and should have intervened at the time but instead chose to let this disaster play out.<br /><br />In a January 12, 1994 K-W Record article written by John Roe, Sylvia Berg was quoted as saying “…APT was generally satisfied with the excavation of the DNAPLs that took place last year.” Compare that to her quote of September 28, 1993 and with virtually zero explanation for her turnaround or the MOE’s; there was but one conclusion for me. “The fix was in.” I had stated that on the day I stopped working at Varnicolor Chemical. It was apparent again. With the benefit of much further evidence and data over the ensuing twenty-four years I have become convinced that as early as 1993, at the least, that APT’s President and Vice-President were making private deals with both Uniroyal and the Ontario Ministry of Environment behind APT members backs. This includes behind the backs of the general membership as well as behind the backs of their fellow APT coordinators. This same thing occurred after 2000 when Sylvia Berg and family had departed Elmira and Susan Bryant improbably teamed up with councillor Pat McLean. That pair then went on to making deals with the MOE and or Uniroyal, on UPAC/CPAC’s part, but again behind their backs. They got caught doing that by me in regards to the proposed new Ammonia Treatment System and that and the newest resurgence of DNAPL interest at Uniroyal was the reason that that pair manipulated the old CPAC to get rid of me. It is difficult to say whether either Sylvia or Susan actually felt that they knew best and were making private deals to save time and was in the public interest. None of the three of them on their own were remotely qualified to be doing so. There is both strength and common sense in a group of honest citizens debating issues. The original APT with Susan Rupert, Sandra Bray and Esther Thur believed in decisions by consensus. Sylvia, Pat, and Susan clearly did not. They routinely and surreptitiously usurped the group’s authority for their own, whether from APT or from CPAC, up until they got their 4 1/2 year comeuppance in early 2011 which I shall describe later.<br /><br />Back to January 1994. Sylvia Berg sold APT and the public down the drain regarding DNAPLS. I knew shortly after and for ever more that this was the biggest reason for APT’s decline of legitimate influence from that point onwards. While Uniroyal and the MOE had likely played games to get APT to join UPAC in the first place, nevertheless they had to be careful that other APT members didn’t catch on. After the APT members skated on the second inadequate DNAPL report Uniroyal knew they were home free. They had two inside persons that they could count on to being amenable to making deals. Just like the Ontario MOE would.<br /><br />I was disappointed with the other APT members after January 1994. True I had been successfully manipulated and fooled by Sylvia as had they but at the least I expected phone calls from some of them commiserating. Other than Esther Thur it didn’t happen.<br /><br />The Region of Waterloo, APT, GRCA, MOE, and UPAC all were so pleased with the completed excavation of RPE-4 & 5 that they turned a blind eye to the token removal of DNAPL at RPW-5 and TPW-2. The other reason for most of these groups backing off likely had to do with Uniroyal settling financially with the Region and with Woolwich Township, earlier in March 1993 prior to the start of the east side excavations. Knowing Uniroyal’s hard- nosed, private bargaining skills I expect that they asked for and tacitly at least, received a pass on onerous DNAPL removal at this time.<br /><br />The RPW-5 excavation was a small corner of the entire pit. Similarly we were told that at TPW-2, free phase DNAPL was clearly visible and left behind. The excuse was that it was mixed in with municipal garbage from M2 located right beside TPW-2 and Uniroyal claimed that they weren’t responsible for the contents of the former municipal landfill which they now owned. Not responsible well describes the situation and the MOE were full fledged members of the not responsible club.<br /> <br /> CLICK ON "OLDER POSTS" (below right) to advance to Chapter Four <br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 3<br /><br />24 Bob Burtt, “Region launches water lawsuits”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, October 2, 1990<br /><br />25 Ontario Min. Of Environment, Drinking Water Surveillance Program, ELMIRA WELL SUPPLY, Annual<br />Report 1989, March 1991,Table 1, p.11.<br /><br />26 CH2M Hill, ELMIRA-ST. JACOBS WATER SUPPLY PROJECT, VOLUME II- ELMIRA AQIFER SYSTEM:<br />CONTAMINANT PLUME MAPPING AND SOURCE CONTAMINATION, March 1991, p.102.<br /><br />27 Bob Burtt, “Ministry misled, Elmira group says”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, September 22, 1992<br /><br />28 Bob Burtt, “Uniroyal may face charges in cleanup”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, October 15, 1992<br /><br />29 Bob Burtt, “MOE presses Uniroyal for chemical search”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, December 1,<br />1992<br /><br />30 Bob Burtt, “Uniroyal officials doubt all chemicals can be cleaned up”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record,<br />December 11, 1992<br /><br />31 “Chemical Producers ads do not tell the full story, Pollution Probe says”, Elmira Independent,<br />January 25, 1993<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-83087749739845622502023-12-19T12:12:00.000-08:002023-12-20T06:44:42.957-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_18.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8043237994137297963" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br />Chapter Four:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />31....1994<br /><br />32....Chlorine<br /><br />32....LNAPL<br /><br />33....Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System<br /><br />34....January 1995 Public Meeting<br /><br />35....UPAC’s Failure<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 4<br /><br />1994<br /><br />This year, 1994, was a very difficult year. APT had lost three of their best researchers, record keepers, speakers, and activists. Fortunately, the public had not. These departures, of course, followed the huge loss of Susan Rupert a couple of years earlier. It was not, however, to be the last major personnel loss suffered by this citizens’ group. In fact the huge loss that occurred in 2005, was APT member Dr. Henry Regier, whom we talked about late in Chapter One. I am critical of the leadership since 2010 and the general membership, only now in 2018. That said, did I have it all figured out in 1995 much less 2005? I did not, therefore my criticism of APT members not stepping up in 1991 for Susan Rupert’s departure, again in 1994 for Rich Clausi, Esther Thur, and me and then finally in 2005 when Dr. Regier resigned from APT must be considered in that light. Particularly so when I realize that I was an APT member in 1991 and did not inquire diligently about Susan Rupert’s departure. Maybe I’m wrong and there were APT coordinators or general members who smelled something as Dr. Regier did and either said so or simply left APT themselves. By the way I have a confession to make. I was tipped off in 2005 that Susan Bryant was not whom she appeared to be. While I totally respected the source of that information I simply believed that the person advising me was wrong. Interestingly Susan Bryant herself confirmed to me at that time that this particular APT member believed that she was co-opted.<br /><br />Esther Thur continued her work compiling reports and newspaper stories and filing them in the Elmira Library. She did this until her death in 2004. For four years her work was on behalf of the public and on behalf of APT. For the next ten and a half years her work in this regard was also on behalf of the public as well as on the behalf of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team (EH-Team). Rich, Henry, and I miss Esther to this day. We do not miss the APT leadership taking the credit for the bulk of Esther’s work and claiming it as being under APT’s purview.<br /><br />Already the media were beginning to back off. They, just like the citizens in general, could only absorb so much data and facts and only react in shock and anger a finite number of times to the ongoing efforts by our authorities to portray a professional, comprehensive cleanup of the aquifers, air, and surface water in the “Gig”. The Elmira Independent was doing an excellent job of covering UPAC meetings and reporting on them. Bob and Carol Verdun owned the newspaper and dedicated much of their resources to the Elmira environmental story. In 1990 they won the Michener Award along with their reporter, Roddy Turpin, for “meritorious public service in journalism”. The K-W Record may have missed attending a few UPAC meetings but they were still heavily involved and reporting fairly regularly. The other local news media, including CKCO-TV, were selective about their coverage.<br /><br />Chlorine<br /><br />On March 12, 1994, Uniroyal had an accidental release of chlorine. It passed through Elmira as the usual prevailing west to east winds that took most of Uniroyal’s toxic stench immediately out of town were reversed this day. The cloud was small but was just above ground level. Some residents reported stinging eyes, strong chlorine odours, and respiratory distress.32 When the volunteer Woolwich Fire Department went to Uniroyal in response to complaints, they were stonewalled. Uniroyal advised them that the company had not had any spills or releases to the air. Kieran Kelly, District Fire Chief, was not amused when the truth came out later that day. This behaviour was not an acceptable way for a self-declared responsible chemical company to operate. Further, company and MOE statements over the ensuing days advising residents that the spill was minor and at no time had there been any health risk whatsoever to residents were problematic. Any chlorine leak is potentially fatal. Chlorine is the active ingredient in mustard gas that was used to lethal effect during the First World War.<br /><br />LNAPL<br /><br />Later that month of March 1994, Uniroyal decided to come clean on another outstanding issue. Uniroyal folks, likely Jeff Merriman (Jeff) and Dwight Este (Dwight), announced to UPAC members that there was a sub-surface pool known as light non aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) floating on the water table in the south-west area of their site. They estimated that the pool could be between 10,000 and 40,000 gallons and that it consisted primarily of toluene. They believed that it had over a period of years leaked from the Uniroyal Building #15. UPAC members were stunned at this revelation.<br /><br />Questions were asked and the shock and anger began to build in the meeting as UPAC members heard Uniroyal’s answers. Yes, Uniroyal had known about this pool of toluene for at least the last eight months. No, they had not informed the MOE right away. Once informed, the MOE did not see any need to immediately inform the public advisory committee. No, the MOE did not order Uniroyal representatives to inform UPAC. No, the MOE had not taken any emergency steps to immediately stop the groundwater transport of this pool of LNAPL from discharging into the “Gig”.<br /><br />Uniroyal was asked why its representatives had not informed UPAC, about these LNAPLS immediately, Uniroyal personnel responded that they did not under the advice of their lawyers. Well. At that point Sylvia Berg, on behalf of APT, stepped up and totally blistered Uniroyal representatives for their behaviour, their deceit, and their hiding behind their lawyers. She lectured them and the MOE and it was a beautiful to see and to hear.<br /><br />In hindsight, it was exactly what the CPAC of 2011 to 2015 had been doing, and as accurate and appropriate as it was, that CPAC was seventeen plus years later and our politicians were more willing to attack the CPAC messengers and defend Uniroyal as the news media and public interest and support was so much lessened. In fact, while Susan Bryant on occasion over the decades would take a strip off of Uniroyal in frustration, the only other APT member I can remember doing so in a big way was Shannon Purves-Smith. At a public CPAC meeting Ms. Purves-Smith took Jeff Merriman to task and basically screamed at him about the company’s incessant talk and incessant delays versus the company actually doing anything.<br /><br />LNAPL as its name implies is a liquid that floats on water and does not immediately dissolve into it. The easiest and most visible example of LNAPL would be a spill of gas or oil on the surface of the ocean. Despite the massive size of the ocean, and hence, its ability to eventually dissolve the contaminant; the gas or oil can be readily seen to float on its surface. The same effect happens below the surface of the ground when the oil, gas, or, in this case, solvent descends through the sub-surface and then contacts the surface of the saturated soil, namely the water table. This LNAPL migrates with the flow of the shallow groundwater and discharges along with it into the nearest discharge point, which is likely to be a creek or river. In Uniroyal’s case, LNAPLS would discharge into the Creek (“Gig”), which runs through the Uniroyal property. At the same time, the LNAPL is also slowly dissolving into the groundwater that it is floating on. This slow dissolving is similar to the behaviour of DNAPL, which being dense, has moved through the aquifer and likely is at or near the bottom of the aquifer and above the low permeability clay or silt aquitard. The last point regarding LNAPL is that it can often be seen and identified as “seeps” along the banks of the discharge area. In other words, this raw product whether oil, gasoline, or solvent can often be seen and even smelled along the Creek banks where it has slowly flowed along with the groundwater and then discharged into the Creek.<br /><br />Obviously, just like DNAPLS, LNAPLs are a terrible contaminant to discover on any site. Combined with all the other issues at Uniroyal, this was a devastating environmental matter. CPAC members were advised that the good news was that LNAPLs were much more easily removed and remediated due to their location than DNAPLS. Once again CPAC were played by Uniroyal and the MOE in multiple ways. Firstly, they had no serious interest in removing this contaminant in any kind of expeditious manner. Secondly, the claim that they had only known about it for eight months or so was highly suspect. When I worked at Varnicolor from 1988 to 1990, I knew without consultants, the MOE, or any other experts that Varnicolor had LNAPLS in its subsurface. While I didn’t know them by that name, I certainly knew that any excavation for a posthole or anything else below the water table was apt to quickly fill up with visible and smelly solvents. Those were LNAPLs. Additionally, the Uniroyal site had been operating on both sides of the “Gig” for nearly fifty years. Of course, they had seen and smelled these discharges to the Creek and they and their consultants knew damn well what it was. Such purveyors of self-serving misinformation.<br /><br />Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System<br /><br />CPAC learned of yet another betrayal of the public trust in June 1994. This one was truly unbelievable but after what the company had gotten away with seven months earlier in regards to DNAPLS, CPAC shouldn’t have been surprised. There was the October/November 1991 sweetheart deal between the MOE and Uniroyal, which fallout both had survived. Clearly, the matter of the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System (UACTS) had been under private discussion between the MOE and Uniroyal exactly as the DNAPL issue had been. Having all the parties including APT roll over and belly up on the DNAPL issue had clearly emboldened Uniroyal.<br /><br />The November 4, 1991 Control Order seemed very clear that there was to be complete hydraulic containment of the Uniroyal site, in all aquifers. Despite this, as of June 1994, the most highly contaminated upper or shallow aquifer was to be hydraulically contained in the south-west quadrant of the site only. The other three quadrants, namely the north-west, north-east and south- east were not going to have containment even attempted. Therefore, but one quarter only of the ongoing groundwater discharge directly to the creek would be stopped. At UPAC, we all demanded to know why and how this could be permitted. The rationale provided to us was as simple as it was false. Steve Quigley an engineer at CRA verbally suggested that 97.5% of all on-site contaminants discharged to the Creek via the south-west quadrant. That figure appeared ridiculous upon the face of it, and, in fact history has so confirmed. Unfortunately, history took twenty more years and Woolwich politicians stepped in quickly in late 2014 and through much of 2015 to save Uniroyal’s (Chemtura) bacon. As the east side pits that were filled over time with the same toxics as the west side had been overflowing and soaking through the bottom; then clearly the shallow aquifer on the east side of the creek had to be grossly contaminated as well. How could this self-serving and financially rewarding plan to Uniroyal possibly protect the Creek adequately from upper aquifer discharges? It was never explained logically or any other way. APT walked in disgust from UPAC. Richard Clausi, Esther Thur, and I cheered their departure. Surely, the other UPAC members would begin to understand now exactly how corrupt the whole process was. Of the other parties at UPAC, only one other was greatly offended and disturbed. That party was the Region of Waterloo. My guess now is that they had not been let in on the games that Uniroyal and the MOE were playing on the east side and had initiated back in the mid- 1980s, prior to the well shutdowns. The other UPAC members seemed to glory in their own ignorance. By the way, the EH-Team representatives of Richard, Esther, and I stood with APT on this matter. While we had left APT the previous January, we were focused on the public interest and the UACTS appeared to be yet another near mortal wound to that interest.<br /><br />In hindsight of twenty-four years, I have to ask these four questions. Was this an intentional double betrayal by Uniroyal of both the public interest and of APT leadership? Had Susan Bryant and Sylvia Berg been expecting good things of the UACTS and its stated protection of the Creek in exchange for their selling out on the DNAPL issues? Or, was the grossly unacceptable UACTS an attempt by Uniroyal to rid themselves of Susan and Sylvia once and for all? Were Uniroyal hoping that, having blatantly betrayed everyone who cared about the Creek, APT would throw in the towel and walk away from their involvement? If that was the plan, then they were disappointed. The EH-Team continued working on and so did APT.<br /><br />Neither Uniroyal representatives nor the MOE have ever displayed any public sign of shame no matter how outrageous their behaviour or how badly their credibility has been tarnished and put on public display. To say they have thick skins doesn’t even begin to describe them. Therefore, while on the face of it, it was simply a blip on the radar, the timing of their next mistake was exquisite. After making the outlandish and outrageous initial claim that 97.5% of all the on-site contaminants were being discharged into the “Gig” from the south-west corner of the Uniroyal site, they then had an oopsy moment. This miscalculation was neither the first nor the last. The corollary of making ridiculous and self-serving mathematical predictions is that it needs hard evidence to support it too. Not only could CRA not do that, but then they had to admit that their initial calculations as to the total volume of groundwater being discharged from the south-west quadrant wasn’t even close to the actual quantity. Essentially they were going to have to be prepared to hydraulically contain and treat ten to twenty times more groundwater than they had originally planned. Self-serving mistakes like this from consultants who brook no criticism and no suggestions from the public are hard to swallow. CRA representatives also advised UPAC that this error was going to delay their implementation of hydraulic containment in the shallow aquifer. In fact, it was another three years before they finally completed hydraulically containing all of one quarter of the upper aquifer on the Uniroyal site.<br /><br />APT really had no choice in the matter when they resigned from UPAC and walked away from formal membership. UPAC members were blatantly biased in favour of Uniroyal and were clearly going through the motions of environmental stewardship. Other than the Region, Susan Bryant, and me, almost nobody else was reading the reports much less doing any research or work preparing for the monthly meetings. Initially, I thought that perhaps the APT leadership were simply following the EH-Team’s lead as members of the EH-Team had resigned first from APT and then from UPAC in January 1994. Further thought, however, makes it clear that the UACTS was an intentional provocation and failure by Uniroyal designed to provoke some action from the APT leadership. Again, in hindsight, the APT general membership had gotten far too comfortable in reading each month about their representatives kicking MOE and Uniroyal butt at the UPAC meetings . They felt that that was enough and it wasn’t. Even if APT leadership had been tipped off by Uniroyal or the MOE about the east side diversion of contaminated groundwater and surface water, they couldn’t have rested on that information to justify doing nothing about the in-your-face provocation of Uniroyal and the MOE by ignoring the November 4, 1991 Control Order demanding full hydraulic containment in all aquifers. I wonder if Uniroyal actually hoped that Susan Bryant and Sylvia Berg would realize that they’d been played and, out of embarrassment, either formally resign from APT or simply throw in the towel and walk away. When they didn’t, I expect that Uniroyal concluded that they were stuck with them and, therefore, returned to making plans as to how best control them. I do recall being advised in the early days, possibly by Susan Bryant, that Uniroyal had psychological experts attending public meetings, attempting to gain insights into the mind sets and motivations of various citizen activists present.<br /><br />Both members of APT and the EH-Team attended public UPAC meetings for the next six years without being formal members. APT representatives rejoined UPAC in January 2000 after there had been discussions the previous month on how to improve UPAC. The EH-Team members were invited to join by Art Fletcher and as I had seen such an improvement in UPAC, especially in light of their shellacking Uniroyal over their disgusting fumigations of the Duke Street residents, it was an easy decision. The wrong one unfortunately.<br /><br />January 1995 Public Meeting<br /><br />The public meeting in January 1995, held in the old recreation centre on Snyder Avenue in Elmira, was magnificent. One hundred and fifty people attended and the majority of them were there to say no to Uniroyal’s inadequate plans for the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System. There were a couple of reasons why the public were more upset over the UACTS scam than the DNAPL scam. First, the DNAPL scam had only the EH-Team in opposition to the tiny DNAPL excavations at RPW-5 and TPW-2. With the minimal UACTS pumping, there was also the Region of Waterloo and APT in opposition. The MOE and the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) had originally been unhappy with Uniroyal’s plans but then inexplicably changed their minds. Certainly, whatever facts changed their minds were never provided for public consumption. Hence, in all likelihood, they had an odour to them. Other participants included environmental groups up and down the Grand River. They included Chuck and Pat Potter from Dunnville, Ontario at the mouth of the Grand River at Lake Erie. The Cambridge Pesticide Action Group (CPAG) as well as Groundwater Alert was represented. Bonnie Walters of the CPAG stated that Uniroyal’s plan was “…like shutting the door to keep the house warm when the window isn’t closed. It’s ludicrous. It’s a dead loss.” Brenda Thompson of Groundwater Alert also spoke against the proposed UACTS. A number of Indigenous groups along the Grand River were represented by Norm Jacobs of Brantford. Both Mike Murray of the Region of Waterloo and Dave Belanger, hydrogeologist, on behalf of the Region, spoke against Uniroyal’s plan. Mr. Belanger of the consulting firm CH2M HILL came right out and stated that CRA’s plans were the cheapest, least effective option. Richard Clausi and I also spoke publicly against Uniroyal’s plan. I indicated that there were higher concentrations of some Uniroyal chemicals in the north-west corner of its site than there were in the south-west area which was to be contained with Uniroyal’s plan. These chemicals included chlorobenzene, benzene, and phenols.<br /><br />The clearest comments, in my opinion, came from Pat Potter. She stated “I am waiting for the Uniroyal trials. You have committed a heinous crime and you will answer for it.” She also bluntly told Uniroyal “you have destroyed an aquifer.” She then directly addressed Hardy Wong, the Director of the West Central Region of the Ontario Ministry of Environment. She stated “If you do not have the strength of character to fight Uniroyal, resign."33<br /><br />Susan Bryant of APT advised that the proposed south-west quadrant containment would only contain 34.1% of the contaminated groundwater versus the now alleged 95% claimed by Conestoga Rovers and Associates.34<br /><br />Bob Verdun, owner of the Elmira Independent, spoke at the public meeting and suggested that it was time that both Uniroyal and the MOE started paying attention to the testimony of their own employees as to what went on.35<br /><br />Ken Reger, a citizen who provided testimony at the early EAB hearings also spoke at this public meeting. He had great concerns with the former landfill, M2, located on Uniroyal’s south-west corner. As a former Uniroyal employee, he knew that the M2 area was routinely used for toxic industrial waste disposal by Uniroyal.36<br /><br />Pro Uniroyal Woolwich Township councillors all fell in line with Uniroyal and the MOE, as did CEAC (without Murray Haight’s leadership) and the GRCA. Keep in mind that CEAC were a committee of Woolwich Township Council. What an example not to ever follow in the future regardless of individual honest members. That these groups had zero verifiable facts to rely on did not dissuade them from their support of Uniroyal in the least. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that they had zero verifiable facts to rely on. After all, I seriously doubt that Uniroyal and the MOE actually shared with them what I deem as either the unethical actions or the likely illegal actions that they had taken a decade earlier on the east side in order to artificially lessen the concentrations of toxins in the east side groundwater. These actions did not come to light until 2014 courtesy of the last CPAC membership.<br /><br />You can also rest assured that these various self-serving bodies did not have the courage to come right out and advise the honest citizens who attended the public meeting that they were wasting their time. Despite an excellent turnout and the opinions of both informed groups and individuals, the MOE and Uniroyal seemed to me to have no interest in either telling the truth or changing their minds.<br /><br />UPAC’s Failure<br /><br />Shirley Rennie, formerly a reporter for the Elmira Independent, wrote an article in the Record in 1995 about Fergus songwriters Doug and Melanie Stronach. In it, Ms. Rennie includes a sample of the lyrics to a song they wrote about Uniroyal Chemical:<br /><br />“Angus and me on the bank of the creek with a chemical cocktail and faith in the weak<br />Ministry mobile up on the hill sucking in air for the media spill<br />It’s all clear now they say, all clear now.”<br /><br />We did have both songwriters and cartoonists help us on occasion and often the products of their fertile imaginations were far more effective than a thousand pages of technical critiques of the pseudo science we were often deluged in. One cartoon showed dead cattle along the Creek with the caption “Die Oxen”. That of course refers to the highly toxic chemical dioxin.<br /><br />In August 1995, Bob Burtt of the Record reported my efforts in Elmira. The article is titled “Abrasive methods get results environmental activist finds.” While I knew his article about me was coming I certainly didn’t know that the headline would be quite so …..odd, strong, off. If I really thought that abrasive methods would get results I would have been ten times more abrasive than I ever was at any time. I found the title very odd considering that I viewed Mr. Burtt strongly as a supporter of the citizens as well<br />as a friend and colleague of Susan Bryant. Therefore while I had some concerns about the tone of the title I didn’t think that it signified problems down the road or was a symptom of something else going on behind my back. I was wrong, alas again. I simply never saw coming what was planned for a very long time.<br /><br />Bob Burtt quoted me saying “When I got involved with Uniroyal it dawned on me that what I saw at Varnicolor Chemical was not the exception to the rule, but the way the Ministry of Environment treats all polluters."37 Truer words have never been said. Make no mistake of the immense advantage professional liars, without shame or remorse, in positions of power and authority, have over ordinary citizens. We simply don’t think like they do. We believe that other than the rare white lie to protect someone, that lying is inherently bad, wrong, disrespectful and deceitful. These professional spin doctors on the other hand are convinced that lying is an inherently useful, inexpensive tool to save them money in the long run. Therefore, if it saves the corporation and its shareholders money, then it is intrinsically good to fib. Wow. This is part of the reality of dealing with these corporate-focused individuals. Hence, moral suasion simply will never work with them. Often the only reason that many corporate defenders do something beneficial for the environment is to save money, especially if it costs nothing to give them a public relations boost. Otherwise, it doesn’t happen. As Dave Belanger said regarding Uniroyal/CRA’s UACTS plan: “It is the cheapest, least effective plan.”<br /><br />Even when citizens know categorically that corporate polluters are truth challenged and economical with the truth, we simply don’t expect polluters to always resort to lying. It seems as if it’s almost like a default position for them in my opinion. A distortion reflex is often started when a question could have negative connotations if answered truthfully. So many corporate defenders appear shameless and catching them in a bald-faced lie seems to hardly faze them. They will scream for 100% proof, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, proof that can never satisfy them or their fellow travellors. The rest of us would be mortified being caught in a blatant lie. They simply lie some more in an attempt to weaken your position. When Brian Beatty got caught red -handed by me, David Ash of Uniroyal accused me of taking Stan Feenstra’s words out of context. Any lie in a storm for professionals apparently.<br /><br />Art Fletcher, UPAC member, did try on a few occasions to get both APT and the Elmira EH-Team to rejoin UPAC. I believe that his efforts were sincere and well-intentioned. The problem, of course, was that UPAC members were far and away too sympathetic to the bleating coming from Uniroyal. At some meetings, I could swear UPAC members lost sight of which party destroyed the Elmira aquifers. If I was blind in those days to the gamesmanship going on all around me, then I suppose I can now better understand the blindness on glaring display by most UPAC members in regards to Uniroyal’s activities.<br /><br />In early summer of 1995, APT asked for Leave To Appeal the MOE’s Certificate of Approval for the UACTS. This action is exactly what UPAC should have been doing and, with the weight of multiple community groups and members behind them, it would have been nearly impossible for the EAB to say no. With only APT ‘s request combined with who knows what private back door communications were going on by the MOE and Uniroyal, it was hopeless. In September 1995, the EAB turned down APT’s Leave To Appeal.<br /><br />In October 1995, in a Letter To The Editor of the Elmira Independent, Susan Bryant and Sylvia Berg wrote “UPAC is not pushing. It is as simple as that. UPAC has gone to sleep. However APT will not join the snore. Though we do not participate as UPAC members, APT and the EH-Team continue to attend every meeting, raising many questions that seem to fall into dead space."38 This public reference to the EH-Team by APT was unusual. It was, however, appreciated.<br /><br />UPAC was set up from the start to fail as far as the public interest went. It was set up at the request of the MOE by Woolwich Council to protect the interests of Uniroyal and to give the appearance of public consultation. The membership was stacked with Woolwich councillors, former Uniroyal employees, and representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, GRCA, Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB), and types more interested in the status quo and restoring peace and tranquility to outraged citizens than in actually cleaning up Elmira’s contamination whether air, groundwater, surface water, or soils. These members of UPAC would accept criticism of Uniroyal but with their majority on UPAC expected to win any and all votes necessary while claiming to be concerned about the environment. As Susan Bryant said “UPAC has gone to sleep.”<br /><br />In January 1996, Susan Bryant was quoted in the Record stating “the problem isn’t the lack of technical data, but the lack of political will on the ministry’s part to take a tougher stand with the company."39 This quote is very relevant particularly given the chair of TAG, Dr. Richard Jackson’s, parting words twenty years later to the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) that “…the issues are not technical issues they are public policy issues."40 In other words, the scientists and experts know what is needed to clean up the Creek and the Elmira aquifers; it’s simply that the politicians and political bureaucrats keep getting in the way of that cleanup.<br /><br />I was quoted in the Elmira Independent in March 1996 stating that in reference to the Region of Waterloo, the MOE, APT and the EH-Team, that these bodies “…will all inform Uniroyal, their consultant CRA and UPAC that Uniroyal’s proposals are completely inadequate. In an honest process, Uniroyal would be forced to make some changes or concessions to attempt to satisfy at least some of the criticism. But none are ever forthcoming."41<br /><br />On January 6, 1997, the UACTS began pumping. Public outcry against it and public consultation demanding more were simply ignored. Of course, various promises were made suggesting that if the Creek didn’t improve, then more would be done. If MOE written conditions and orders could be blatantly ignored, then how much weight could we put to anything the MOE promised us?<br /><br />Later in the month, CPAC received the news that Uniroyal had yet again failed a *Responsible Care verification process with the Canadian Chemical Producer`s Association. While good news, it felt very risky relying on the good intentions of the chemical industry. We felt that the whole process was frankly a joke and, if and when Uniroyal were ever certified, it would be a damning indictment of the CCPA.<br /><br />By October 1997, discussions were underway regarding the future of the Envirodome. UPAC members showed their true colours in their disrespect towards Eco Logic, an environmental cleanup company located in Rockwood, Ontario. They had a chemical system to break down extremely toxic compounds. Uniroyal had obtained a time extension permitting them to leave their wastes in the Envirodome until 1999. They were in 1997 looking at various options including leaving their wastes permanently in the Envirodome if they could get MOE permission. There were various proposals and suggestions debated at UPAC including the high tech solution offered by Eco Logic. UPAC members refused to allow Eco Logic the opportunity to make a presentation. Truly unbelievable ignorance and arrogance. This decision was after Esther Thur of the EH-Team reminded UPAC that they had already heard from Grace Dearborn about bioremediation, so why not hear from Eco Logic. Perhaps the answer was that Grace Dearborn was suggested and favoured by Uniroyal and CRA. I’ve been advised that a little later in the process to empty the Envirodome that Eco Logic was given another opportunity, but were not able to step-up due to either management changes or technology not quite ready to go. Based on the clear bias against them by most UPAC members and Uniroyal, I am suspicious of Eco Logic`s sudden “voluntary” withdrawal at the later date.<br /><br />I guess Uniroyal management gave their vassals their marching orders on the matter. It was Uniroyal who initially wanted to sell the idea of land farming to Elmira residents. Land farming meant bioremediation or spreading the company’s wastes on the ground surface on the east side of the Uniroyal property and adding water and amendments to stimulate bacterial growth to break down the chemical composition of the wastes. This idea fortunately went nowhere. The odours would have been much worse than they had been in 1993 when RPE 4 & 5 were initially excavated and put into the Envirodome.<br /><br />A major reason Uniroyal’s plan for permanent entombment in the Envirodome went nowhere can be credited to two Elmira citizens, Jan Ebert and Barb Zupko. They gathered 1,000 names on a petition opposing Uniroyal’s “do nothing” plans. As this petition was successful we should have attempted that method of mobilizing community opposition more often. APT and the EH-Team failed to do so.<br /><br />Despite APT and the EH-Team not being official members of UPAC with status at UPAC meetings, we were treated courteously and respectfully as far as being able to make comments or ask questions at the meetings. Then, of course, we were ignored.<br /><br />In October 1997, I was quoted in the Elmira Independent to Uniroyal’s suggestion of simply leaving the toxic wastes in the Envirodome with the comment that “That is their favourite. They are masters of the do nothing strategy."42 Susan Bryant was quoted as saying, “To take it up and put it back into the ground is insane. It is absolutely unacceptable to take soil off site. It would show that we have learned absolutely nothing."43 I agreed with Susan’s comments both then and now. When push came to shove, however, Susan was a little more practical and a little less ideological. In fact, that is exactly what the Excavated Wastes Working Group (EWWG) eventually approved.<br /><br />The EWWG was a sub-committee of UPAC and included Susan Bryant and Pat Mclean. The Elmira Environmental Hazards Team was not invited to join. The members of the EH-Team (Richard Clausi, Esther Thur, and I) however, were slowly learning how things worked. Absolutely nothing good was going to come from this committee any more than what had come from UPAC over the years. Uniroyal, of course, set the committee`s terms of reference. There were to be but three options namely: 1) do nothing, i.e. permanent entombment; 2) on-site destruction; 3) landfill the wastes off-site. All the discussions and negotiations were held privately on the Uniroyal property. Richard Clausi of the EH-Team stated in February 2, 1998 in the Elmira Independent regarding this process that “It’s a secret meeting on their property. If the discussions are going to be held, they should be held in public. We do not believe in this kind of secret negotiations."44<br /><br />Very shortly afterwards, Uniroyal had a change of heart in regards to the EH-Team joining the secret talks. They invited us to join. Our response was that since both the public and the media were excluded, then we, the EH-Team must exclude ourselves as well. All other parties invited including APT, attended. It’s difficult to say no when the captain of the football team asks you to dance.<br /><br />Lois Gibbs of Love Canal in the 1990s stated that politicians had to be forced to “do the right thing and the “right” needs to be defined by the community, not the company.” There were a couple of exceptions to those Woolwich Township Councillors such as Bram Hollman and Deanna Zenger. Overall, the situation was not good. Over and over again it seems to me the self-serving polluter and his client driven consultants shaped the choices and made all the decisions. Unsurprisingly, very little favoured the community’s best well being.<br /><br />Uniroyal decision-makers were masters of the art of deflection. Whenever pressure got too high on one issue they’d change gears. Hence, in the middle of the EWWG discussions and negotiations, they and officials of the MOE decided to slip what APT and the EH-Team felt was a major nasty piece of work by the community. This nasty piece of work was a Certificate of Approval for the Off-Site Containment and Treatment System (OSCTS). The crux of the problem was the provision for determining acceptable NDMA concentrations after treatment prior to discharge to the Creek. Uniroyal wanted higher concentrations and the rest of the world figuratively speaking wanted lower concentrations. Another public UPAC meeting was held in the Community Centre on Snyder Avenue for Uniroyal to present their case and for the other parties and the public to have their say. This public meeting was held on February 23, 1998 and was well attended albeit not as well attended as the January 1995 public meeting. Dr. David Ash suggested at this meeting that it would be difficult for the manufacturer of the treatment equipment to guarantee a better treatment level without adding more capacity to the system. My public response to Mr. Ash was “If all you have to do is add treatment capacity I’m all for it. Go ahead and add treatment capacity."45 Both the Grand River Conservation Authority and the Region of Waterloo expressed concerns with the discharge criteria to the Creek and publicly expressed them. Despite this, UPAC voted in favour of the draft Certificate of Approval as it was without any improvements. Susan Bryant, I and others walked out of the meeting in disgust. Susan Bryant later was quoted in the Independent as saying, “I don’t know who is waving what but they (MOE) run in terror from the company. It is appalling."46 After the MOE issued the C. of A., Sylvia Berg stated in the Woolwich Observer that “The C. of A. issued by the MOE this week allows Uniroyal to average its discharge to the creek over 12 months. It’s a licence to pollute for the next 30 years."47 According to Sylvia Berg, a retired MOE officer had advised APT that Uniroyal had threatened to appeal the Certificate of Approval, hence the MOE caved in to their demands. With a majority of willfully uninformed Uniroyal supporters on the committee (UPAC), who generally did not read the reports carefully, if at all, UPAC’s approval wasn’t a big surprise. After all, a vote like this is precisely why neither APT nor the EH- Team were members of UPAC. After this vote by UPAC carried, Ken Seiling and the Region of Waterloo warned UPAC that if they continue to ignore regional input and comments that they would withdraw from UPAC. Clearly, the Region of Waterloo was just as disgusted with UPAC as the local citizens were. In fact, the Region of Waterloo did exactly what they had advised UPAC that they would do. I do not understand why on earth they rejoined a much later reincarnation of the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) known as RAC, in 2015. That said, their attendance has been spotty. In the March 9, 1998 Elmira Independent Editor Gail Gardiner (Martin) about UPAC’s performance wrote ”…only local environmentalists such as Alan Marshall, Susan Bryant or Esther Thur made any comment on the reports or questioned Uniroyal Chemical on an issue."48 While Gail Gardiner was accurate in realizing that the majority of UPAC members didn’t do their homework, Sylvia Berg and Henry Regier were two other citizens who on occasion asked questions. Change was coming as reported in an April 1998 edition of the Woolwich Observer. New members were added to UPAC and they included Ron Ormson, Gerry Heidbuurt, Fred Hager, and Dr. Henry Regier. I believe that three of these four were either neighbours or acquaintances of Susan Bryant. UPAC desperately needed to reform and this was the first step.<br /><br />The EWWG was in full swing. Their efforts included junkets to both Canadian and American sites looking at remediation options for the buried wastes. Back at UPAC, Dr. Henry Regier authored the motion for UPAC’s vote on what to do with the wastes. Fred Hager, Ruby Weber, and Ron Ormson favoured trucking them to a secure landfill. Dr. Regier and a majority of UPAC members were in favour of some form of incineration. Meanwhile, the long running and far travelling EWWG failed to come up with a formal Recommendation to Uniroyal regarding its disposal of the contents of the Envirodome also referred to as the Toxidome or the Mausoleum. What a farce. Susan Bryant was also not amused. “There is no reason that it had to be private. There were no negotiations."49 It is unfortunate that years down the road, Susan and her friends continued to ignore her own advice and observations.<br /><br />My quoted comments at the time regarding Uniroyal’s choice of landfilling the contents of the Envirodome in Corunna, Ontario was “Landfilling is not the worst possible solution for the waste, it is also not the best."50 Of course, it was rather embarrassing a few short months after the contents were transferred to Corunna that water and methane began to bubble up through the bottom of one of the disposal cells at the Corunna Laidlaw facility. After the fact, the EWWG who had refused to make a formal Recommendation, did support Uniroyal’s choice of land filling.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 4<br /><br />32 Barry Ries, “Uniroyal denies staff at fault in chlorine leak”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, March 15,<br />1994<br /><br />33 John Roe, “Critics put Uniroyal on hot seat”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, January 18, 1995<br /><br />34 “APT Environment wants stronger action applied to Uniroyal to clean up its site”, Elmira<br />Independent, January 23, 1995<br /><br />35 “Elmira resident wants Uniroyal Chemical to excavate former dump”, Elmira Independent, January<br />23, 1995<br /><br />36 Ibid.<br /><br />37 Bob Burtt, “Abrasive methods get results environmentalist finds”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record,<br />August 10, 1995,p. A1.<br /><br />38 Letter to the Editor, UPAC has gone to sleep, but APT refuses to join the snore”, Elmira Independent,<br />October 23, 1995<br /><br />39 Bob Burtt, “Study uses leeches, mussels, to determine toxic levels”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record,<br />January 17, 1996<br /><br />40 Dr. Richard Jackson, TAG meeting, Woolwich Council Chambers, December 2016<br /><br />41 Letter to the editor, “An exercise in futility”, Elmira Independent, March 18, 1996<br /><br />42 Gail Gardiner, “Local company not considered to destroy toxic soil at Uniroyal”, Elmira Independent,<br />October 27, 1997,p.1.<br /><br />43 Ibid. p.2.<br /><br />44 Gail Gardiner, “Local environmental group upset at “secret meetings”, Elmira Independent,<br />February 2, 1998, p. 1.<br /><br />45 Gail Gardiner, “Special UPAC meeting introduces tighter restrictions on Uniroyal treatment plan”,<br />Elmira Independent, March 2, 1998<br /><br />46 Tony Reinhart, Shirley Rennie, “Uniroyal scraps toxic soil plans”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record,<br />March 3, 1998<br /><br />47 Letter to the Editor, “Diluting the creek and the Certificate of Approval”, Woolwich Observer,<br />March 14, 1998<br /><br />48 Gail Gardiner, “Changes at UPAC are encouraging”, Elmira Independent, March 9, 1998<br /><br />49 Bob Burtt, “Uniroyal to haul away toxic stew”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, June 30, 1998<br /><br />50 Gail Gardiner, “Uniroyal waste going to dump near Sarnia”, Elmira Independent, July 6, 1998<br /><br /><br /><br />.<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-16115634929045108272023-12-19T12:06:00.000-08:002023-12-20T06:57:31.974-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmiras-water-woes-triumph-of.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA'S WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8878453318393347844" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br />Chapter Five:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />39 ....Uniroyal’s Two Year Stench<br /><br />40 ....Uniroyal Walks<br /><br />42 ....Back To the Stench<br /><br />43 ....The Betrayal of UPAC and the Public<br /><br />44 ....Esther Thur’s Contributions<br /><br />45 ....My Resistance to Becoming a Committee of Council<br /><br /><br />Chapter 5<br /><br />Uniroyal’s Two Year Stench<br /><br />On August 31, 1998, Gail Gardiner, editor of the Elmira Independent, in an editor’s column wrote, “It’s not hard to imagine UPAC meeting 40 years from now debating how best to decontaminate this site."51 Citizens are half-way towards Gail Gardiner’s 40 year prediction in 2018. I believe her basic point was that UPAC and the public were being taken for a very long ride courtesy of both the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Uniroyal Chemical Limited, Elmira.<br /><br />The stench that enveloped parts of Elmira during the summer of 1998 was almost unprecedented. The town had suffered from various odours off and on for decades including the Rothsay Concentrates dead animal rendering plant. This 1998 stench, which seemed focused along parts of Duke Street was different. It also attacked often in the middle of the night. It was bizarre and it could make eyes water and breathing difficult. The Woolwich Observer newspaper published an article in its August 28, 1998 edition titled, “Residents raise stink about Uniroyal.” These residents complained about sore throats, constricted breathing, burning eyes, and headaches. Susan Bryant commented in this same article in regards to Uniroyal, “They try to make out like it’s some great mystery. Of course they know what they are producing, they know what they are using."52 Three days later, the Elmira Independent quoted Woolwich Township councillor Bram Hollman as saying “It’s not just an odour. It’s an irritant to people’s noses, throat and eyes."53 Shortly after, a public meeting was held on Duke Street, ground zero for the worst nighttime odours. In the Woolwich Observer’s September 5, 1998 edition I was quoted when I spoke at the public meeting, “Folks, the bottom line is you are being poisoned. Don’t look to Uniroyal, the MOE, CRA, or the Township. If you want something done, you have to do it yourselves."54 Gail Gardiner again in her editor’s column of the September 14, 1998 Elmira Independent advised readers that the Duke Street citizens’ group had a right to be angry. This citizens’ group called themselves RAM (Residents Are Mad) and, considering what they were suffering, Gail Gardiner quite rightly observed, “Niceness is highly over rated."55<br /><br />Four families, in particular, on Duke Street suffered through the summer and fall of 1998. I had immediately noticed the coincidental timing of the start of the fumigations, ones that began in July 1998 with the start- up of the Off-Site Containment and Treatment System (Off-Site CTS). Early on, Jeff Merriman P. Eng., of Uniroyal did state that its waste water treatment system was the cause of most of the complaints. The four families were the Machens, the Chalmers, the Fulchers and the Posts. These residents lobbied Woolwich Council to lay by-law charges against Uniroyal for the odours they were releasing. Council did not do so although councillors did hire Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin (RWDI) from Guelph, Ontario who were air experts. The MOE ordered an overall odour assessment via a field order laid on Uniroyal. Both the MOE and Uniroyal claimed that the odours were “safe” and that they did not cause health effects. Mention that to the families being rousted out of their beds in the middle of the night with irritation to their eyes, noses, lungs, and with headaches. Finally Uniroyal shared their MOE ordered, via the field order, Air Report with the MOE but not with UPAC or the public. It turned out that Uniroyal had been using a twenty-six year, out of date, computer model. RWDI advised Uniroyal of that ineffective, aged model and suggested they use a program called AERMOD instead. Uniroyal therefore did its air report over, using this up to date modelling method.<br /><br />In the January 20, 1999 Record we were advised that the Odour Report with the new modelling would be presented to UPAC and the public by March 1999. Councillor Bram Hollman stated that “the odours are still there. They haven’t gone away."56 I had a Letter To The Editor published in the Elmira Independent on January 22, 1999. In reference to Uniroyal I suggested that, “when it comes to honesty, integrity, and intelligence, you, like Bill Clinton, will always be willing to discuss the issue."57 Talk was much cheaper than actually spending money to solve the problem.<br /><br />While the overnight period in the summer time was poor in Elmira especially if windows were open, that winter wasn’t much better. The February 2, 1999 Record carried a story regarding the ongoing fumigations of Elmira by Uniroyal. Terry Machen was again being driven from his home in the middle of the night trying to escape the overpowering stench. In desperation he phoned Dr. David Ash at home at two am. telling him that if he, Terry, couldn’t sleep, then neither should Mr. Ash be able to. In this same Record article both Terry Machen and Councillor Bram Hollman blasted Uniroyal management and David Ash for their attitudes and behaviour. Far too few Woolwich councillors over the decades have been prepared to call out Uniroyal publicly when they needed to be. Being himself a sensitive individual, Mr. Ash obtained assistance from the Waterloo Regional Police Service which prohibited future late night phone calls from Mr. Machen. Turns out what’s good for the gander isn’t so good for the goose at least according to the Waterloo Regional Police Service.<br /><br />Three other politicians also stand out in this February 2nd article. Liz Witmer was the Ontario Minister of Health and was as useless as a screen door on a submarine. Norm Sterling, the Ontario Environment Minister was even more useless than Ms. Witmer. The kindest thing I can say about Mike Harris, Premier of Ontario, is that he should have had Liz and Norm as his cell mates. Rose Simone, Record reporter, wrote in the previous days Record that since 1995 the Mike Harris government had cut MOE staff by one third and its budget by one half. If I had to speculate, based upon the MOE behaviour today, I would think that the one third laid off were the more honest and ethical employees. By February 5, 2000, Uniroyal’s Envirodome (aka the Mausoleum) was sixty percent emptied and the contents were transferred to Corunna, Ontario courtesy of both Laidlaw Environmental and Acute Environmental & Safety Services Inc., Waterloo, Ontario. The removal of the toxic wastes from the Envirodome started in September 1999.<br /><br />Uniroyal Walks<br /><br />UPAC membership had been slowly transformed. Both Ron Ormson and Gerry Heidebuurt had air emissions experience. Mr. Heidebuurt in particular had worked on minimizing noxious fumes in industrial settings for years. Pat McLean, as Chair of UPAC, was on the air subcommittee and the three of them, apparently, spoke a little too harshly for Uniroyal’s liking. On February 15, 1999, Uniroyal walked out of UPAC in the middle of a meeting, vowing never to come back. They were gone for sixteen months and not missed by me for one second of that time. Mr. Ormson, Mr. Heidebuurt, and Ms. Mclean had suggested very critically that Uniroyal were not responsibly handling their fugitive emissions from the plant. Susan Bryant referred to Uniroyal as “corporate bullies” and Gail Gardiner (now Gail Martin), Editor, wrote in the Elmira Independent that Dr. David Ash’s problem was that he believed “UPAC is being mean and Uniroyal won’t play anymore.” Ironically, while dishonest individuals at UPAC had been bad-mouthing me behind my back for years regarding my harsh criticism, yours truly was not a UPAC member when Uniroyal stormed out in mock horror that UPAC members had called them irresponsible.<br /><br />For seven years, Uniroyal management and their client-driven consultants had their own way at public UPAC meetings. A small change in membership and suddenly Uniroyal people were no longer in control. They picked up their marbles and went home. This lack of direct control was exactly what the MOE, the Township, Uniroyal, and their consultants were not prepared to deal with: namely informed citizens who could see through the hot air and professional bafflegab. Uniroyal and David Ash looked very weak both in the media and in reality. They had been fumigating and poisoning Elmira residents off and on for decades but the previous nine months had been just horrible, particularly for the nearby Duke Street residents. In hindsight, my only question is why, when Uniroyal managers, renamed by then Chemtura, pulled the same stunt fifteen years later, they were not similarly castigated. The unfortunate answer is that Elmira and Waterloo Region residents weren’t paying attention to Uniroyal’s history. They had forgotten that boycotting effective public consultation is how Uniroyal and their successors dealt with public criticism of their corporate pollution behaviour.<br /><br />Also interesting is Susan Bryant’s take on the MOE in 1999. In the February 5, 1999 Elmira Independent she is quoted as saying “They [MOE ] are under-funded, under resourced. What they do is sometimes pitiful, even to them."58 How oddly Ms. Bryant, behind the scenes, framed Chemtura’s and the MOE’s boycott of 2015. She then quietly [publicly at least] supported Chemtura and the MOE’s refusing to attend Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) public meetings and in fact, participated and encouraged lies and backstabbing of Woolwich volunteers in order to get herself and Pat McLean reappointed to CPAC by the new Woolwich Council. This she did in an April 9, 2015 private meeting held in the Township building. The minutes of that meeting were a disgusting pack of self-serving lies. Self-serving for the MOE, Uniroyal/Chemtura, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant. Just as Uniroyal returned in June 2000 to UPAC after concessions were made privately to them by UPAC Chair Pat McLean [with Woolwich approval], the same thing was done to bring the MOE and Chemtura back to the table. Those details will be forthcoming in a future chapter and they are repugnant.<br /><br />I have found that hypocrisy often thrives amongst those with power and money. Hence I believe David Ash felt that a corporate noxious fumigation wake up of Terry Machen was acceptable but a night time phone call to Mr. Ash was not. It’s my observation that in the corporate world, collateral damage is usually ignored until the consequences financially outweigh the benefits of doing nothing. In the world of politics, it’s a similar thing only financial consequences are less significant when playing with the public’s money. It’s more about public perception and voting consequences down the road.<br /><br />Obviously, the news media’s sympathies were not with Uniroyal. Therefore, Uniroyal felt that they needed to take some steps to bolster their image. As of mid- February 1999, Uniroyal agreed to start paying for hotel or motel accommodations for residents ousted from their homes in the middle of the night because of Uniroyal odours.<br /><br />What am I left to conclude? Uniroyal continuously ignored anyone else’s reality and truth by publicly seeming to claim that they had the right to pollute everything imaginable in Elmira, do as little as humanly possible about it, while at the same time wanting to be treated with kid gloves by the community. Narcissists and spoiled brats in my opinion. Later that month, Mr. Ash was quoted by Bob Burtt in the Record stating in regards to UPAC, “It isn’t as if we walked away from the best thing since sliced bread. We left something that didn’t work.” Sixteen years later Councillor Mark Bauman similarly bleated that CPAC was “dysfunctional.” Seems to me polluters and their friends all use the same playbook to justify their unjustifiable behaviour. To further add icing to the cake, citizens had the chemical lobby group, the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA) state “I question whose interest UPAC is serving."59 Of course they do because until recently UPAC had been serving Uniroyal’s interests as both the MOE and Woolwich Township intended. What residents had were corporate polluters and corporate apologists both lying and criticizing citizen volunteers trying to do the right thing. That, of course, would never do unless the right thing enriches corporate pockets.<br /><br />Citizens fought back. Esther and Ed Thur sent a Letter To The Editor of the Record. They challenged Uniroyal’s senior management in Elmira to actually come and live in Elmira rather than in Waterloo. The Thur’s attitude was if you are going to stink out Elmira then come and live here like we do.<br /><br />Frank Etherington of the Record wrote an article titled, “Political stink in Uniroyal’s ongoing saga.” Shannon Purves-Smith also wrote an excellent Letter To The Editor of the Woolwich Observer praising RWDI and their assistance fighting Uniroyal’s air emissions as well as commenting negatively on Mr. Ash’s and Uniroyal’s departure from UPAC. Gerry Heidebuurt, Ron Ormson, and Pat McLean all supported UPAC’s position and behaviour. Ms. McLean stated that “We [UPAC] are not their PR firm. If Ash thinks that, we have a basic misunderstanding.” She then added, “I think UPAC is starting to work as it should, and that’s what he [Ash] doesn’t like."60 Wow. Hopefully, the readers of this book can understand why I not only was supporting UPAC but also why at that time I continued to be one hundred percent behind Susan Bryant and Pat McLean. UPAC members were indeed working on the air issues. It took me years to understand that private negotiations and deals were being made behind the scenes by a couple of citizens who had neither the knowledge nor the authority to do so. The fact is that Uniroyal and the MOE knew this full well but as long as they viewed the deals as being in their best interests, they didn’t care.<br /><br />Further public support flowed in. Jonathon Sykes, a well known and respected hydrogeologist from the University of Waterloo, was quoted in the Record suggesting that political will to clean up was the key. Dr. Sykes referenced severe environmental problems in both Woburn, Massachusetts and Toms River, New Jersey as examples of U.S. governmental ineffectiveness. Sylvia Berg and Dr. Henry Regier both made comments in the Elmira Independent advising Premier Dalton McGuinty to do something to ensure the MOE do the job they are supposed to be doing.<br /><br />I wrote a Letter To The Editor for the March 5, 1999 Elmira Independent. “Uniroyal and David Ash have lost their long time tame committee, and have thus picked up their marbles in search of a different game."61 Mike Hicknell of Elmira sent a Letter To The Editor of the Elmira Independent in which he hammered some local Woolwich Councillors and their myopic pro-business at all costs attitudes.<br /><br />Ken Reger had a Letter To The Editor published in the Elmira Independent on March 19, 1999. He stated, “If I was charged with drunk driving, my license would be pulled immediately. When Uniroyal pollutes they keep on getting away with it instead of being shut down immediately."62 A week later at a public UPAC meeting, Dr. Henry Regier, after being advised of new odour abatement measures, asked if anyone knew why Uniroyal did not undertake any of these odour abatement measures earlier. Ed Gill of the MOE stated, “It’s a good question.” “Ask the company."63, added Murray Haight who was currently working on temporary assignment with the MOE. The following month Susan Bryant was quoted in the Record stating, “Mr. Stirling’s (Minister of the Environment) response confirms our attempts to get this government and the Environment Ministry to address the environmental problems in Elmira are best described as an exercise in walking around in circles."64<br /><br />Did a switch flip out of frustration at some point for Susan Bryant? Or were these public comments simply for public consumption while continuing to deal privately with bodies that had no morals or ethics? Did they tell her that UPAC members were impossible because most of them didn’t either read the reports or understand them if they did? Did the MOE and Uniroyal representatives flatter Susan Bryant into submission? Did they tell her that they couldn’t or wouldn’t work with me or Dr. Regier because we were both too unreasonable? Did Uniroyal gamesmanship that failed with Rich Clausi and I, succeed when used on Susan? Did Susan Bryant decide to go rogue and when? Dealing privately with the Ontario Ministry of Environment while being but one vote on the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee was going rogue.<br /><br />Back To The Stench<br /><br />On April 9, 1999, David Chadder of Rowan Williams, Davies and Irwin Ltd. (RWDI) commented in the Elmira Independent about the results of running the numbers through an updated computer air model known as AERMOD. It turns out that the model used by Conestoga Rovers & Associates on behalf of Uniroyal was dated and produced much lower estimates of contaminant concentrations off-site than the newer computer model. A skeptic could be forgiven for thinking that this was the reason why CRA had been using the old model all along. In other words, to minimize their client’s air exceedances.<br /><br />As if either Uniroyal or the citizens of Elmira needed more reason to be afraid to go outdoors, popcorn lung appeared. On April 1, 1999, the Elmira Independent wrote a story about diacetyl odours coming from the Uniroyal plant. Tim Boose, Uniroyal staff and designated spokesperson, suggested that diacetyl was not dangerous and so it turns out he was wrong and it has since been identified as a health hazard. It seems that sticking one’s nose into a bag of microwave popcorn with artificial butter flavouring (diacetyl), damages one’s lungs. Certainly, the residents of Elmira who used to smile and not be concerned about butter flavouring odours from Uniroyal had reason to be concerned.<br /><br />On April 20, 1999 in the Record, Bob Trotter wrote that there had been forty years of Uniroyal polluting Elmira as of that date. He stated, “What is needed are government officials and governments with enough guts to enforce the law. The people of this lovely little town have suffered enough."65 Mr. Trotter was a well known local writer and reporter for a very long time. Jeff Merriman of Uniroyal also had an opinion piece in the same edition. I would characterize Mr. Merriman’s comments as self-serving excuses combined with very well done poo poo del toro. “Poo poo del toro” is a term that I have flagrantly and fragrantly appropriated from Dr. Henry Regier. This is an example of the difference in style between Dr. Regier and me. We both called a spade a spade but Dr. Regier always had a superior method of rubbing offenders’ noses in their own ridiculous and sometimes contradictory environmental positions.<br /><br />A month later at a UPAC meeting involved citizens learned from Murray Haight, who was still working for the MOE, that Uniroyal employees were routinely leaving doors and windows open in Building #19, the source of the diacetyl odours. Dr. Regier responded, “This is ridiculous. Therefore the vacuum system’s effectiveness is reduced."66 The purpose of the vacuum system was to funnel odours and air emissions to a scrubber system prior to their discharge to the air. Despite its absence from UPAC meetings, UPAC members continued to publicly hammer Uniroyal, over its air emissions and failures to date to achieve any relief for Elmira residents.<br /><br />The Elmira Independent of June 25, 1999 advised that Murray Haight would stay with the MOE until the end of 1999.This edition, also carried a picture and a story of my parked car in front of the Elmira arena with a banner on the roof. The banner read, “Uniroyal Having a Bad (H)air Day.”67 Uniroyal representatives were much less amused than the rest of the UPAC members. Henry Regier and Pat McLean both agreed with Susan Bryant and I that the Envirodome should remain on site after being emptied later in the year.<br /><br />So let’s review. The period from spring 1998 until summer 2001 was brutal for residents living near the Uniroyal Chemical plant in Elmira, Ontario. The air emissions were beyond obnoxious odours and were better described as toxic chemical fumigations, which left some residents nauseous and gasping for air. In the July 9, 1999 Elmira Independent, Tim Boose, Project Engineering Staff of Uniroyal, described the new $300,000 thermal oxidation unit as a “flameless incinerator”.68 This incinerator was to deal with air emissions from one of its production processes. In the August 20, 1999 Independent, the Ministry of Environment indicated that their officials were laying a field order upon Uniroyal, to increase abatement measures required on the waste water treatment system causing the odours.<br /><br />Other issues were also being discussed and argued at UPAC during the air emissions crisis including the lack of hydraulic containment in the upper aquifers on the Uniroyal site. The MOE and Uniroyal blatantly violated the November 4, 1991 Control Order that ordered full hydraulic containment in all aquifers. Also discussed at UPAC were lindane and DDT still in the sub-surface on site. Fred Hager of UPAC brought a 1946 article in Canadian Fisherman to UPAC that extolled the wonders of both DDT and lindane.<br /><br />In early fall of 1999, Susan Bryant had an excellent Second Opinion article in the Record about Terry Machen and his family and their tribulations over the past two summers. The September 1999 UPAC meeting was covered in the news media on September 24, 1999. Both Dr. Henry Regier and Ron Ormson asked meaningful questions regarding air emissions. At this point in time, it seemed as if folks believed that production processes involving PAO and diacetyl were the odour culprits. Ken Chalmers stated that “The Ministry doesn’t have any backbone.”69 My common comment at the time was that they were a toothless tiger. In the October 15, 1999 Elmira Independent, Tim Boose advised UPAC that all one hundred and twenty-five odour control measures were now completed for Uniroyal’s manufacturing processes including replacing a wet scrubber system with a dry one. This was supposed to be a superior emissions control method. Hopes were high that these efforts signaled the end of Uniroyal’s ongoing fumigations of Elmira. It did not.<br /><br />The Betrayal Of UPAC and The Public<br /><br />The stench was not over but a new issue arose at UPAC in very early 2000. There was a sudden urgency according to the UPAC Chair to lead UPAC from the darkness back into the light of municipal authority. It was a patently ridiculous concern and made absolutely no sense whatsoever. What the hell was Pat Mclean doing and why was Susan Bryant in support of making this change? In hindsight, it’s obvious to me. Pat McLean was a Woolwich councillor. She and Mayor Bill Strauss were tight. Sylvia Berg and family either had left Elmira or were about to. Susan Bryant while being weak technically knew how to influence and manipulate people. Wingmen or women were essential. She and Pat McLean were a match made in heaven as Susan had the green reputation and Pat had the political influence. Susan Bryant could not run for office as she was and is an American citizen. Pat McLean was not only a Woolwich councillor and Chair of CPAC but she had the ear of the mayor. Lastly, quoting Susan Bryant in a private conversation with me, Pat McLean was a control freak. Remember, at the time UPAC’s membership had changed and Uniroyal had walked out. Something had to be done. Manipulation was key. Furthermore, Woolwich Council who had always supported Uniroyal, realized that they had to get Uniroyal representatives back into the public consultation fold, both for public appearances sake and to keep the MOE and the province happy. Both Susan Bryant of APT and I of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team (EH-Team) had been invited to rejoin UPAC yet again. This time, Susan Bryant joined first and a few months later the EH-Team did as well. Ms. Bryant likely had been in discussion with Pat McLean, the UPAC Chair. One or the other of them realized how strong a team they could be. Despite their combined technical lack of knowledge, politically they could control UPAC. Mostly I, representing the (EH-Team) joined based upon UPAC’s strong stance regarding Uniroyal’s ongoing air emissions. I still trusted Susan Bryant implicitly and while suspicious of Councillor McLean, deferred to Ms. Bryant’s support of her. I hope the readers understand that my sins were sins of omission. I trusted people to be who they pretended to be. I got to know Susan Bryant very well over the decades and was still shocked in 2007, 2008, and over the next decade by her nasty, back stabbing behaviour towards a long time friend and colleague. As you will see after my blinders were off, Susan’s behaviour became less subtle. It was an eye opening for me.<br /><br />Pat McLean kept telling UPAC members that they had to make undefined changes in order to bring Uniroyal management back to the discussion table. I kept asking “Why?” UPAC had changed and that was expressly why Uniroyal had left. I made it very clear to Pat McLean that concessions must not be given to Uniroyal simply to bring them back to UPAC meetings. She stated that of course concessions wouldn’t be made. She lied.<br /><br />Is lying ever justified? Is lying to friends and colleagues ever justified? Do the ends justify the means? Is it possible that in the history of the world that lying to one’s friends and colleagues was ever for the greater good? Well, of course, I fully expect that sometime, somewhere, under circumstances that we don’t know, lying could be justified. Does this make it likely that these particular lies were justified? Not in my opinion. What especially makes the motivations suspect is the sheer number of deceptions that both Pat and Susan participated in. They didn’t remotely just deceive me. They deceived APT, of which eventually Pat became a member. They misled UPAC, CPAC, the public and the media on this matter and others.<br /><br />Again, is there any excuse? Is there any overpowering reason that compelled them to participate in a decades' long deception of everyone around them? You should have seen the look on Uniroyal employee Dwight Este’s face when he showed up at Susan Bryant’s house to fix her lawnmower and found me there. It was priceless. I only wish I could say that I knew exactly what was going on. I didn’t. I was as surprised as Dwight was. What the hell was going on? Everything eventually became clear to me. Is it even remotely possible that Pat and Susan sincerely believed that they and they alone were capable of sitting down and negotiating with the MOE and or Uniroyal staff? Could they possibly have believed that the pair of them was superior in any sense to the rest of the stakeholders involved with cleaning up the Creek and the Elmira Aquifers? Again I was naïve to the maximum. At that time I viewed Pat as a glorified secretary. Susan had advised me that Pat was very sensitive to the fact that her education was so limited in comparison to most of us at UPAC. I was quite willing to admit that she had skills in running a meeting as chairperson, regardless of her extraordinarily limited technical understanding of groundwater, contamination, chemicals, etc. I also had always been extremely respectful of Susan’s willingness to read technical reports and try to understand them. To my knowledge her formal education in mathematics and sciences probably ended around Grade 10 or 11. She had great skills in the English language both as an editor and as a writer. Her education ended at the university level with her studies again being in English and I believe that she taught English both at the university level as well as commercially for private companies.<br /><br />To answer some of my earlier questions I believe that Pat was never seduced to the dark side. In my opinion, she was always already there. Susan Bryant, on the other hand, did believe in standing up for the environment. I believe that she sincerely has always wanted to improve the quality of the Canagagigue Creek. I think that she likely came to the realization long before I did that the whole process of public consultation was a joke. It was a way for all the guilty parties to play a game. It was always intended to be an opportunity for Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. to outsmart and bafflegab the locals. Some, such as Ken Reger and Esther Thur, could not be fooled but they did not have the formal tools and education to stand up to the verbal onslaught of puffery, junk science, and brazen horse manure of Uniroyal and their fellow travellors including the MOE. Some, like me, figured that we could stand up to and fight on Uniroyal’s own terms. We could, but the game was still rigged. The majority of parties at any public consultation body would always, either directly or indirectly, be controlled by Uniroyal and their friends, including Woolwich Township. I think that Susan Bryant decided that she could outsmart all of them. She aligned herself with Pat McLean in 2000 because she knew that Pat McLean represented local political power. It was a deal with the devil that was always going to end in Woolwich councillors having the final say. It backfired on Woolwich power brokers only once in the last thirty years and that was in October 2010 with the ouster of Bill Strauss and most of his council.<br /><br />Esther Thur’s Contributions<br /><br />I am going to reproduce here the text of a July 10, 2017 posting I published in my Blog, the Elmira Advocate. The title is “A Review of the Uniroyal Wars”. Here it is verbatim:<br /><br />“Esther Thur said it well and said it clearly decades ago: “Apt did not form to talk to Uniroyal. They did not form to be nice. They formed to fight Uniroyal”. APT also did not form in order to sit in private meetings or negotiations with either Uniroyal Chemical or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Susan Rupert was one of the three original founders of APT along with Sandra Bray and Esther Thur. Susan Rupert warned against APT getting too close to the very parties they were opposing. Those warnings fell upon deaf ears and as a result two or three ambitious people have upended APT’s direction. Susan Rupert was all about consensus within the group. She was not about titles such as President or Vice-President. Those titles came after her departure. The rest of APT has forgotten. They care but they do not want to see what has happened. They want the best of APT to live on in memory. That is understandable.<br /><br />There have been many tactical and strategic mistakes by APT members and citizens overall. The local political powers in support of Uniroyal have fortunately made their share as well. Their ability to dissemble and lie and manipulate has been Machiavellian. One of the biggest mistakes by both APT members and UPAC was allowing Councillor Pat McLean to drag UPAC into being a committee of Woolwich Council. Esther and I both spoke against that move. Esther made it very clear that ever since the 1940s, Elmira Town Councils as well as Woolwich Councils stood with Uniroyal, never with the long suffering citizens. APT members needed to step up and tell their reps not to support Pat’s initiative. Instead Susan Bryant and Sylvia Berg were all in favour. The timing was very strange with Uniroyal having already stormed out of UPAC. Pat McLean kept incorrectly stating that UPAC had to change in order to bring Uniroyal back to the table and I responded that UPAC had already changed for the better and that’s why Uniroyal left in the first place. This was the same Pat who had previously been quoted in the local papers as acknowledging that it was UPAC’s more aggressive stance pushing Uniroyal versus constantly supporting them that led to their departure.<br /><br />Certainly the irony was not lost on me after the October 2010 municipal election. The new council did exactly what I had warned UPAC about ten years earlier. They decided quietly to give the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) members the heave ho. The new mayor,Todd Cowan (Todd), had talked to outside experts (and me) and understood that the Chemtura/CRA way of doing things wasn’t working to clean up by 2028. Pat, Susan Bryant and the gang were gone. Sure they did their thing and pretended to withdraw their Applications over disagreement with new Terms of Reference but it was all for show. They already knew that none of them were coming back. I actually had asked Todd to retain two or three of the old CPAC members but he chose not to. At least from this point forward, especially with the public way the 2014 new council got rid of Todd’s CPAC; it is now undeniable that Councils will exercise their power and throw out previously council appointed volunteer citizen committees that they do not like. What a way to run a railroad folks. It’s not the best candidates; it’s the candidates who are friends and buddies with the councillors and even possibly with Chemtura.<br /><br />Esther Thur of the EH-Team was not meek and mild when she chose to speak at UPAC meetings. Uniroyal personnel on occasion would minimize and downplay various health effects of Uniroyal’s myriad chemicals whether found in the air, soil, or groundwater. Esther Thur would have none of that. She had suffered from cancer, which she felt was directly related to decades of Uniroyal air and water pollution. At a UPAC meeting that summer of 1998, she reacted to a Uniroyal claim of improving conditions thusly: “Lindane is far more dangerous than DDT. It is one of the most dangerous chemicals in the world.” Lindane was an insecticide which among other uses was found in hair shampoos to get rid of lice. It is also considered a Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP) as it breaks down very slowly in the natural environment.<br /><br />My Resistance To Becoming a Committee of Council<br /><br />Dr. Henry Regier, Esther Thur, and I spoke strongly against this plan of Pat McLean’s to put UPAC under Council control. Sylvia Berg and Susan Bryant agreed with Ms. Mclean. The rest of UPAC basically sat and listened. At least so it seemed to Henry, Esther and I. Hindsight once again leads me to believe that UPAC had been long lobbied by Ms. McLean and friends. Maybe that lobbying included subtle long term references to alleged character flaws, behavioural patterns, and or other social inabilities that Esther, Henry, and I reputedly had. Do not forget that Susan Bryant had also solicited the memberships of Ron Ormson, Gerry Heidebuurt, and others. They owed their memberships to Susan Bryant as well as Chair Pat McLean. These newer members also did not have the long-term experience of living and seeing Council’s failures to support citizens over corporate employers and taxpayers.<br /><br />Here are two letters which I sent to UPAC members in late December 1999 regarding Council jurisdiction of UPAC. In hindsight, knowing the inability to play fair, much less honestly and democratically, I now wonder if UPAC Chair Pat Mclean even sent these to the UPAC members after receiving them from me through the UPAC secretary. This is but one reason even today I do not like to funnel data to RAC or TAG members through the Woolwich secretary. My observations are that she seems far too close and chummy with our mayor whom I believe to be dishonest in some matters.<br /><br />Sunday December 19, 1999<br /><br />UNIROYAL PUBLIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE<br /><br />This is to acknowledge receipt of the UPAC Draft Terms of Reference as well as the accompanying note addressed to myself, dated December 16/99, from Brenda Kempel. This information was received yesterday and although I have read the few pages a number of times, I do not intend to spend an hour or two of my precious and unpaid time away from my family, doing yet more volunteer work, with inadequate notice.<br /><br />For the purpose of Brenda’s request that I submit my comments to the draft Terms of Reference, in writing, for tomorrow’s UPAC meeting; I out of necessity and brevity, can only emphasize that I am appalled with these Draft Terms. If the purpose is to beg Uniroyal to return to the UPAC table, then you may have succeeded. I will be happy tomorrow at the UPAC meeting to give my concerns, comments and criticisms verbally. Furthermore I would be pleased to submit a written response within a reasonable time frame, perchance as short as a week and a half (Christmas is six days away).<br /><br />Sincerely<br />Elmira Environmental Hazards Team<br /><br />The date on this second letter may let the readers know exactly how strongly I felt about Pat Mclean’s appalling and wrong-headed proposal for UPAC to become a committee of Woolwich Council.<br /><br />December 25, 1999<br /><br />ELMIRA ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS TEAM SUBMISSION TO THE UNIROYAL PUBLIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE (UPAC) REGARDING THE U.P.A.C. DRAFT TERMS OF REFERENCE DISCUSSED December 20, 1999.<br /><br />Borrowing a phrase from Dr. David Ash of Uniroyal: “U.P.A.C. are masters of their own fate.” On a number of occasions David Ash reminded UPAC that they and they alone made decisions affecting their own process, their own membership, their own technical positions etc.. UPAC are now being given the opportunity to lose this independence. There probably are one or two good reasons for becoming a committee of Woolwich Council. The cost however is that, according to the proposed Terms of Reference, Woolwich Council will also have absolute control over the membership of UPAC. Woolwich Council will also have absolute control over the position of Chairperson. Woolwich Council will become master of the fate of UPAC. As it currently stands UPAC determines who will be members and who will be the Chairperson. This is how it should be and how it should remain.<br /><br />It is at best only a side argument as to whether or not Woolwich Council have any claim to environmental legitimacy. Clearly a number of speakers at the Dec. 20/99 UPAC meeting including Esther Thur, Henry Regier and myself think not. Esther’s and Henry’s comments regarding Woolwich’s past and present environmental credibility were also captured and published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record on Dec. 21/99. The salient point is why would an independent advisory body give up their independence to a group of politicians? Does UPAC really believe that if either individual members or the body as a whole were to strongly criticize the Township of Woolwich, for some perceived environmental sins or omissions, that there would be no repercussions from the Council of the day? Councillors are both humans and politicians. There isn’t an organization made up of human beings that doesn’t and hasn’t reacted, to the full breadth of their power and authority, against outside criticism. Let me tell you that the local School Board, municipal councils, regional councils, provincial ministries etc, are chock full of petty, spiteful, vindictive people who react to the most honest criticisms, in the time honoured tradition of shoot the messenger.<br /><br />SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR INDEPENDENCE THE MOMENT WOOLWICH COUNCIL OR ANYBODY BUT YOURSELVES CONTROLS YOUR MEMBERSHIP, THE CHAIR, AGENDA ETC..<br /><br />There have been many times in the past when the Media have found the issues presented at UPAC to be a hard sell to their readers, viewers and listeners. Nevertheless as recently as Monday December 20, 1999 the media were represented at UPAC by the Woolwich Observer, Elmira Independent and the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. The presence of the media and hence the interest of the public is absolutely essential in any David versus Goliath battle. Do not ever doubt or forget that Uniroyal Chemical are indeed Goliath and that you are in a battle to clean up not only their property but the groundwater, surface water, air, sediments and soil, off-site; that has been adversely affected by their pollution. I can tell you that the media are often a mixed blessing. If I of all people, with the miserable recent press I’ve received, can still tell you to make your meetings media friendly and always accessible, then you must understand how strongly I believe that only through an informed public, via the media, will you ever receive environmental justice in Elmira.<br /><br />When I speak of media friendly I am partly referring to what I see as pitfalls with the suggested four sub committees. One meeting per month is probably the saturation point if we want media attendance. One “general” meeting every two months with technical reports being reviewed and questioned elsewhere (ie. sub committee) is probably the kiss of death as far as media interest goes. They aren’t going to be impressed watching the “general” committee accept recommendations and sterile position statements by the sub committees. What the media are interested in are the conflicts, the vigorous debates, the heated opposing positions. What the media also likes to see is direct input from the public. This could be encouraged by more evening meetings. The RAM group (Duke St.) is a prime example. They have even held outdoor evening meetings with excellent attendance. Again in regards to both media and citizens involvement, make it easy for both of them. One meeting per month, consistently advertised in the local papers and at least every second meeting (or more) in the evening would be of assistance. A watered down UPAC meeting every second month (during the day), lacking the hard questioning of Susan, Sylvia, Esther, myself and the UPAC members is the beginning of the end. What will there be to question or debate? The meat and potatoes is being contracted out leaving UPAC nothing to debate.<br /><br />Change for the sake of change is frivolous. Who says UPAC has a problem? Uniroyal Chemical says so. Does the tail wag the dog? Is UPAC in existence to serve Uniroyal’s needs or to serve the public? I say that the very best evidence that UPAC is succeeding occurred when Uniroyal picked up their marbles and went home. UPAC are no longer Uniroyal’s cheerleading department. You do not require Uniroyal for your credibility. What would assist you far more than Uniroyal’s return, would be the return of the citizen activists who have never given up, given in, or allowed themselves to be bafflegabbed and bullfrittered by Uniroyal’s hired guns. Let Uniroyal and Conestoga Rovers come back whenever they want, but on your terms not theirs. You do not have to reform yourselves because David Ash says you are dysfunctional. Uniroyal Chemical are dysfunctional. They are losing support in the eyes of the community and the world the longer they hide from the current, functional UPAC. APTE and the Environmental Hazards Team have held the faith through thick and thin, literally for years. Speaking on behalf of the EH-Team I can tell you that it is wonderful and fantastic to see so many other informed people at UPAC carrying the ball and demanding proper accountability and proper cleanup by Uniroyal. Uniroyal and David Ash obviously have seen the same things I’ve seen and that’s why they’re gone. An independent, informed, honest and scrupulously public UPAC would be in the best interests of a sincere company looking to restore public confidence in their environmental integrity. Uniroyal Chemical instead choose to abandon public consultation when they no longer are in control of it.<br /><br />WHAT IS FUELING THIS URGENT REQUIREMENT TO REFORM THAT WHICH IS WORKING?<br /><br />Do I think the absence of Uniroyal Chemical and their consultants are a loss to UPAC? Do I think that they have blessed UPAC with their wisdom, expertise and professionalism? They are no more than the “professional” scientists, psychiatrists and doctors who for money give their expert testimony in court on behalf of their client. They are technical advocates on behalf of Uniroyal Chemical. At least when a lawyer speaks on behalf his client, everyone including the judge understands that the lawyer will lie in order to benefit his client. The trick is either not getting caught or in having a backup, face saving out, if caught.<br /><br />Uniroyal’s consultants have been caught on occasion over the years pulling fast ones. Whether it is Brian Beatty and the Stan Feenstra 1% vs. 10% out of context DNAPL (dense non-aqueous phase liquid) quotes, or more recently CRA using an outdated air dispersion model to minimize Uniroyal’s toxic air emissions; the effects are the same. Again the Region of Waterloo several years back, caught CRA taking soil samples at inappropriate depths and locations. CRA had earlier been claiming that there were no DNAPLS in that area and these negative samples were to prove their point.<br /><br />Does UPAC need to reform themselves for the benefit of CRA or Uniroyal? I don’t think so. Only make changes if you are absolutely certain that the changes will assist you in fully cleaning up the toxic legacy inflicted on us by Uniroyal Chemical.<br /><br />Sincerely<br /><br />Elmira Environmental Hazards Team<br /><br />So, was this game like almost every other one played in this environmental arena, rigged? Did Pat McLean ensure that my two letters were never received by the CPAC members? Was the later dismissal of Brenda Kempel, secretary, orchestrated by Chair Pat Mclean because Pat could not trust her to do as ordered? Brenda actually was a Region of Waterloo employee and this was a part-time job for her. I do know that Brenda was not happy about being let go from this job. I also know that her replacement was not as good at the job as Brenda was; however, genetically speaking, she may have been superior as she was related to a former Woolwich Councillor. She was a loyal Woolwich Township employee until her retirement, and, in her exit interview complained vociferously to Mayor Todd Cowan about CPAC’s hardnosed attitude towards Chemtura. Odd that she was so pro Uniroyal (Chemtura). Was she reflecting the attitudes of the various Woolwich Council members over the previous decades?<br /><br />To reiterate, Henry, Esther, and I all were publicly on the record as being against UPAC becoming a committee of Council. Pat McLean, Susan Bryant, and Sylvia Berg were all in favour of joining. The more politically involved and experienced manipulators of the both naïve and uninformed had this all wrapped up in a bow before the rest of us even knew that the matter was going to be raised at UPAC. This was how Pat McLean operated on Council as well. She and Bill Strauss lined up their support on Council first and then later sprung an issue on those they felt would have legitimate objections. Pat McLean pulled the very same garbage on CPAC in the fall of 2007 when she convened a blatantly improper CPAC meeting without even advising me, a voting member, that there was a meeting.<br /><br />In the December 31, 1999 Elmira Independent, Esther Thur and I are both quoted as being against making UPAC a committee of Council. Sylvia spoke in favour. Esther stated “Previous Council’s involvement did not help."70 In the Woolwich Observer, I stated “Council’s history regarding Uniroyal does not inspire confidence.” Most prophetically I also stated, “The chances of previous councils even allowing me to be a member of UPAC are somewhere between zero and nil.” Then I stated, “I am not interested in being a part of any group that requires Woolwich Council’s approval."71 Man, I wish I had stuck to that! For reasons I explain soon, I did not. In the same edition of the Woolwich Observer, Esther stated, “They [Council] have passed the buck to the MOE.” She further added, “Back in the 1940s and 50s Uniroyal had three people on council and the pollution was the worst it ever was."72 Dr. Regier was also quoted as supporting UPAC remaining independent from Woolwich Council.<br /><br />In the January 15, 2000 edition of the Woolwich Observer, Observer staff made in my opinion a telling statement, namely, “The stay and appeal hearings give Woolwich Township Council an opportunity to reverse its dismal track record when it comes to Uniroyal. Council has been decidedly ineffective when dealing with the company."73 In the earlier days of the Woolwich Observer’s presence in Woolwich Township, they were fearless in criticizing both local politicians and local polluters. Unfortunately, that changed dramatically shortly after in regards to criticizing Uniroyal Chemical. While there may have been some backing off in criticizing Woolwich Council after one half of the ownership of the Observer was elected to Council in October 2014, the turnaround was much less obvious and sudden. The turnaround has not been in the public’s interest.<br /><br />In hindsight, it is now so obvious. Uniroyal wanted back on UPAC but only in a face saving manner. Woolwich Council, the Ontario MOE, and the CCPA all wanted them back. After all, the whole point of UPAC, for them, was to give the appearance of everything being on the up and up. My experience confirms it never was and this is both the irony of UPAC and the shame of those individuals espousing democratic processes while simultaneously doing their best to undermine them. Lying and deceiving to get one’s way is their modus operandi. The hardnosed and honest UPAC members, such as Dr. Henry Regier as well as Esther Thur and me of the EH-Team, were kept in the dark while private negotiations were underway. A deal was made and then Pat McLean and supporters privately lobbied UPAC members whom Susan Bryant had solicited to join. These included neighbours and friends whom Ms. Bryant had convinced to support her and Pat McLean.<br /><br />This event was the biggest direct sell out of citizens by any council member until Sandy Shantz’s and Mark Bauman’s efforts in 2015. Funny how chummy Pat, Susan, Sandy, and Mark still are today. This sellout and its ramifications even exceeded the DNAPL sellout by APT and the MOE followed by the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System (UACTS) sellout by Uniroyal and the MOE. What a conglomeration of snakes and it was only the beginning. Was the real driving force Uniroyal Chemical or was it the MOE? Was it the unholy decades long alliance between Uniroyal and Woolwich Council? I am just beginning to understand the depths of manipulation and backstabbing that went on with our past Woolwich Councils. While dishonest people may have a penchant for politics, there are some honest folks there along the way. I really wish that more of them would step forward. I know of a couple of councillors who learned about behind the scenes meetings and discussions going on with their fellow councillors from which they were excluded. This corrupt practice is pervasive but seems unenforceable to correct. Is it any surprise that Pat McLean pulled this same crap on me in the fall of 2007? Is it any surprise that both Pat McLean and Susan Bryant were receiving benefits either directly or indirectly via Uniroyal Chemical while they were ostensibly citizen representatives trying to keep Uniroyal and the MOE accountable? This behaviour of Pat McLean and Susan Bryant along with the details was documented, signed, and dated by the 2011-2015 appointed CPAC members, as well as by two of the SWAT Team members (CPAC sub-committee) and presented to Woolwich Council in the spring of 2017. Woolwich Council did what they do best, which was to ignore it.<br /><br />Woolwich Council made it official later that January of 2000. The Elmira Independent reported on January 23, 2000 that Woolwich Council voted five to two in favour of accepting UPAC as a committee of Council. I wish I knew now which two councillors voted against the motion. At this time, Uniroyal representatives were still playing hard to get in public. At no point did they let the cat out of the bag that they and friends were behind this devastation of public consultation. Clearly, the only reason that they and the MOE had agreed to go along with this committee in the first place was because their credibility was so deep in the toilet. Even then Uniroyal dragged its feet and allegedly attempted to insist that all UPAC meetings be held in private.<br /><br />The Record also reported on January 27, 2000 regarding Woolwich Council’s five to two acceptance of CPAC as a committee of council. They stated “…following a heated debate Tuesday night, Woolwich Councillors voted 5-2 to make the UPAC committee a committee of Council.” Councillor McLean of course claimed that “…maintaining the committee in its current form is not an option.” That was a bald faced lie and I only wish I had said it louder and clearer at the time. Unfortunately, I still had confidence and trust in Susan Bryant and did she ever milk that. I had seen the damage done to APT with the loss of Esther Thur, Richard Clausi and I in January 1994 and, as a result, I had worked very hard since to ensure that there was zero conflict between the two grassroots groups in Elmira representing citizens and holding Uniroyal and the MOE accountable. The last thing I wanted was another split between APT and the EH-Team. I had worked and was working with Susan Bryant in a collegial and mutually respectful fashion. Or at least I thought it was.<br /><br />Interestingly a month and a half after UPAC became a committee of council, David Ash stated in the Woolwich Observer that “the company has no intention of ever attending another meeting of the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee."74 This is one more reason why polluters and politicians lie. People, including me, usually believe them. I believed at that time that Uniroyal representatives, who had by this time been gone from UPAC for thirteen months, meant what they said. They didn’t. It was all part of the scam.<br /><br />Yes the big stench had resulted in much time, work, expense and effort but improved results were hopefully on the horizon. Of course in an honest society or a real democracy, it wouldn’t take years to get results. Offenders would be forced by our governments to shut down their operations until they could prove that they could operate safely.<br /><br />It was a disaster putting CPAC under the control of Woolwich Council. That lesson has since been pounded home to all, including Pat and Susan when their turn came to get bounced off of CPAC.<br /><br />The early 2000s were not a good time for citizens in regards to Uniroyal and their next reincarnation as Crompton Inc. There were far too many spills and far too much gamesmanship ongoing at UPAC including “Optimization”. That program was but one more self-serving scam played upon the community by Uniroyal Chemical.<br /><br />CLICK ON "Older Posts" (below right) to advance to Chapter 6<br /><br /><br /></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8878453318393347844" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">ENDNOTES for Chapter 5<br /><br />51 Gail Gardiner, “Changes at UPAC are long overdue”, Elmira Independent, August 31, 1998<br /><br />52 David Gambrill, “Residents Raise Stink About Uniroyal”, Woolwich Observer, August 28, 1996<br /><br />53 Doug Coxson, “Duke St. residents demand solution to odour problem”, Elmira Independent,<br />August 31, 1998<br /><br />54 David Gambrill, “Something in the air”, Woolwich Observer, September 5, 1998<br /><br />55 Gail Gardiner, “Residents are finding their voice”, Elmira Independent, September 14, 1998<br /><br />56 Geoffrey Downey, “Results of air-quality testing at Uniroyal to be released soon”, Kitchener-<br />Waterloo Record, January 20, 1999<br /><br />57 Letter to the Editor, “Sowing suspicion and distrust”, Elmira Independent, January 22, 1999<br /><br />58 Gail Gardiner, “Region to take action on Uniroyal odour problems”, Elmira Independent, February 5,<br />1999<br /><br />59 Bob Burtt, “Uniroyal vows to reach out to public”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, February 18, 1999<br /><br />60 Gail Gardiner, “UPAC will continue despite withdrawal of Uniroyal Chemical’s support”, Elmira<br />Independent, February 19, 1999<br /><br />61 Letter to the Editor, “Uniroyal leaving UPAC is not surprising”, Elmira Independent, March 5, 1999<br /><br />62 Letter To The Editor, “Denying the reality of pollution solves nothing”, Elmira Independent,<br />March 19, 1999<br /><br />63 Gail Gardiner, “Region falls short of promising health study for Elmira residents”, Elmira<br />Independent, March 26, 1999<br /><br />64 Bob Burtt, “Hopes for cleaner air deflated”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, April 1, 1999<br /><br />65 Bob Trotter, “Uniroyal sings the same old songs”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, April 20, 1999<br /><br />66 Gail Gardiner, “Open-door-and-window policy contributing to odour complaints”, Elmira<br />Independent, May 21, 1999<br /><br />67 Gail Gardiner, “Job will continue to year end”, Elmira Independent, June 25, 1999<br /><br />68 Doug Coxson, “New thermal-oxidation unit set up at Uniroyal Chemical”, Elmira Independent,<br />July 9, 1999, p.8.<br /><br />69 Gail Martin, “Duke-Street resident threatens to stop paying taxes because of odour problems”,<br />Elmira Independent, September 24, 1999<br /><br />70 Julie Sawyer, “Plans to make UPAC part of council face opposition”, Elmira Independent, December<br />31, 1999<br /><br />71 Patrick Moore, “Don’t make UPAC part of Council: environment groups”, Woolwich Observer,<br />December 26, 1999<br /><br />72 Ibid.<br /><br />73 Editorial, “Taking the initiative”, Woolwich Observer, January 15, 2000<br /><br />74 Richard Vivian, “APT faces off against Uniroyal”, Woolwich Observer, March 2000<br /><br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-15183101971592278302023-12-19T11:59:00.000-08:002023-12-20T06:47:44.129-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/chapter-6-new-upac-there-were-other.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-7785745499510817328" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">As This Blog Now Appears Dedicated To Publishing My New Book (as titled above), Readers May Find That I Will Be Posting More Articles Relevant To This Blog On My Other Blog known As The Elmira Advocate. It Can Either Be Googled Or Found At www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br />Chapter Six:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />49 ....The New UPAC<br /><br />52 ....Old Problems Not Resolved<br /><br />55 ....Nutrite and Ammonia<br /><br />55 ....More on the Stench<br /><br />57 ....DNAPLS, Optimization, Spills and Ammonia Treatment<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 6<br /><br />The New UPAC<br /><br />There were other reasons besides trusting Susan Bryant, that caused me to accept Art Fletcher’s invitation to return to the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee after a six year absence. Keep in mind the absence was not physical, it was simply as a voting member of UPAC. As of right now, I am and have been a member for the last few years of what is now known as the Citizens Public Advisory Committee [CPAC] and am thrilled. I am even more thrilled that I am not a member of a committee of a corrupt, incompetent, and biased Woolwich Council. Never again.<br /><br />I had just finished a nasty four week long civil trial in the early summer of 1999 with the decision handed down in late August. The civil trial was instigated by a teacher who freely admitted to suffering from either emotional or mental difficulties. During the trial and afterwards, I had been abandoned by the Record. Abandoned in order for them to save their own skins. Abandoned to the point that while reporter Diane Wood was present in court each day, she was not having her stories published as the trial progressed. Or perhaps she wasn’t filing stories every day or at all. I don’t know. What I do know is that the dishonourable Robert Reilly felt confident in flatly stating in his eighty-six page decision that he had rejected the testimony of my seven or eight witnesses outright. I am extremely doubtful that he would have or could have done so if the Record had published accounts of the honest and strong evidence from these mothers and fathers who testified against the Plaintiff in this civil trial. If the Record had published accounts especially during the trial, his decision would have been a laughingstock . The judge knew that the Record had rolled over. These defence witnesses were all cross-examined to no avail by the Plaintiff’s lawyer. He was spectacularly unsuccessful in either shaking their testimony or in establishing any improper motives or reasons for their testifying against his client. This did not shake either the bias or unsound thinking of the judge.<br /><br />From this background I was asked to rejoin UPAC as a voting member. I should have flatly refused based upon their recent asinine decision to become a committee of council. In March, my daughter, Katie, was invited to sit at UPAC as a student representative from Elmira District Secondary School. While this did not affect my decision to rejoin UPAC, it certainly made it more palatable after the fact.<br /><br />UPAC members were embroiled in another controversy by early February 2000 as they were trying to understand how Uniroyal could spill thousands of gallons of toluene, which flooded the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). This spill into Uniroyal’s waste water going to the Elmira STP killed the bacteria used to break down the municipal sewage, resulting in the release of thousands of gallons of partially treated sewage and toluene into the Canagagigue Creek. Uniroyal failed to promptly notify STP personnel or anyone else that they had had a major spill of toluene resulting in damage to the STP as well as to the Mannheim Water Treatment Centre in Kitchener, causing it to be shut down for at least two weeks. Basements in nearby homes in Elmira were flooded with sewage courtesy of this Uniroyal mess.<br /><br />By February 25, 2000, Julie Sawyer reporter for the Elmira Independent stated that UPAC were pushing Uniroyal and the MOE hard for answers. Ron Ormson, in the same article, suggested charges be laid against the company. Dr. Henry Regier was quoted as saying “This is a crisis .…due diligence went right down the drain on this one."75 In it Esther Thur stated, “It’s our health. What about our drinking water?"76 Unsurprisingly considering the heat he was under, David Ash again stated in the Woolwich Observer that “the company has no intention of ever attending another meeting of the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee.” This decision was absurd both in hindsight and even at the time. Uniroyal Chemical was simply heaping coals on their already burning public image. Was Mr. Ash<br />deflecting concerns or comments that Uniroyal managers were behind UPAC’s recent conversion to being a committee of Woolwich Council?<br /><br />At a CPAC meeting in late March 2000, the new owners of Uniroyal, namely Crompton Co., were having a difficult time over their spill of toluene. Based on the colour of the liquid it was being referred to as the “pink spill.” Pat McLean, David Ireland of the MOE, Henry Regier of APT and myself representing the (EH-Team) discussed who was responsible this time for the damage to the Elmira Sewage Plant. I asked David Ireland: “Is there any other possible candidate in Elmira that has those volumes of toluene?"77 This question, of course, meant any other candidate other than Uniroyal/Crompton. David Ireland’s response was “I’m not aware of any other company."78 Keep in mind that this was months prior to Uniroyal finally admitting that they did it. For me this situation begs the<br />question, why would any supposedly reasonably informed individual ever think that there was any point whatsoever in either privately discussing or negotiating anything with someone from Uniroyal? The words of those who speak through the filter of public relations experts are not worth the paper they are not written on.<br /><br />The year 2000 may have started splendidly for Uniroyal/Crompton with UPAC becoming a committee of Woolwich Council but the rest of the year held mostly bad news. Even the chemical industries cheerleaders, the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA), couldn’t hold their noses and give Uniroyal verification under the *Responsible Care program. Uniroyal had appropriately been<br />unsuccessful in 1997 and honest, knowledgeable citizens knew that any company who could blatantly lie about an eight hundred gallon release of toluene should never achieve the *Responsible Care designation.<br /><br />On March 22, 2000, Bob Burtt of the Record wrote a story outlining Uniroyal’s current tribulations. These included facing twenty odour-related charges for their fumigations of Duke Street and Elmira. Second, they were facing an Environmental Appeal Board hearing regarding the MOE Contol Order, which they had appealed. The control order mandated public meetings on air emissions as well as greater work on-site to reduce those air emissions. Third, was the ongoing uproar over Uniroyal’s “pink spill” by local authorities including the Region of Waterloo and the MOE, CPAC, and the public.<br /><br /><br />The March 24, 2000 Elmira Independent had an article by reporter Julie Sawyer regarding the “pink spill.” Kieran Kelly, the Woolwich Township Fire Chief, suggested that approximately eight hundred gallons had been released. Tim Boose, Project Engineering Staff of Uniroyal advised that he had phoned the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant at about 9:30 a.m. on the day of the spill to advise them of a<br />possible problem.The STP staff was already facing it. Ron Ormson of CPAC suggested that charges under the Federal Fisheries Act were possible because of the toluene spilled into the creek.<br /><br />In the April 18, 2000 Record, Henry Regier suggested that Uniroyal’s proposed upcoming open house on the matter was inadequate. Sylvia Berg was also quoted on the matter. I stated “An open house will be a dog and pony show."79 Two days later in the Elmira Independent I was quoted by Julie Sawyer again as saying “I’m not going to sit through another CPAC dog and pony show. I will come out for a public meeting."80 Clearly, Uniroyal preferred a much more controlled format so that they would not be confronted by hard questions from the public.<br /><br />On April 27, 2000 in the Record, it was announced that one of Uniroyal’s allies on UPAC/CPAC namely the Chamber of Commerce, had resigned from CPAC. Sylvia Berg responded critically in the Record and quite frankly, in my opinion, made asses out of the Chamber and their decision to support Uniroyal in this fashion. Once again strong, public statements in support of the long suffering public by Sylvia Berg and Susan Bryant made it difficult for me to believe that their ongoing mistakes were anything but exactly that. I really wanted to believe in them.<br /><br />Finally Uniroyal held its open house and as described in the April 28, 2000 Record, David Ash and Uniroyal were confronted by the “Lawn Chair Brigade.” This meeting was the first time in fourteen months that David Ash faced the advisory Crompton Public Advisory Committee. Quoting Bob Burtt: “ Ash made it clear Thursday he still regards the advisory committee as a waste of time for the company."81 David Ash stated, “They (UPAC) aren’t regarded well in the community."82 Present at this meeting were CPAC members as well as Shannon Purves-Smith of APT and concerned citizen Barb Zupko of Elmira.<br /><br />On May 27, 2000, the Woolwich Observer published their Editorial in which they dumped all over Uniroyal’s recent citizen “survey”, the behaviour of their managers with their verbal diarrhea, and taking credit for their own initiative about work ordered by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. This strong position against the Crompton Co. behaviour and attitudes became increasingly rare over the next eighteen years plus. While I do not believe that the Observer`s understanding and position ever wavered, it slowly became clear that something was affecting their ability to speak out plainly in regards to Crompton and their numerous corporate reincarnations. I have suspicions as to what happened.<br /><br />All in all, these were very difficult times for Crompton and their supporters in Elmira. We of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team [EH-Team] were front and centre and working well with CPAC , APT Environment representatives and everyone else in the fight to restore the local environment. I routinely shared information, data, conclusions, and strategy with Susan Bryant of APT. This sharing was by phone, fax, and in person over coffee at her Elmira home on Park Street. Indeed many years later, Councillor Ruby Weber said it plainly when she stated that she understood that we were friends. While I had been suspicious of Sylvia Berg for good cause after her behaviour in December 1993 and January 1994, my confidence in Ms. Bryant’s inherent honesty and integrity never wavered no matter what. What an incredibly huge mistake.<br /><br />Reporter Stacy Ash, stated in the Record in early June 2000 that an announcement was made at the most recent CPAC public meeting concerning Crompton Co. Crompton after sixteen months had allegedly decided all on its own that it was time to come back. Not a word to [CPAC] voting members for the last sixteen months supposedly and now they were coming back. What a serious crock. Henry Regier suggested in the Record article that Crompton’s return should be treated no differently than the return of the two environmental groups to the committee. Pat McLean, however, once again, stated that “returning to the type of meetings that used to be held with Uniroyal at the table is not an option."83 What was that supposed to mean? Pat was the Chair of UPAC before and the Chair now. She ran the meetings. Who did she think she was, giving orders to CPAC when there had been exactly zero discussion with all of us about this matter? On the other hand, was she warning Crompton to stop lying, delaying, and working behind closed doors when the public consultation body was ready, willing, and eager to work on these matters? Meanwhile, why had Crompton supposedly had a change of heart? Two months earlier, David Ash publicly trashed the whole idea of the current public consultation. It was no wonder that Henry Regier began asking Susan and Pat if there was some sort of CPAC Executive Committee that the rest of us didn’t know about. I assured Dr. Regier that I had virtually zero knowledge of any such thing and I would go ballistic if I ever found out that that kind of behind- the- back crap, was going on. As usual Dr. Regier was right although he and I didn`t find out for a while. In the Elmira Independent, I was quoted in regards to Pat McLean’s comments as saying that at the next CPAC meeting “I don`t want to have a large meeting and find out that three members have somewhat committed us to a set of conditions."84 Well that didn`t happen. Pat McLean and friends merely kept any privately negotiated deal with Crompton to themselves.<br /><br />In the June 24, 2000 Woolwich Observer, we learned that allegedly Crompton was forced to return to CPAC by the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA). The CCPA apparently advised Crompton that if they did not return to public consultation with CPAC there would never be a *Responsible Care verification. Whether truthful partly, fully, or not at all, it is apparent to me that Crompton only was attending CPAC as a public relations gesture. Same thing with the Ontario MOE. Neither party then or now has ever been serious about doing the right things to properly remediate the natural environment in and around Elmira, Ontario. At the time, I believed the CCPA explanation as it explained Crompton`s and David Ash`s about face. In the fullness of time I now believe it was all about concessions made to Crompton, the new owners of Uniroyal. These most likely included CPAC being defanged and put under direct Woolwich Council control. While Pat McLean had been a councillor for some time I had seen only the sporadic attempt by her to control me either inside or outside CPAC meetings. I treated any attempt whatsoever as being beyond ridiculous and totally inappropriate. I, like all CPAC and former UPAC members, was independent of anything but the legal laws of the land. Quite frankly, Woolwich Council or the entire Woolwich Township could kiss my butt as far as giving orders about anything. That was what independent public consultation was all about. Clearly, this fact was terrifying to all the guilty parties and their followers.<br /><br />Maybe the CCPA issued that condition of *Responsible Care verification and maybe they didn’t. If they did, it could have been a face-saving way for Uniroyal to return after their asinine hissy fit back in February 1999, which had them storm out. Perhaps right from the beginning it was all about Uniroyal getting concessions from UPAC/CPAC and perhaps even the MOE. The biggest concession likely was UPAC along with Woolwich Council agreeing to have UPAC become a committee of council.<br /><br />Then, on June 21, 2000, the Ontario MOE passed a ridiculous Amended Control Order allowing Uniroyal to relax the stipulation for complete on-site hydraulic containment particularly in the municipal aquifer. There was significant deception and manipulation involved in this June 21, 2000 Amending Order signed by Kal Haniff of the Ontario MOE. It was a part of the later years-long ”Optimization” process which really only started about the same time. As late as April 2008, there was a discussion at CPAC involving Pat McLean, Steve Martindale and me. Pat McLean, the Chair of CPAC, either honestly or dishonestly claimed to have no knowledge of this amending order from eight years prior. Oh boy but that’s a tough one to know the truth of. This discussion was in the April 4, 2008 Elmira Independent coverage of the most recent CPAC meeting. Therefore, in hindsight, one only has to look at the major inappropriate concessions given to Uniroyal between January 2000 and the end of June 2000. ”Optimization`” appeared to die a natural death after the discovery of a make believe hydrogeological anomaly in 2004. This anomaly was referred to as the “Phantom Mound.” In fact, “Optimization” had succeeded as the June 21, 2000 Amending Order is basically what Uniroyal/Crompton wanted. Once again, in hindsight, citizens can see that there were private dealings going on between members of the MOE, Uniroyal and CPAC behind the backs of many voting CPAC members, as the amending order occurred before the issue ever came to CPAC.<br /><br />Perhaps the whole idea behind the Observer’s story regarding the CCPA’s ultimatum was simply to provide a smokescreen. The smokescreen could have been from someone other than the Observer ownership such as from the CCPA themselves. By dangling this less than noble reason for Uniroyal’s return it could deflect CPAC members from realizing that Uniroyal`s return was all about concessions they had gained. Particularly irksome critics such as me could now be dealt with by Woolwich Council. Instead of Uniroyal representatives leaving, in future, they could get council to do their dirty work directly for them. Indeed, Woolwich Council did exactly that on two future occasions in 2008 and 2015. Second, the June 21, 2000 Amended Control Order took Uniroyal off the MOE control order hook as well as weakened CPAC’s strong criticism for Uniroyal’s poor on-site pumping of Uniroyal’s municipal aquifer.<br /><br />Sylvia Berg re-entered the fray with very strong anti-Uniroyal comments. How much was for real and how much for show is anybody’s guess. In the August 12, 2000 Record, Sylvia Berg said the following in regards to Uniroyal`s rejoining CPAC: ”If it is going to be the same high-handed approach that we have seen before, I think the committee will have to assess the situation and see if it is appropriate to have them there or not."85 What was that all about? Go Sylvia. In the same article the Record reporter wrote `”While David Ash said he is enthusiastic about the return, Berg said the company agreed to return only after it had its “knuckles rapped by the CCPA."86 Sylvia Berg then continued her attack on Ash and Uniroyal`s credibility in a Letter To The Editor with “If you were more concerned about the aggravation you are causing your neighbours then you might stand a chance of being verified by the *Responsible Care program of the CCPA instead of being rejected, yet again."87 Those kinds of honest but scathing comments from Sylvia Berg were exactly what were needed both then and now.<br /><br />In the August 12, 2000 Woolwich Observer, I am quoted as dumping all over private meetings between CPAC and Uniroyal. There was a suggestion that three representatives from CPAC sit down with Uniroyal ahead of their return to CPAC. Both Henry Regier and I felt that that was unnecessary and indeed foolish. I spoke about long-term ongoing gamesmanship between Uniroyal, the Ministry of Environment, and Woolwich Township. To this day that is still a constant. The one possible exception was the 2010 -2014 Woolwich Council. While indeed that Council had its own issues, nevertheless council did some very good things in regards to Uniroyal and their corporate successors. Councillor Mark Bauman is not included in that comment.<br /><br />Old Problems Not Resolved<br /><br />Air emissions released from Uniroyal Chemical into Elmira’s air continued to cause health damage to citizens. Whether the damage was going to exacerbate current cancers or start new ones cannot be proven. What could be proven was that citizens of Duke Street and further afield were losing precious sleep and having their respiratory tracts irritated. The “pink” spill was also still front and centre<br /><br />By September 2000, Elmira and area residents still had more questions than answers in regards to the “pink spill” of toluene. The Record carried an article on September 12, 2000 written by Bob Burtt. Dr. Regier was all over this problem when he stated at CPAC “ I saw different agencies who looked like they were scurrying for cover and controlling information…I’d like to know what happened, when, what the response was and if we can confidently say there was no impact on health or the environment.”88<br /><br />In the September 15, 2000 Elmira Independent article by Julie Sawyer, it was reported that both the Region of Waterloo and the Ontario MOE were still chasing Uniroyal for compensation. The Region’s staff felt that their costs were $90,000 in regards to work needed at the Elmira STP. Later, in the fall Crompton decided to share with the community and CPAC their “Worst Case Scenario.” This was to ensure that emergency plans were in place to deal with any such disaster.<br /><br />In the October 6, 2000 Elmira Independent there was discussion around Crompton’s “Worst Case Scenario.” David Ash of Crompton Co. advised that “A few years ago ammonia would not have been on the top of the list… Chemicals we used to use but no longer do would have had a much worse impact."89 These comments were all made at the most recent Crompton Public Advisory Committee [CPAC] public meeting. At that meeting I asked David Ash about chlorine usage. His response was “There is no chlorine on the site anymore. It would have been the worst case if it were still in use."90 Odd but only six years earlier (March 12, 1994) the very same David Ash assured the community that there was absolutely no health concerns from the chlorine gas cloud that was released from their site and came down into a residential area in Elmira.<br /><br />In the October 6, 2000 Elmira Independent, Brian and Helen Post had their Letter to the Editor published. There had been yet another Saturday night fumigation of Duke Street courtesy of Uniroyal now known as Crompton. This fumigation took place on September 30, 2000, the day of their son’s wedding. The Posts stated in their letter that Uniroyal/Crompton owed Elmira residents an apology. They further stated that they were subjected to embarrassment and horror that such an awful fumigation could happen on their son’s big day. Apparently, they had twenty-five of the wedding guests who stayed overnight and further experienced the full disgusting effects of Uniroyal/Crompton’s air discharges.<br /><br />In the October 13, 2000 Independent, Gail Martin wrote about Ken Chalmers giving Woolwich Councillors hell for not charging Uniroyal under municipal odour by-laws. Ms. Martin also wrote about Shannon Purves-Smith describing headaches, nausea, and sore eyes from diacetyl discharges from Crompton’s Building #19. Shannon stated in the article that diacetyl was a big problem. Keep in mind that was before the public knew that it, on its own, was also a major health problem. It took lawsuits in the U.S. over “popcorn lung” before we knew here that fumes from diacetyl [artificial butter flavour] damaged lungs.<br /><br />Julie Sawyer, reporter for the Independent, covered David Chadder of Rowan William Davies & Irwin [RWDI] out of Guelph and his comments at a CPAC meeting. Mr. Chadder advised that doors and windows of Building #19 were still being left open, thus sharing the odours and health problems with Elmira residents. Hence, the building’s vacuum system to collect fumes could not work properly. David Chadder also described a huge release of toluene into the air. The concentration was 151,427 micrograms (ug) per cubic metre (m3) of air whereas the odour threshold is only 6,210 ug/m3. At the CPAC meeting I asked Mr. Chadder if his equipment had perhaps captured a spill and his answer was possibly.91<br /><br />The Woolwich Observer was still covering Uniroyal/Crompton issues in those days and Richard Vivian on their behalf wrote on October 28, 2000 that Mr. Chadder of RWDI had stated that Uniroyal needed to pick up the pace. He felt that a thermal oxidizer was needed in Building #19 in order to treat the fumes from diacetyl. He stated, “In my opinion they are taking a much slower route than is necessary…What they need are new control measures to contain the diacetyl and destroy it."92<br /><br />Looking back over the newspaper clippings, I can see why I was such a strong supporter of Susan Bryant and other UPAC/CPAC members. Even Sylvia Berg knew to say the right things at the right time in those days. In the Elmira Independent of December 1, 2000, Julie Sawyer wrote about Sylvia Berg and me expressing concerns with allegedly cleaning the Creek before cleaning up the site. Hindsight may again be proving us right about that. In the December 22, 2000 edition of the Independent, David Ash was again on the defensive over odours while under the attacks of Henry Regier, Shannon Purves-Smith, and Sylvia Berg.<br /><br />Dwight Este, of Crompton, discussed Crompton’s “Worst Case Scenario” at CPAC which was reported in the December 15, 2000 Elmira Independent. Essentially, a major spill of anhydrous ammonia would result in a human kill zone of approximately seven hundred metres whereas from seven hundred to thirteen hundred metres would only result in serious health effects. This kill zone still is relevant today not only for long-time residents but for all the new ones planned for the Hawk Ridge subdivision on Union Street, across the road from Sulco Chemical and Crompton Co.<br /><br />In the December 23, 2000 edition of the Woolwich Observer, Henry Regier took aim at the practice of Elmira volunteers taking air samples on behalf of the MOE and Crompton Co. Henry felt that the volunteers should be paid for “…going out at all hours of the day and night, usually bad weather to do this."93 I was quoted in this article suggesting that “at $100 a pop, I’ll come in from West Montrose and take samples. For free, in the middle of the night, I’m not interested."94 Apparently, Shannon Purves-Smith and Sylvia Berg were still willing to do it for free so they got the business, so to speak.<br /><br />On January 19, 2001, the Independent reported on a presentation to Woolwich Council by the Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services. It was in regards to air emissions by Crompton Co. and had links to them with adverse health effects. The presentation also included factors such as a loss of enjoyment of one’s property due to air and odour emissions from local polluters.<br /><br />Both Elmira local papers in December 2000 published the fact that Crompton Co. had agreed to pay the Regional Municipality $90,000 towards their costs caused by Uniroyal’s “pink spill” the previous spring. Part of the deal included quarterly inspections of Crompton Co.’s site by the Region of Waterloo. The Record also reported on this agreement. Frankly, this was all a stunning turnaround by Crompton Co. Could they have been more amenable to do the right thing when it was their predecessor who had messed up so severely? Crompton Co. even did this prior to any public decision from the MOE regarding charges or not for the spill. Or had Crompton Co. been tipped off in advance and decided to mitigate their culpability and bad press ahead of time?<br /><br />By 2001, the stench coming from Uniroyal/Crompton, especially in the summer months, was lessening. After three horrible summers, residents were beginning to think that there was hope. Crompton Co. had been slowly upgrading their facilities with more air scrubbers as well as thermal oxidizers for specific processes. It was still too little, years and years too late, but it was at least going in the right direction. The February 14, 2001 Record reported on the public meeting held by Crompton Co. regarding their Worst Case Scenario. This meeting about a potential release of anhydrous ammonia quickly turned into a debate about their odours. Unfortunately, one very uninformed Elmira resident whose house was bypassed by the worst of the stench publicly stated “I don’t think they are telling the truth…I don’t get the smell."95 Mr. Robert Bolender while living nearby did not live on Duke Street. Nevertheless, his rude comment about one of the Duke Street residents flew in the face of all the evidence and testimony of many who did get the smell as well as some who responded to complaints from Duke Street residents during “fumigations”.<br /><br />In the February 27, 2000 Record, it was announced that Uniroyal/Crompton had been charged the previous day with four counts of violating the Ontario Environmental Protection Act (EPA) in regards to the “pink spill” of toluene a year earlier. On top of these charges, Uniroyal/Crompton was also scheduled to be in court on March 26, 2001 to answer to twenty charges relating to the Duke Street air emissions in 1989 and 1990. They advised that they would plead guilty to five of these charges.<br /><br />On March 2, 2001, Julie Sawyer of the Independent reported that Crompton Co. were charged under the EPA and could face fines as high as $1.3 million. They were charged under Section 14(1) causing an adverse effect, Section 92(1) for failing to notify the Ministry and the municipality of the spill (“pink spill”) and Section 93(1) failing to do everything to prevent, eliminate and ameliorate the adverse effect. All this behaviour by Uniroyal and their corporate successors over the last few decades explains my overall contempt for them, their consultants, and even their so- called regulator, the MOE.<br /><br />The Record carried an opinion piece by Susan Bryant in her role on its Community Editorial Board that same month. She addressed the Region of Waterloo’s proposed Groundwater Protection Plan. She also honestly identified the lobbying of Regional Councillors by certain businesses and developers who were in opposition to this necessary and common sense proposal to further protect our proven vulnerable groundwater resources throughout the Region. Of course, pro -business councillors rolled over and appeased the likes of David Ash [Crompton Co.] and Gord Chaplin [Canadian General Tower-Cambridge]. These two companies alone were responsible for major groundwater contamination in Elmira and Cambridge, respectively.<br /><br />As described earlier, Susan Bryant had participated directly and indirectly in far too many major concessions to Uniroyal/Crompton. These concessions had included the DNAPL cover up in 1993-94, making CPAC a committee of Woolwich Council in 2000, and possibly the June 21, 2000 Amended Control Order and its accompanying “Optimization.” She and Sylvia Berg also rid APT eventually of five strong and excellent citizen members by a number of foul means. It is possible there were more after Dr. Henry Regier left APT in 2005 although I am not certain. At the time of the January 1994 loss of three APT members (Richard Clausi, Esther Thur and me) I had assumed that Susan Bryant’s absence, due to her husband’s sabbatical in India, meant that she was not involved. Decades later, I learned otherwise.<br /><br />Despite these bizarre and counter-productive behaviours, Ms. Bryant continued to do good environmental work both at CPAC and with the news media. I have often wondered how others saw through Sylvia Berg, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant so quickly and I took so long. Ms. Bryant’s efforts regarding air emissions were excellent. Her comments are another example of how in the newsprint media she could hit the nail on the head when she wanted, as in the Woolwich Observer on March 31, 2001, quoted by reporter Richard Vivian, “Odour is really a misnomer for it because it’s not so much the nuisance of a bad odour that bothers you, but the knowledge that they’re toxic chemicals."96<br /><br />Both Julie Sawyer and Gail Martin of the Elmira Independent covered the sentencing of Crompton Co. on March 26, 2001. Crompton Co. was ordered to pay $168,000 for multiple odour emissions in August 1998. Two and a half years to get them fined for just a few offences that carried on for years after the charges were laid. The Independent in its March 30, 2001 edition carried Gail Martin’s Editorial titled, “Is $ 168,000 enough?” Gail also called for a health study for Elmira. To this day that still hasn’t happened. That would be way too embarrassing for Regional Chair Ken Seiling and all the local politicians, as well as business and industry supporters of the status quo.<br /><br />Christian Agaard, reporter for the Record, made a strong comment on March 28, 2001 about Crompton Co.’s sentencing and fines for illegal air emissions. He said that the $168,000 fine and slap on the wrists was grossly inadequate: “It’s enough to make you gag. It must be a devastating experience."97 This comment referred to Crompton Co.’s lawyers and staff having to sully themselves by attending Provincial Offences Court for serious offences to the health of Elmira residents, offences that weren’t even criminal by our judicial system’s definition. Less than a month after Crompton Co.’s sentencing and fine, they stunk up Elmira, yet again. The April 20, 2001 Elmira Independent story was written as usual by Julie Sawyer and titled, “High winds blow off cover, releasing odour.” The cover over the Building #8 major process sump was blown off. Susan Bryant and Shannon Purves-Smith responded and took air samples. Shannon was quoted in this April 20th article as saying, “It was just horrendous…I was gagging, the smell was so horrible."98<br /><br />Nutrite and Ammonia<br /><br />The June 1, 2001 edition of the Elmira Independent was especially interesting. First CPAC was advised that, lo and behold, despite all the statements that had been fed to the public and to UPAC/CPAC for over a decade, suddenly Elmira residents indeed had a second polluter of our municipal drinking water aquifers. It seems that Nutrite Fertilizer, located right beside Crompton Co., had been careless with the stewardship of its property as well as of the natural environment. Crompton Co. admitted to some responsibility for ammonia in the groundwater and belatedly its consultants, CRA, recognized that the ammonia was adversely affecting both the Canagagigue Creek as well as the deeper municipal aquifers. In fact, they had to reduce the pumping and treating of groundwater in the summer months because fish in the Creek were more sensitive to the ammonia in warmer water. Uniroyal had its own ammonia treatment system on site but it couldn’t handle either the volume or the concentrations allegedly coming from Nutrite. This revelation was astounding news for the complications it posed for Creek cleanup, off-site drinking water aquifers clean up, and for the revelation that all parties had been lying and deceiving the public since 1989. There was not an ounce of shame, remorse, or even sheepishness shown by the parties to the EAB hearings who had had many private talks with each other during the hearings. This included Woolwich Township, the MOE, Uniroyal, APT, the Region of Waterloo, and yes, Nutrite! For the last ten years, I had wondered why on earth they were a party at the hearings. Of course, with the hearings aborted in mid- stride by Uniroyal and the MOE, the public never learned about Nutrite’s contribution to the destruction of the Elmira aquifers. In fact, Uniroyal and CRA had been intentionally deceiving the public and UPAC/CPAC with horse manure about the ammonia being a little stronger than they had understood, and thus, they would temporarily be borrowing the Elmira STP’s services for ammonia removal. Eventually, the Region of Waterloo said enough is enough and told Uniroyal to build their own enhanced treatment system.<br /><br />I repeat that all the parties to the EAB hearings in Elmira in the early 1990s had to have had knowledge of Nutrite’s contributions to the groundwater and they said nothing publicly for years. That is called collusion and APT was a part of it. Let me clarify. Senior APT personnel, Sylvia Berg and Susan Bryant were a part of it. This behaviour is exactly what the three original APT founders were against. Esther Thur, Sandra Bray, and Susan Rupert believed in full disclosure and full transparency. Recall they would have nothing to do with the mandated secrecy imposed upon CEAC by the Woolwich Council of the day. What obviously occurred at the Environmental Appeal Board hearings were private discussions between the parties. Likely, the various lawyers had insisted upon “without prejudice” discussions. For Nutrite to be willing to share hydrogeological information, for example, that could put them in a poor light, they needed assurances that all parties to the discussions would not release the information to the public. After all self- serving deals could be made privately to everybody’s satisfaction without the public necessarily needing to know all the details. It is likely private deals and agreements that made Ms. Berg and Ms. Bryant feel as if they belonged with the Big Boys. Exactly how long did it take them to lose sight of the fact that they were representing local citizens? How many “secrets” that could have helped APT, the EH-Team, and the public did they sit on?<br /><br />The MOE laid a control order on Nutrite in late 2002 because Nutrite was reluctant to admit its culpability regarding ammonia contamination. Nutrite probably felt that Uniroyal had stepped up for everything else and that the ammonia contribution was minor in comparison. Crompton managers were displeased and, as they were constantly pushed to spend more and more on environmental remediation, they must have decided it was time to get some financial contribution from Nutrite. Crompton managers had been taking a public relations beating with the fines for their air emissions as well as the November 4, 2002 $125,000 fine for the “pink spill.” They had also had two small spills into the Creek in August 2001 that they knew were going to get them in further environmental and legal trouble. Maybe if things had been going better for Crompton Co. overall, they might have continued their accommodating stance with Nutrite. Furthermore, the Region of Waterloo was clearly and completely out of patience with Crompton Co. and the MOE. They, the Region, had been a part of all the deals and various other secrets keeping guilty parties clear of public blame. It was time to face the music. “Optimization” was also facing far more resistance than either Uniroyal/Crompton or the MOE had ever expected. In their overconfidence those two parties had actually finalized the deal privately between them with the June 21, 2000 Amending Order. Was it embarrassing not having CPAC on board as well?<br /><br />More on the Stench<br /><br />The June 1, 2001 Elmira Independent article also added further citizen comments regarding Elmira’s toxic air emissions coming from Crompton Co.. Ron Ormson of CPAC stated that the Ministry of Environment and Crompton Co. should be doing the off-site air monitoring, not volunteers. Shannon Purves-Smith advised in that same article that the air sampling she was doing “…is not an endless, free process."99 Henry Regier and Susan Bryant both discussed the proposed Risk Assessment for the Crompton Co. site. Dr. Regier used a metaphor regarding foxes having their tails cut off with Crompton Co. presumably being the foxes and the consequences of their actions being very minor.<br /><br />The Woolwich Observer had initially advised UPAC/CPAC and the public that Uniroyal/Crompton only returned to the public consultation process because the Canadian Chemical Producers Association [CCPA] advised them that they would not get the *Responsible Care verification without it. The article advised CPAC and the public of this fact in its June 2, 2001 edition. If Uniroyal, now Crompton, continued not to attend monthly meetings with CPAC, their *Responsible Care designation would never occur. This is all moot presently because not only does Chemtura/Lanxess ( two later reincarnations if you will of Uniroyal) have their *Responsible Care designations but they only attend an earth shattering four meetings a year all due to their successful huffing, puffing, and bluffing of Woolwich’s pretend mayor between 2014 and 2018, one Sandy Shantz.<br /><br />At the June 2001 CPAC meeting, Henry Regier inquired whether the volunteer air cartridge sampling was serving any purpose. Ron Ormson reiterated his concerns that volunteer air sampling was due to the lack of long-term off-site air monitoring. He, of course, was correct but as long as Crompton Co. maintained their local and provincial political support through Woolwich Council and the MOE, then why on earth would they agree to measures that would further expose its disregard for the health of the community in which they were operating? Off-site air monitoring, just like a formal health study, was the last thing Uniroyal and their follow-up corporate ownership ever wanted to see. Shannon suggested that the most recent Uniroyal/Crompton odours were similar to what she had smelled the previous month in Cuba at a petroleum plant. I’m sure that comment upset Uniroyal managers because among the litany of falsehoods emanating from the Uniroyal plant over the decades was Jeff Merriman’s statement that Uniroyal did not have petroleum hydrocarbons on its site. Please!<br /><br />In the August 24, 2001 Record, Bob Burtt quoted Sylvia Berg of APT regarding Crompton “I think they are forward thinking when it comes to relations with their clients, but I don’t think they show the same level of concern with the community and the environment."<br />100 These were the days when both APT and the Environmental Hazards Team were taking turns shellacking Uniroyal/Crompton managers for their negligence and ongoing technical, fictional fantasies. I thought we were an excellent combination of resources and expertise and unfortunately, unknown to the EH-Team, the APT leadership of Ms. Berg and Ms. Bryant was chafing at not having a monopoly on environmentalism in Elmira, Ontario. Only after Esther Thur passed on and Henry Regier stopped attending CPAC due to hearing difficulties and more, did the APT leadership take aim at my back.<br /><br />On September 1, 2001, Susan Bryant had an excellent guest column in the Woolwich Observer. Major kudos to the Woolwich Observer for having published it because they sure wouldn’t go near an Editorial or Letter to the Editor like this any time in the last decade. Susan described a CPAC meeting held at Crompton Co. with a plant tour included. We of CPAC were supposed to be seeing some of the changes made to reduce air emissions. To the shock of CPAC, they saw an open concrete pit where sludge from Crompton Co.’s waste water treatment system was sitting, stewing in the sun. There was also a large, open vat where the sludge was being dewatered. These outdoor processes were completely unenclosed with zero air emission controls. Frankly, these processes sound awfully similar to the stuff that I saw Severin Argenton, owner of Varnicolor Chemical Inc., doing further down the street at 62 Union Street, south of Crompton. He went to jail for these and other environmental offences. No employee or owner has ever gone to jail from Uniroyal Chemical or Crompton Co.<br /><br />The smell was the same awful stench that occasionally, yet persistently, engulfs Duke Street. Keep in mind that this event was occurring three years after the initial 1998 summertime “fumigations” that had netted Uniroyal Chemical a $168,000 fine. Clearly for them it was merely a cost of doing business. On August 31, 2001, Julie Sawyer of the Elmira Independent reported on the same matter. The on-site water treatment is located at the southern end of the Crompton site, fairly close to the worst areas of odours on Duke Street. Shannon Purves-Smith of APT identified the stench as the smell that residents on Duke Street had long been complaining about. She described it as the smell of 100 full outhouses. “It should be enclosed, covered up."101<br /><br />The October 27, 2001 Woolwich Observer published an article titled, “Elmira fertilizer firm faces MOE Control Order.” Nutrite also known as Hydro Agri and later called Yara, was ordered to clean up ammonia that they had introduced into the groundwater from their site immediately west of Crompton Co. Bill Dunbar, the manager at the time of Nutrite, wasn’t admitting anything.<br />In regards to air sampling, the Independent in October 2001 somewhat incorrectly suggested that Ron Campbell of Acute Environmental would be taking the lead on air sampling off-site. Presumably, his involvement was to lessen the load on the volunteers who had been doing it for some time. Both managers at Crompton and Shannon Purves-Smith expressed their agreement with the plan. Unfortunately, it fell through although no news media reports followed with the reasons why. Mr. Campbell was then and is now an excellent, environmentally experienced member of CPAC from 2010 till 2015. His technical experience and his personal integrity were and are a major boost to CPAC.<br /><br />In the Record there was a report on a CPAC meeting dealing in part with lindane, a chemical used by Uniroyal in its pesticide products. Ron Ormson of CPAC stated “Lindane is a big issue in this community and there is a lot of evidence to suggest it is very dangerous."102 Esther Thur of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team (EH-Team) had done considerable research on lindane and was in complete agreement with Mr. Ormson’s position. Yours truly commented on Uniroyal/Crompton’s lawsuit against the Canadian government by suggesting that in light of the government review of lindane ending in the spring, Crompton’s recent $100 million lawsuit was ridiculous. Plans were underway for a new ammonia treatment system by December 2001. The building costs were to be split as one third from the Province of Ontario and two thirds from Crompton Co. and Nutrite. Combined operating costs would be split 50:50 between the Ontario government and the two companies. A pretty good deal, for two polluters, don’t you think in having the taxpayers subsidize their cleanup costs… yet again?<br /><br />The December 1, 2001 Record had a story about four Elmira families, (the Machens, Posts, Fulchers, and the Chalmers) living on Duke Street who had had enough of Uniroyal/Crompton lies and intransigence. They were suing for $7.4 million in relation to the previous three years of fumigations from the company. The December 21, 2001 Elmira Independent also covered this story. The money was asked for as well as an injunction from the courts restraining the defendants from conducting activities that constitute a nuisance to the plaintiffs. A total of nineteen claims were put forward including that Crompton Co. acted with “wanton disregard to the plaintiff’s rights.” Crompton’s statement of defence specifically denied the claim of wanton disregard. The Woolwich Observer also published a story on the lawsuit in its December 22, 2001 edition. Crompton’s defence included that they had a legal right to continue manufacturing at that location as they had been doing since 1941. They also claimed that Terry Machen had attempted to intimidate both their employees and management. The poor babies. Imagine that. Uniroyal/Crompton managers crap all over this man’s rights, property, family, and health and he yells harsh things at them. So sad for Crompton Co. employees, management, and shareholders not to be operating in a third world dictatorship where they only have to pay off one individual rather than an entire political and judicial system that had been running interference for them for decades here in Canada. Seems to me, money talks and always has, and the only faint hope for justice lies in having large sums of money plus an airtight case in order to defend my rights. Most of us do not have that luxury despite allegedly living in a democratic society and having the rule of law.<br /><br />Crompton Co. of course, had much more to say in their statement of defence. Representatives claimed that the plaintiffs had an abnormal sensitivity to odours, which wouldn’t have had the same effect on an individual with normal sensitivity. I thought that laws and regulations were to protect all citizens from infringement of their rights including the right to breathe reasonably clean air. Anyone who had in the previous three years been exposed to the Uniroyal/Crompton fumigations knew that this statement was pure Uniroyal horse manure. Keep in mind that there is a wide gamut of physical tolerances to toxins. Some people are adversely affected immediately and acutely, others chronically over a longer time period of exposure. Uniroyal/Crompton had covered their corporate butts courtesy of the political authorities at both the regional and provincial levels as they refused to conduct health studies of Elmira residents. Shame on the pack of them.<br /><br />In February 2003, the four Elmira families received an out-of-court settlement from Crompton Co. It included their houses being bought by Crompton Co. at fair market value, thus allowing them to move away from the disgusting and ongoing behaviour by Uniroyal and Crompton Co. This behaviour had quite suddenly ended, according to Susan Bryant, immediately after the lawsuit was filed against Crompton. I was advised by Ms. Bryant that there was a specific and unusual confidentiality clause in the settlement. I believed her at the time but am skeptical now.<br /><br />DNAPLS, Optimization, Spills and Ammonia Treatment<br /><br />In the December 21, 2001 Independent, Julie Sawyer wrote that CPAC and APT were cost-sharing a review of Conestoga Rover’s (CRA) proposed ammonia treatment system. Yes, that’s the same ammonia treatment system that hadn’t been built in 2007 and that allegedly was partly the cause of my split with CPAC. Susan Bryant made the motion, I seconded it. Art Fletcher opposed it and Fred Hager abstained. The motion passed with additional votes in favour. While at the time I suspected that opposition votes were simply votes in support of Crompton Co., I’m less sure now. Several years later, I reviewed the entire ammonia treatment plans, as was par for the course, and I realized the plans had deficiencies. Despite those obvious and glaring deficiencies, Susan Bryant and Wilf Ruland rolled over in the fall of 2007 in favour of Crompton Co. (later Chemtura) in their desperation to get the Nutrite ammonia treatment underway.<br /><br />The year 2001 was not a great one for Crompton managers. Still too many foul and toxic air emissions and they managed a number of chemical spills into the Canagagigue Creek as well. They had at least two in the month of August alone. Nalclean 68 was the name of the product spilled in early August that allegedly did no environmental harm. This, of course, was the usual claim by Uniroyal and Crompton managers when they had misadventures. The later spill that month of Naugard 445 resulted in the deaths of approximately 100 minnows. It’s difficult to claim no adverse environmental effects when fish end up floating belly up in the Creek.<br /><br />DNAPL was again discussed at length in 2002 at CPAC. After all, the 1991-1993 attempted cover-ups of this most serious soil and groundwater contamination at Uniroyal had been well and truly publicly exposed. Crompton, of course, just like Uniroyal, wanted to bull their way through this issue as they had others in the past and would do so in the future. The Ontario Ministry of Environment was still making excuses for not moving on and accepting or rejecting Crompton Co.’s efforts to date regarding on-site DNAPL cleanup. I was quoted in the March 1, 2002 Independent: “Here we are nine years later and the remediation cleanup is still not done to satisfaction…The whole point is that this has dragged on for nine years. I’m sick of reading control orders that are reinterpreted years later."103 Can you imagine if I had known that now in 2018 when I am writing this book that as of this 2002 date the MOE still have not made a commitment to either Crompton Co. (now Lanxess) nor to the public in regards to on-site DNAPL cleanup? I’ve just read the June 2018 Lanxess Monthly Progress Report and GHD, successors to CRA, have stated that “There are no new activities to report in regards to the Remediation of the Operating Ponds.” This statement is the basic message for the last few years. Before that, the words were a little different as the MOE made it clear that they had not accepted that the DNAPL remediation from December 1993 that saw a small part of RPW-5 and TPW-2 put into the Envirodome, was adequate. To me, it seems obvious that the MOE and Uniroyal/Lanxess hope that the honest citizens who witnessed these early day cover ups continue to die off or move away and any remaining honest citizens have no memory of the matter.<br /><br />Wilf Ruland (Wilf), a supposed independent hydrogeologist, was hired by CPAC to review CRA’s Optimization plans. He advised that, at least for now, CPAC should resist any plans to allow contaminated on-site groundwater to flow off-site. He stated that that idea was a major shift and that serious community discussion was required before that could or should happen. Wilf advised that CRA had made many “interesting” assumptions in its study all of which could be problematic. Finally, Wilf stated that the definition of CRA’s Optimization “… seemed to be consistent with optimizing the amount of money spent."104 In other words, in minimizing it.<br /><br />That was huge and that was the kind of technical and factual straightforward advice that I expected from a consultant hired to do a review on CPAC’s behalf. Wilf at his best, without fear or favour of Crompton Co. and CRA, was a real help to Woolwich citizens. The problems started as he began representing more of Pat McLean and Susan Bryant and Woolwich Council and less of the citizens at large actually paying for his expertise. The problems also started as CRA and Crompton Co. began flexing their combined financial muscles. Wilf eventually came to be in a conflict of interest position. It was his interests versus Woolwich citizens’ interests. If Wilf ever wanted another gig either via MOE appointment (eg.Walkerton Inquiry, Taro Landfill ) or even sitting with CRA on landfill committees around the province, he had to be very careful with his criticism of CRA’s work.<br /><br />At the late February 2002 CPAC meeting, Wilf was very blunt and it was certainly a pleasure. I wonder if he got a talking-to from Crompton or the MOE a little later on about that. It almost seems that it would have been necessary when you realize how critical he got of me down the road. Wilf was working for me again nearly five years later as I was a CPAC member, yet he seemed to think he could tell me how I should conduct my business with Crompton and CRA. The only way the tail wags the dog is if the tail has been assured that he’ll be looked after if he gets out of line with the dog. Or as an alternative if a couple of other female dogs have a close relationship with the mayor of the day. Committees of council are generally for show. Council makes the decisions and then expects the citizens on the committee to do its bidding.<br /><br />Wilf`s two other points were that the on-site contamination at Crompton Co. was likely far worse than the contaminant plumes were showing. He also stated that he believed that the Ministry of Environment had treated this [on-site containment] as more of a goal rather than as an absolute requirement. Wilf, Susan Bryant and I all publicly stated at CPAC that the Crompton Co. site was not contained in spite of the 1991 Control Order. In fact, at a much later date, we learned that the corrupt MOE had amended that control order on June 21, 2000 (Kal Hannif,MOE director, signed it), allowing a relaxing of the on-site containment requirements if the Optimization plan was accepted. Talk about quietly putting the cart before the horse. Not only was Optimization never formally accepted at CPAC but none of the corrupt parties even corrected CPAC members for years afterwards when they quoted the 1991 Control Order as requiring full on-site hydraulic containment. The other interesting point is that I often asked Pat McLean why as Chair she didn’t have more votes taken at CPAC on issues when there were disagreements. Her response was that votes were not necessary to understand CPAC’s position. I now interpret that response more along the line that votes might inhibit Pat McLean’s and Susan Bryant`s willingness and ability to make compromises and decisions with the MOE and Crompton behind CPAC’s back. Better not to have a formal motion saying no and then if caught one can plead a misunderstanding. Additionally note the cooperation necessary between Crompton, the MOE, and Susan Bryant and Pat McLean acting as a self-appointed CPAC Executive Committee. The MOE and Crompton Co. had to be very careful at CPAC meetings not to let private and behind-CPAC’s back-decisions out of the bag.<br /><br />It had been my understanding for years that Optimization had been quietly dropped as it was no longer discussed or referred to at CPAC meetings. The reason it had to have been dropped in my opinion was because of the “phantom mound”. I discovered the disappearance of this hydrogeologic anomaly whereas it was Susan Bryant who gave it the name of “phantom mound.” CPAC with Pat, Susan and Wilf pushing hard eventually came up with a bunch of so-called “CPAC Principles”, which were allegedly the rationale and conditions under which CPAC would go along with Optimization. The fact that Optimization had actually been approved by the MOE back on June 21, 2000 seemed lost on everyone, me included. In reality, I doubt that that was so. The so-called hydraulic mound was an area just off Crompton’s west side, and actually located on the Nutrite property. It appeared from groundwater elevation readings to have some sort of artificially high groundwater levels in the municipal aquifer. In reality, it was simply a façade most likely used by CRA as junk science to show that off-site groundwater levels were higher than on-site, thus allegedly proving that contaminated groundwater was not leaving the Crompton Co. site. It was simply a disgusting sham and was eventually admitted to in a monthly Crompton Progress Report which I found and read. No one else at CPAC had.<br /><br />The pattern I had long noticed at CPAC was that bad ideas would get shot down only to reappear in slightly different forms. It was like trying to kill a zombie that wouldn’t die. You could eviscerate the rationale. You could eviscerate the semi- completed plan. You could eviscerate the completed plan and proposed implementation, yet the same basic plan just kept coming back again and again. Optimization was a perfect example. The March 30, 2002 Woolwich Observer reported Wilf Ruland’s comments that CRA refused to look at the option of greater on-site pumping in their Optimization study. By the June 29, 2002 Woolwich Observer article CPAC were advised that the MOE had turned down Crompton Co. and CRA’s Optimization Plan. Wilf agreed with this.<br /><br />As late as the spring of 2003 (in the Woolwich Observer) Wilf had advised CPAC that Optimization was unlikely to make a significant difference to the groundwater cleanup. Therefore, the June 21, 2000 Amended Control Order was not justified either when it was passed in 2000 or after almost three years of debate and discussion at UPAC/CPAC.<br /><br />A year later in the March 27, 2004 Woolwich Observer both Susan Bryant and Shannon Purves-Smith lit into Crompton over the “phantom mound.” Crompton had positively known since 2002 that it did not really exist and had not verbally advised CPAC. The company had suspected it was a sham since 1998 and again had not advised us. As mentioned previously, this “phantom mound” had been relied on to suggest that contaminated groundwater from the site was not discharging off-site to the south-west when in fact it was.<br /><br />Despite these revelations Ms. McLean, Ms. Bryant, and Wilf yet again made a major turnaround exactly as they had on DNAPLS. This whole plan had been soundly rejected by all parties and all commonsense at CPAC, yet with the assistance of the Three Mouseketeers it would not die. Was their reward in heaven or perhaps a little sooner?<br /><br />The MOE served the control order on Nutrite (aka Yara) in early August 2002 and by August 24, 2002 Nutrite had filed an appeal with the EAB. They appealed claiming that the ammonia in the municipal aquifer was coming from the former landfill. My first guess was that Nutrite were referring to the former landfill (M2) on Uniroyal’s south-west corner. Or, it could also been referring to the Bolender Landfill just north of Uniroyal as well as of Church St. Now, if only this matter had gone to the EAB hearing as originally planned. CPAC and the public would have had a serious examination of these concerns into the ammonia issues at these public meetings. This information also would have been helpful to have learned exactly which industries and which chemicals from Nutrite and Crompton had actually been buried at each landfill site. The first day of the Nutrite EAB hearings was scheduled for January 13, 2003.<br /><br />The really damaging spill of February 10, 2000 finally was resolved in court on November 4, 2002 with Uniroyal/Crompton fined $125,000. Recall that this spill of toluene knocked out the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant causing half treated sewage to flow into the Canagagigue Creek. It caused sewage backups into nearby Elmira homes. It also affected the Mannheim intake of raw water from the Grand River for several weeks. Finally, the spill was not reported to regional, municipal, nor provincial authorities in a timely manner. One item which seems to get lost over time is the immediate health effects upon two nearby families in their homes as well as the health of two STP workers. They all got sick from the fumes reported in the Record edition of November 5, 2002. Hence this court decision was a $125,000 fine to a multi-national, multi-billion dollar repeat offender, who had by the way destroyed Elmira’s drinking water aquifers. Apparently, our country and province of Ontario do not highly value our environmental and health security.<br /><br />In the next chapter, Henry Regier speaks loudly, honestly and professionally against Site Specific Risk Assessments (SSRA). Unfortunately our environmental problems and challenges, here in Ontario at least, are not resolved via informed and honest public discussion. They are “resolved” via money, power, politics, and back room deals.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 6<br /><br />75 Julie Sawyer, “UPAC members concerned over upset at Uniroyal”, Elmira Independent, February 25, 2000<br /><br />76 Ibid.<br /><br />77 Julie Sawyer, “Routine maintenance kept plant down”, Elmira Independent, March 24, 2000<br /><br />78 Ibid.<br /><br />79 Bob Burtt, “Residents doubtful of odour resolution”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, April 18, 2000<br /><br />80 Julie Sawyer, “UPAC against open-house format”, Elmira Independent, April 20, 2000<br /><br />81 Bob Burtt, “Lawn-chair brigade grills Uniroyal Chemical chief at firm’s first open house”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, April 28,<br />2000<br /><br />82 Ibid.<br /><br />83 Stacey Ash, “Uniroyal Chemical may rejoin group”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, June 20, 2000<br /><br />84 Julie Sawyer, “Uniroyal Chemical agrees to return to CPAC”, Elmira Independent, June 23, 2000<br /><br />85 Bob Burtt, “Uniroyal’s return to table sparks skepticism”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, August 12,2000<br /><br />86 Ibid.<br /><br />87 Letter to the Editor, “Uniroyal Chemical should be concerned about upset neighbours”, Woolwich Observer, August 12, 2000<br /><br />88 Bob Burtt, “Residents want to know more about toluene spill”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, September 12, 2000<br /><br />89 Julie Sawyer, “Worst-case scenario”, Elmira Independent, October 6, 2000<br /><br />90 Ibid.<br /><br />91 Julie Sawyer, “Uniroyal building 19 a concern for peer reviewer”, Elmira Independent, October 27, 2000<br /><br />92 Richard Vivian, “Uniroyal needs to pick up the pace, says peer reviewer”, Woolwich Observer, December 23, 2000<br /><br />93 Richard Vivian, “Volunteer time warrants remuneration”, Woolwich Observer, December 23, 2000<br /><br />94 Ibid.<br /><br />95 Cherri Greeno, “Bad smell hangs over safety meeting called to discuss toxic spills”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, February 14,<br />2001<br /><br />96 Richard Vivian, “Guilty plea costs Crompton $168K”, Woolwich Observer, March 31, 2001, p.2.<br /><br />97 Christian Aagaard, “Its enough to make you gag”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, March 28, 2001<br /><br />98 Julie Sawyer, “High winds blow off cover, releasing odour”, Elmira Independent, April 20, 2001<br /><br />99 Julie Sawyer, “Not all contamination attributed to Crompton”, Elmira Independent, June 1, 2001,p.4.<br /><br />100 Bob Burtt, “Environment Ministry to probe Crompton spill”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, August 24, 2001<br /><br />101 Julie Sawyer, “Plant tour reveals odour source”, Elmira Independent, August 31, 2001<br /><br />102 Bob Burtt, “Push to use suspect pesticide concerns Elmira residents”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record,December 18, 2001<br /><br />103 Julie Sawyer, “Questions raised about agreement”, Elmira Independent, March 1, 2002<br /><br />104 Gail Martin, “Crompton plan called into question”, Elmira Independent, March 28, 2002<br /><br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-7685895889307919402023-12-19T11:50:00.000-08:002023-12-20T06:51:49.151-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/chapter-7-engineered-wetlands-and-other.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8098691527526507395" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Seven:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />60 ....Engineered Wetlands and Other Equally Poor Ideas<br /><br />61 ....Site Specific Risk Assessment<br /><br />66 ....July 2003 Request For Action<br /><br />66....We Lose Esther Thur<br /><br />66....Crompton Bad news Intermingled With Good News<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 7<br /><br />Engineered Wetlands and Other Equally Poor Ideas<br /><br />You know, when I look at the ongoing illogical, unreasonable, and just plain weak ideas floated at CPAC meetings by Uniroyal/ Crompton, and Conestoga Rovers (CRA) it just makes me wonder first how incompetent Crompton and their consultants are and second exactly how naive they think CPAC members are. Yes, others have made poor decisions not in the public interest as well. APT joining UPAC was a poor decision. APT agreeing not to reconvene the EAB after the “sweetheart” deal and bilateral shutdown of the EAB in 1991 was a bad decision. APT accepting the MOE December 10, 1993 DNAPL Report was beyond dumb. Then, consider the major offenders. The chlorine cloud was dangerous. The pool of LNAPL discovered in 1995 was and is outrageous. The Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System proposed plan was handled poorly and may, in fact, condemn both Uniroyal and the MOE to eventual charges. Uniroyal’s proposed permanent entombment of the Envirodome wastes was incredibly unrealistic. The final solution of reburying the Envirodome wastes in Corunna, Ontario was short sighted. The taking of three years by Uniroyal to control their air emissions was beyond asinine. Uniroyal’s sixteen month walkout of UPAC/CPAC was idiotic. Various spills including NDMA, chlorine, the “pink” spill, etc. were unacceptable. Optimization and then the “discovery” of Nutrite’s contribution to ammonia in the groundwater were the epitome of corruption and collusion. The “phantom mound” or groundwater high on the Nutrite property exemplified junk science at its worst. It was all just too much.<br /><br />Could it be possible that certain involved members of the public threw up their hands in surrender? Did they, long before I, realize the futility? Did they finally say “I’d rather go along to get along than keep on fighting these ignoramuses? Did they decide to play both sides of the fence? Did they think that by making some deals not in the public interest that Uniroyal/Crompton might be more likely to throw a few environmental benefits their way? Was this the trickledown theory of benefits applied to the environment rather than to the economy? Just a series of stupid, self-serving ideas, one after the other.<br /><br />CRA personnel decided that they could build wetlands at the south end of the Crompton site for the purpose of breaking down the ammonia in the groundwater. Reporters Julie Sawyer of the Independent and Joanne Peach of the Observer reported in their newspapers on this matter on January 24 and 25, 2003, respectively. Adam Loney of CRA suggested that it would take one year for the pilot system and two years for the whole treatment system to be up and running. Minor problems such as the cattails and other plants not being as effective in the winter months did not seem to deter CRA. Discussion on this plan continued through the spring of 2003. Golder Associates Ltd., an engineering consulting firm hired by CRA, also presented to CPAC regarding these proposed man-made wetlands to naturally remove ammonia. Nutrite management still claimed that they weren’t the source of the ammonia in the groundwater and that it could be coming from closed landfills. Hmm, closed landfills were notorious for methane production but I’m not aware that they could also produce ammonia. The two closest landfills of course were the Bolender Landfill, just north of Church Street, and the M2 landfill on Crompton’s south west corner.<br /><br />Site Specific Risk Assessment<br /><br />It’s 2002 and CPAC members were inundated yet again with different problems and issues simultaneously. This demand really was astounding for a volunteer group meeting but once a month. All these issues were documented in glorious detail and specificity by CRA representatives. Discussion was also ongoing in relation to risk assessments. The Record on February 25, 2003 published a story regarding the findings of the highly criticized Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) and the Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) authored by CRA. The public was advised that there were slightly higher risks of getting cancer for employees and trespassers at the Uniroyal/Crompton site.105 At the time, I was not aware that trespassers likely meant teens and children smoking and hanging out underneath the Church Street bridge over the Canagagigue Creek. According to a local resident, they still do so. My heart goes out to Uniroyal and Crompton employees, past and present, as I suspect that they and their families have paid a health price for steady employment. The ERA concluded that the only increased risks were for earthworms, rodents, and shrews. Really? Supposedly there were no increased risks for their predators such as small birds, hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes, etc.in the food chain. Hardly credible when one understands that the two chemicals of concern (COC) both bio-accumulate as they move up the food chain.<br /><br />Julie Sawyer in the Elmira Independent of February 28, 2003 discussed the HHRA . Other chemicals such as lindane, dieldrin and benzo (a) pyrene were allegedly not a health hazard according to Peter Hicks, senior environmental engineer project manager, of CRA. The other significant finding by the authors was that the east side held the largest risks for humans and wildlife.106 Well, that’s interesting in regards to the testing done between 2015 and 2017 of soil and groundwater on and beside the Stroh farm on Crompton’s east side of its property.<br /><br />Dr. Henry Regier was disgusted with the statements coming from both Crompton and the MOE in regards to a Site Specific Risk Assessments (SSRA). He wrote a lengthy treatise on the subject on September 14, 2004, titled “How Risk Assessment May Cripple A Precautionary Principle”. I have included Dr. Regier’s complete text regarding SSRAs, less what he referred to as a preceding, long section on Complicated Algorithmic Constructs. The following text from Henry is sub-titled<br /><br /><br />“SSRA AS APPLIED TO A CONTAMINATED SITE IN ELMIRA, ON”<br /><br />“Starting in 1943, an American company’s chemical plant in Elmira has caused intense contamination of the air, soil and water of Elmira and surroundings. This company’s name changed over the decades from Naugatuck to Uniroyal Chemical to Crompton. Some of the worst contamination locally resulted from production of chemicals for military use in WWII and in the American War in Vietnam. The Canadian government facilitated, and perhaps coerced, the company to manufacture such war material. With respect to the American war in Vietnam, dioxin-contaminated wastes from the production of the contaminated ingredients of Agent Orange were dumped in leaky pits on the company’s site from where the contaminants migrated off-site through flow of aquifer, ground and surface waters. The struggle to hold the company accountable for environmental abuse has exhibited some of the problems that one would expect from a foreign branch plant of a company located in its own company town (Elmira) and not strongly committed to environmental stewardship.<br /><br />Though Elmira had sufficient environmental degradation to be listed formally as an Area of Concern under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978 and 1987, it was left off the list. Every other contaminated hotspot in the Grand River Basin was also left off that list. It may be that the network of engineers, which is operationally if not formally in charge of water related issues in this Basin, found the whole issue of contaminants to be a distraction from more important concerns such as flooding, sewage treatment and provision of potable water from sources other than Elmira’s contaminated aquifers.<br /><br />In what follows here, my focus is on a particular gross feature of environmental degradation due to Crompton’s chemical production in Elmira. In 1966-7, the sediments in Canagagigue Creek, that flows through the Crompton site, were found to be severely contaminated with hazardous wastes from the production of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T for use in Agent Orange by the US Army in Vietnam plus wastes from the production of other pesticides such as DDT and from the use of Lindane[Sic] in other pesticide formulations. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, MOE, demanded that the company undertake remediative action with respect to the creek’s sediments, and the company did so, incrementally and slowly. By the late 1990s, the company in effect sought operational closure on the issue of how much clean-up of creek sediments was necessary and negotiated an investigative process with MOE to provide appropriate information for such a decision. MOE offered several alternative investigative approaches (see below), and the company chose to proceed with Site Specific Risk Assessment, SSRA. Five years later -following many noisy interactions on this general theme in the monthly forum of the Crompton Public Advisory Committee, CPAC -the company is now (May, 2004) preparing its version of a final report of that SSRA.<br /><br />Throughout this five–year period, several volunteer members of CPAC presented documentation and reasoned argument concerning the numerous shortcomings of an SSRA approach, and specifically about the particular version of SSRA that was used by Crompton in Elmira. MOE and the company ignored or stonewalled most of CPAC’s input; when one or the other did respond, rhetoric of dubious relevance was offered. MOE’s position amounted to an assertion that it had the legal responsibility to act and it had made its decision to proceed with SSRA as chosen by the company. Whether or not CPAC concurred with MOE’s decision, apparently it was sufficient for MOE’s purposes that the issue of the SSRA was raised at CPAC in an informational sense if not in a consultative sense. Nevertheless, I continued my efforts for “Professional engagement” with MOE officials on this theme, as follows.<br /><br />In response to my continuing harassment, MOE’s Regional Director arranged that I connect with MOE’s experts on SSRA in Toronto. In due course, on 20 04 04 I met with members of that group of SSRA Experts at 40 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto.<br /><br />I had been trying to understand the SSRA empirically as a Complicated Algorithmic Construct or CAC (as sketched above) that has come to play a role in decision-making with respect to contaminated sites in Ontario. My empiric study had a number of emphases:<br /><br />1. The political/policy role of SSRA as a particular example of a CAC as related to alternative informational modalities that could have been selected in a particular case;<br />2. The rationale for the chosen “scientific” content of MOE’s SSRA and related criteria of acceptable levels of pollution of various kinds;<br />3. The operational role of SSRA within MOE and related criteria of procedural acceptability; and<br />4. How the above three have come together in the particular context of Crompton’s SSRA focused on the contamination of the Canagagigue Creek and its environs.<br /><br />In harassing MOE officials I had been trying to understand how they, as individual professionals and as an agency of several interrelated units, relate to the whole set of my four emphases. After several interactions with MOE staff in the spring of 2004, my working hypothesis was that no one at MOE currently has effective competence in any but the third of these four empsases. Discussion more or less relevant to my hypothesis follows below.<br /><br />The SSRA experts, who met me on 20 04 04, were friendly, communicative and professional in a good sense-all of them, I judge. The primary focus of our informal meeting was on the political/ policy/strategic context in Ontario in which SSRA was one of a number of kinds of available tactics. Some of our discussion related to the other three emphases, in passing. We chose not to focus our attention specifically on Crompton’s current use of a SSRA.<br /><br />For our discussions I had downloaded MOE’s Guideline for Use at Contaminated Sites in Ontario from http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/land/decomm/background.htm. The current guideline is a revision of previous guidelines with the first version dated 1989. So a lot of experience has gone into the current practice for “assessing the environmental condition of a property…determining whether or not restoration is required and …determining the kind of restoration needed to allow continued use or reuse of the site.” I sense that this sort of work was constrained under the Harris administration in 1994-2003, perhaps only indirectly through budget cuts. Unfortunately there is no documentation that summarizes all of this experience and what has been learnt from it. The SSRA experts were considering producing such a document.<br /><br />I found the Guideline that I had downloaded confusing. The SSRA experts admitted that I had reason to be confused and provided the additional information to clarify or correct parts of it for me. For example, three “approaches to site restoration” are specified: background approach; generic approach; and SSRA approach. My understanding now is that, in practice, an “owner of a contaminated site” has the freedom to choose the approach that the owner prefers. Reasons for a preference need not be specified to MOE or for the record.<br /><br />MOE’s experts seemed to share a view that an owner usually chooses the alternative that seems to be least costly for the owner. With respect to a particular site, a start may be made with a cheap version of a background approach; with some 80% or so cases, a project does not proceed to another approach. If a serious problem is implied by using the background approach, then an owner may proceed to the moderately costly generic approach, perhaps with a hope that this approach will come to a different conclusion and find that the problem is not serious after all. If the generic approach also implies a serious problem, then a more costly SSRA may be undertaken. The outcome of an SSRA may again be that the problem isn’t severe enough to warrant major restoration, or may imply minimal actions necessary to undertake the restoration to meet the relevant criteria. In the worst case, from the viewpoint of an owner of polluted property who is trying to contain costs, all three approaches imply major remediative efforts.<br /><br />Though MOE’s experts didn’t say so, I expect I suspect that of the three the costly SSRA approach may provide the best opportunity for creativity on the part of an owner seeking to demonstrate little risk and thus to contain remediative costs. Such creativity can presumably operate all the steps in an SSRA approach, but MOE does not allocate its accountability responsibilities evenly across all the steps. Balanced accountability may be the responsibility of a MOE Regional Office. For a particular case, a Regional Office may delegate part of the accountability responsibilities to a unit in head office, as with respect to critical review of the myriad details in a Draft SSRA, say. The SSRA Experts with whom I met have this latter responsibility, and I sensed that they have technical expertise and exercise due diligence with respect to what is expected of them, at least with the help of particularly expert private consultants to make up for some internal gaps in expertise. Perhaps the SSRA Experts provide more rigour than may be expected or even welcomed by a Regional Office, at least sometimes. There may be a tacit hope that excess rigour on their part may compensate for insufficient rigour on the part of others in MOE for other components of the overall SSRA; I would take any such hope to be misplaced.<br /><br />Some of the documentation concerning MOE’s three approaches refers to “steps” or “phases” that include more than one step. I don’t know to what extent such steps or phases are taken as disjunct formalities or as informal guidance. In general, the steps follow an elementary school notion of a “scientific experiment,” i.e. sketch of background and context, objective of study, methods selected and used, variables and observations documented, findings inferred and conclusions recommended. It may be that only the simplest applications of such an approach actually do proceed linearly in practice. In our Elmira SSRA case, some back-and-forth iterations and recursive loops have occurred, noisily, without a clear endpoint yet in sight.<br /><br />If I understood correctly, “Phase 1” relates to a number of “steps” which include: describing the practical context; setting clear objectives related to a putatively related contaminated site; scoping the formal process for a study in a way relevant to the particular approach chosen (background, generic, SSRA); and tentatively identifying restoration options for possible application down the line in a subsequent implementation “phase.” If this is all of phase 1 then I sense that someone in MOE’s Regional Office must be responsible for working with an owner of a polluted site to get such work done. The interaction between regulator and owner may be informal with no explicit criterion concerning completion of any of those steps, for all I know. In Elmira, CPAC has been provided with little or no information on this aspect of Phase 1 of the Crompton SSRA.<br /><br />Phase 2 relates to the actual formulation and review of a draft SSRA. MOE has a formal Reviewer’s Checklist for Risk Assessment (Minimum Considerations for Peer Review),<br /><br />http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/land/decomm/checkra.pdf . The SSRA Experts with whom I met are particularly expert, apparently, on reviewing draft reports produced in Phase 2 according to this checklist.<br /><br />The checklist contains about 118 questions, some with sub-questions, all arranged under numerous headings. The first seven questions in the Reviewers’ Checklist seem to relate, retrospectively at that stage, to Phase 1 issues. But the SSRA Experts at the Toronto office generally do not take full responsibility for reviewing any documentation related to Phase 1, although there may be exceptional cases when they do so. Concerning their MOE units review of a draft of the Crompton SSRA, in his letter of 30 01 04 to Steve Martindale of the Regional MOE office, co-ordinator Mark Turner (of the SSRA Experts) wrote:<br /><br />“Comments are based on the assumption that the [draft] SSRA report completely and accurately reflects the site conditions and that all pertinent information is included. We emphasize that while we have considered elements of the site characterization to the extent that they may affect conclusions of the risk assessment, this in no way endorses the validity of the site characterization now or for any purposes that may be made of it in the future. Determining what types of action are necessary to meet the site specific criteria throughout the site and verifying that the criteria have been met remains the sole responsibility of the proponent and their consultant(s). Special caution may be required if the site is redeveloped to a more sensitive use.”<br /><br />The MOE Regional Office may also contract directly with private consultants to provide a peer review of a draft SSRA report, and then route such private reviews directly to MOE’s Experts before the latter submit their review to the regional MOE office. I don’t know whether there is a formal list of credentials that such a private reviewer must document to get such a contract. Direct knowledge of the site and the context of an SSRA, i.e., Phase 1 issues, are not necessarily expected of such a reviewer, apparently. Rein Jaagumagi has worked both within MOE and as a private reviewer; in conversation he stated that a review of Phase 1 documentation by someone who lacked the site –specific knowledge should not be judged to be credible, or something to that effect.<br /><br />From interactions with regional MOE staff concerning the Crompton SSRA, I infer that no member currently on staff at the regional office, nor any set of regional staff members together, has an understanding of the local Elmira context sufficient to perform peer review of the Phase 1 documentation. During the past four years, members of CPAC’s Soil and Water Sub-Committee have offered informed criticism concerning numerous issues relevant to Phase 1 that were ignored subsequently in the draft SSRA report. Both Crompton and MOE have been less than grateful for such advice/criticism on every, repeat every, occasion on which such advice criticism was offered, usually not too diplomatically. Of course, all of this informed advice/criticism was offered pro bono by these volunteers as responsible citizens, while the company and Ministry professionals who stonewalled it were banking handsome salaries.<br /><br />With respect to the current SSRA related to contamination of our Creek, I interpret some of the revisions that MOE specified for the company at a 13 02 04 meeting in Hamilton, as noted in Steve Martindale’s draft minutes dated 17 03 04, to be relevant the contents of the Phase 1. Apparently MOE’s SSRA Experts, and belatedly also the regional MOE officials, considered this Phase 1 aspect of Crompton’s draft SSRA to be particularly weak. In effect, Crompton was told at that February meeting to provide a coherent and intelligent account of the Phase 1 considerations, in a way that was meaningful to a reader not fully informed on the Crompton site and its history. Apparently MOE expects Crompton to do some retrospective patching to correct for important things that had been missed, somehow, in the Phase 1 work undertaken some four or five years earlier. The consequences of any particular patch for a shortcoming in the submitted Phase 1 documentation would presumably ripple through the whole Phase 2 analytical process and might lead to different findings and conclusions. (For example one of these missing things related to the possibility of contaminants leaking out of ground water and/or aquifers from under the company site and into the creek.)<br /><br />Again, even though MOE’s SSRA Experts spotted some of the gaps in the submitted Phase 1 documentation, nevertheless they issued the disclaimer (in Mark Turner’s letter of 30 01 04, see above) that MOE’s Toronto unit had not undertaken a critical review of all that related to Phase 1. Also, Crompton was reminded that it was responsible for the accuracy of the improved report concerning Phase 1 that it should include in its draft final report. Implicitly MOE didn’t acknowledge responsibility for assuring “soundness” of all that Phase 1 stuff, even in the company’s final report. MOE may be relying on Crompton`s repeatedly stated commitment to the ethics of Responsible Care under the Canadian Chemical Producers Association. (That Association has reviewed the evidence of Crompton`s commitment to the ethics of Responsible Care on three occasions since 1996 and has assigned failing marks on all three occasions.)<br /><br />At our meeting in Toronto on 20 04 04 (see above), the SSRA Experts were aware of difficulties such as those sketched above. Presumably because of resource shortages, they seldom had an opportunity to visit a site and familiarize themselves to the extent of acquiring personal competence to offer a peer review of a Phase 1 report by an owner. The SSRA Experts did not seem to know to what extent Regional MOE staff were involved in the Phase 1 work of any particular site, including Elmira. Perhaps no formal sign-off by a Regional MOE staff is needed to proceed beyond Phase 1.<br /><br />Presumably the company is aware of the opportunity for creativity related to Phase 1 activities because of the apparent lack of real involvement by duly informed MOE regional staff with some of those activities.<br /><br />On a different tack, I was interested in whether MOE’s SSRA Experts were aware of the origins of the SSRA approach in MOE and or antecedents elsewhere. I brought along Russell (1977) which describes how “risk assessment/ risk management” came to be politically acceptable within the USEPA in the 1980s, see above. From there a version of this risk approach infected the Canadian and Ontario environmental agencies. The MOE SSRA Experts made a photocopy of the Russell paper.<br /><br />On still another tack, I asked what they knew about Krantzberg et al. (2000). One of the SSRA Experts had some familiarity with it. I sketched the notion that the SSRA approach is primarily technocratic while the SEDS approach is more democratic, though a hybrid of the two could be designed with particular cases such as the current Crompton case. Some of the SSRA Experts seemed intrigued. Incidentally, Gail Krantzberg had participated in a CPAC meeting several years ago to present the SEDS option; Bill Bardswick of MOE’s Regional Office subsequently argued that the SSRA approach provided all that the SEDS approach offered and more, which is false.<br /><br />What happened during my meeting with with MOE’s SSRA Experts in Toronto on 20 04 04 reinforced my sense that our Crompton SSRA has been conducted in a slipshod way, on the whole. Five years ago Crompton seems to have had a working sense of the threats and opportunities for Crompton within SSRA and proceeded doggedly with its version of it. For whatever reason, Regional MOE officials seem not to have exercised due diligence in an informed way, though a belated effort to do so may have been made at the 13 02 04 meeting in Hamilton. Reasonably well-informed criticism /advice from members of CPAC’s Soil and Water Sub-Committee were mostly ignored over the past five years. It seems unlikely to me that the final SSRA report that will be eventually issued by Crompton to MOE’s satisfaction will meet conventional norms of professional ethics. The part for which MOE’s SSRA Experts provided quality control would likely meet such norms, but other parts likely wouldn’t, I fear.<br /><br />At the end of our meeting on 20 04 04, I was told that the new brownfield strategy related somehow to all the above. See http://204.40.253.254/envregistry/019448er.htm . I haven’t worked my way into that yet.<br /><br /><br />TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS<br /><br />As a specific Complicated Algorithmic Construct applied to assess the effects of hazardous contaminants in some local environment, the Site Specific Risk Assessment procedure as used with respect to contamination of a creek in Elmira appears to be a rhetorical device related more to the political needs of entrepreneurial polluters than a scientific device for purposes of fair and transparent political discourse and negotiation.<br /><br />I grant that there might be instances of the application of the SSRA CAC elsewhere that are not all bad, on balance, but I doubt that.<br /><br />I infer tentatively that the primary role of SSRA, as currently applied in practice, is not to provide information for the purposes of the precautionary principle, but rather to provide information for purposes of greenwashing.<br />Generally the information that a CAC such as a SSRA yields tends to be cacophonous. (Editor’s note cacophonous-characterized by harsh discord)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br /><br />Over the past half century, many mentors and colleagues have helped me to understand the rhetoric of particular as well as generic manifestations of a CAC; I thank particularly Douglas Robson and Stephen Bocking. Specifically concerning SSRA and its application in Elmira in recent years, I thank Susan Bryant, Fred Hager, Kal Haniff, Alan Marshall, and Shannon Purves-Smith.”<br /><br /><br /><br />Congratulations to all the readers of this book who have just cheerfully navigated through Henry’s treatise regarding the version of Site Specific Risk Assessment inflicted upon Elmira and downstream. While I could have simply given you Henry’s “Tentative Conclusions” at the end that would have deprived you of Henry’s far superior understanding to mine of the subject as well as of the lengths that Crompton were willing to go to sell their inadequate cleanup of their site, aided and abetted by the Ontario government via the MOE. Last, that SSRA needs to be understood because the next one is on the horizon, now in 2018. The soon to be SSRA will be in regards to cleaning up the sediments in the Creek and the soils around it. It too will be no more than the usual “greenwashing” by Lanxess Canada, aided and abetted by the Ontario government through the MOE. The MOE are in a conflict of interest position as they have neither the money to clean up the Creek properly nor are they independent from Lanxess Canada influence due to past indemnitys as well as possible future legal action.<br /><br />The poor ideas just kept on rolling. As the engineered wetlands idea was not held in high regard by CPAC members, that plan was floundering. The Region of Waterloo was also getting impatient with Crompton and CRA’s never ending requests for extensions to the use of the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in order to remove the ammonia. Whether ammonia in the groundwater [both shallow and deep] belonged to Uniroyal or Nutrite, it certainly wasn’t a result of any operations by the Region. The regional Engineering Department basically told Uniroyal to build their own ammonia treatment facility.<br /><br />The Ontario Ministry of Environment seemed to believe that, as Uniroyal had settled with and purchased the homes of four Duke Street residents, it was time to remove the MOE air monitoring station from Elmira. This plan was discussed at CPAC and reported in the Elmira Independent on March 28, 2003. The Editor’s column on that date also covered the issue under the title of “The MOE is Failing Elmira”. Neither Gail Martin, the Editor, nor many of the CPAC members were happy about the MOE’s decision to remove the air monitoring station which included Susan Bryant, Ron Ormson, Shannon, Pat, Gerry Heidbuurt and myself.<br /><br />One very good piece of news emerged during these tumultuous times. In July 2003, Crompton once again failed the confidence vote by the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA). This failure was a good thing although had the process ever been an honest process they would never have attained approval nor maintained it. Gordon Crooks of the CCPA stated that Crompton had yet to fully embrace the true spirit of *Responsible Care. They still haven’t in my opinion. Uniroyal/Crompton had failed in 1997, 2000, 2001, and finally, in 2003. All this looked very bad on Crompton.<br /><br />Somehow bad news always seemed to roll off Crompton’s back. It was as if Crompton management felt that they, and they alone, would be writing the history some day of this environmental disaster. Down the road they did eventually remove all the local, in- town media criticism. Media in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario certainly lost interest except for the occasional coverage of items they believed were new or different.<br /><br />I was surprised to learn that a major issue brought to the forefront by Dr. Richard Jackson in 2016 actually had been discussed, albeit briefly back in 2003. In the Elmira Independent of March 28, 2003, Gail Martin mentioned issues with aquitard penetration by Uniroyal toxic chemicals. Dr. Jackson referred to “back diffusion” from low permeability soils such as clays and silts into adjacent aquifers. Ms. Martin referred to the term diffusion as well. Essentially diffusion meant that as aquifers were slowly cleaned of existing toxic chemicals, there was a further discharge of chemicals into them from the less permeable clay and silt aquitards where, over the decades, the toxic chemicals had accumulated.<br /><br />July 2003 Request For Action<br /><br />July 2003 saw the culmination of a major effort by the Soil and Water sub-committee of CPAC. As usual I did the basic research, reading, and first drafts of a brief that was presented to the rest of CPAC. The July 2003, Request For Action listed numerous on-site locations of still buried wastes on the Crompton site. It did not contain all the locations but certainly CPAC believed the most extensive and most serious locations of DNAPLS, LNAPLS, dioxins and more. The sources of my information and data included documents that had been written by consultants for Uniroyal such as Morrison Beatty Limited, Conestoga Rovers & Associates as well as MOE documents and reports, and reports by CH2M HILL on behalf of the Region of Waterloo. A private consulting firm, Terre-Aqua Resource Engineering Inc., had also done a study of the Uniroyal groundwater situation on behalf of the MOE. Its findings were important and held some serious criticism of the work and findings of Morrison Beatty. The history of waste mismanagement at Uniroyal was complex, convoluted, unclear, and disgraceful. I brought these reports to various meetings of the Soil & Water sub-committee whose members included Henry Regier, Fred Hager, Susan Bryant and me. Some of the more controversial findings were questioned and I showed the members the source of my data. There were some minor disagreements between source documents such as the 1991 Environmental Audit produced by CRA and the 1985 MOE, GRCA report titled ”A History of Uniroyal Waste Management.”<br /><br />Overall it was very difficult for Crompton to dismiss this July 2003 report out of hand after CPAC formally accepted it from the Soil & Water Sub-Committee because the raw data was already publicly available and included considerable work done by many of the long-term parties and agencies involved with Uniroyal Chemical Co. issues. That said, there were errors in some of these old reports. Some errors may very well have been inadvertent whereas others most likely were not. As a result, one or two errors were passed along in the final 2003 CPAC report. I discovered one in particular nearly twelve years later in 2015. It is almost as huge as the likely intentional bypass of liquid toxic wastes from Uniroyal eastwards onto a neighbouring farm. To this day in 2018 while members of the Citizens Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) are aware of the by-pass, members of the general public most likely are not. I have explained it as well as created and shown it on a large map at public meetings but there was very limited news media present. I do believe that the Elmira Independent may have published it simply as my opinion. The facts, however, are solid and a much more detailed description of what I refer to as Interceptor Trenches as well as of the probably intentional misrepresentation of the location of Gravel Pit 1 (GP1) occurs in Chapter Sixteen.<br /><br />We Lose Esther Thur<br /><br />Esther Thur outlived her husband Ed by several years. She was involved in fighting Uniroyal/Crompton right to the end. She had had serious health problems, many of which were associated with recurring bouts of cancer. She had very little doubt that the cancer was contributed to by Uniroyal’s air and waste emissions. It was the combination of local food, water and air that she believed had been harmful to both her and her husband. In hindsight, it is appalling to learn that employees of one company, Roxton Furniture, where her husband worked, had been sent home sick due to the air pollution from neighbouring Uniroyal as was mentioned in Chapter One. Esther passed on in August 2003.<br /><br />Ms. Thur's legacy will be the reports, newspaper articles and technical documents that she faithfully catalogued for the Elmira Library up until her passing. She reviewed very old copies of the Elmira Signet from 1941 to 1980, a local paper, before their employee, Bob Verdun, was fired by the Record allegedly for his harsh criticism of local luminaries in Woolwich Township. Bob and his wife, Carol, started the Elmira Independent in 1974 and basically ran the Signet out of business. For a very long time it was clear that the Record were not fans of Mr. Verdun’s journalism. This collection of Ms. Thur’s was eventually located in the Wilfred Laurier University Archives. The collection is inappropriately and inaccurately referred to now as the APT collection.<br /><br />Crompton Bad News Intermingled With Good News<br /><br />The EAB hearing originally scheduled for January 2003 was postponed until November 2003. Nutrite Fertilizers also were the recipients of a civil suit filed by Crompton because Crompton wanted compensation from the second known source for the ammonia clean-up costs.<br /><br />Recall that the Settlement Agreement of October 7, 1991 specifically stated that Uniroyal was free to attempt to legally obtain financial compensation from any other contributors to the local groundwater contamination. That agreement may be part of the basis now for the MOE’s ongoing harassment and never ending clean-up demands to Elmira Pump Co. Elmira Pump and the public were initially told that ten years of pump and treat would fix the former Varnicolor site, located just down the street from Uniroyal, to an acceptable environmental state. Seems to me that the MOE would rather die than have to make more public admissions regarding their deal-making, corporate collusion, and propensity to lie to the public. Hence, MOE officials would rather not issue public control orders on Elmira Pump. They certainly don’t want to lay charges against them. It is my belief that verbal, likely inaccurate promises, were made to Elmira Pump and that the MOE have reneged on those promises. The MOE have to renege because they are caught between a rock and a hard place.<br /><br />Uniroyal/Crompton later Chemtura and finally Lanxess in 2017 must know how bad the contamination at Varnicolor was and is. They hired both foremen from Varnicolor after this company closed and had them as employees until the death of Gary Clausing in 2015. The second foremen may still be with Lanxess. As a result, Uniroyal would have intimate knowledge of the various dumping schemes practiced at Varnicolor, whether dumping into the storm sewers, sanitary sewers, or directly into the ground on the former Varnicolor site. Uniroyal would also know the volumes involved as well as the specific chemicals and the stratigraphy of the ground beneath Varnicolor’s Union Street site. Finally Uniroyal have access through their consultants of all the borehole logs of both monitoring and pumping wells throughout Elmira. This information would also include the very interesting stratigraphy immediately below Varnicolor’s former Lot 91 at the extreme eastern end of Oriole Parkway.<br /><br />Just as Uniroyal went after Nutrite for financial contribution towards the clean-up, I expect that they are going after Elmira Pump for the same. The MOE are likely willing to do almost anything to keep Varnicolor’s extreme pollution contributions out of the public forum. Hence, the MOE may find squeezing Elmira Pump on behalf of Uniroyal is an awful lot easier than fighting Uniroyal, now Lanxess Canada Co. As Uniroyal are on the hook for the entire clean-up of the Elmira Aquifers it only makes sense for them to go after the other contributors. Who knows if they may be getting under- the- table payments from a whole litany of Elmira polluters. The MOE are happy if that information remains confidential. The other sources are happy too if it remains confidential, and lastly, Uniroyal and their successors likely don’t care if it’s confidential or not as long as their clean-up costs are reduced. It’s a win-win-win for everybody including the public if Uniroyal’s 50% of the Elmira Aquifers costs are reduced by contributions from others. Furthermore, knowing Uniroyal and their successors, I expect that they have leveraged their hold over the MOE to the maximum. It certainly explains various behaviours not in the public interest over the decades. This is the huge downside to permitting government agencies to get in bed with corporate law breakers. If you lie down with dogs, you will get fleas. Again this could very well be what Susan Rupert, Esther Thur, and probably Sandra Bray were concerned about when they formed APT, a citizen’s voice and forum. It is unfortunate that those following did not pay more attention.<br /><br />This is speculation that Uniroyal/Crompton and later Lanxess are keeping the pressure on the MOE to clean up Varnicolor’s deep aquifer contamination. If you consider the MOE’s indifferent attitude to Varnicolor’s deep contamination in the early days and compare that to the lengths they are putting Elmira Pump through for the last eighteen years, it becomes clear at least to me that something has changed. The MOE unilaterally removed the deep investigation from their control order on Varnicolor when Phillips began showing an interest in the property. The MOE would rather have a private company pay for the easier part of the clean-up than they paying for the entire cost themselves. This deep contamination likely includes DNAPLS as the shallow groundwater concentrations of DNAPL chemicals exceeded the 1% solubility rule. Both DNAPLS and LNAPLS were on the old Varnicolor site. Jim Germann of Elmira Pump said it best in response to my comment about extraordinarily high concentrations of solvents on the Varnicolor site. At the public Risk Assessment held in Woolwich Council Chambers in May 2016, I referred to parts per million and he laughed and said more like ounces per gallon. That, in fact, is raw product or solvents floating on the water table under his property.<br /><br />The decades long, still ongoing cover-up of the extent of Varnicolor Chemical contamination, carried out by the MOE, as well as the collusion with Uniroyal/Lanxess about the matter indicates far more than simple, petty payback to citizens who exposed MOE blatant lying and corruption through the MOE’s intentional mishandling of the Varnicolor file. While some APT members gave the MOE credit for their incompetence, I don’t believe that they were all that stupid. The decades-long hiding of information and facts from the public is to avoid releasing a truth that will harm both them and their governments. More on this matter is forthcoming in future chapters.<br /><br />In September 2003, the Woolwich Observer published a listing of the various chemicals in fish in the Canagagigue Creek. These chemicals included mercury, pesticides, DDT, dioxins and furans and PCBs.107 They also mentioned the claims from CPAC members that contaminated groundwater was still entering the Creek, from Crompton. This data was likely from the 1995-96 MOE investigation of the Creek.<br /><br />CPAC learned in February 2004 via the Record that the Crompton air emissions were down to a mere 100,200 kilograms per year. This quantity was reduced by 71% between 1991 and 2002. Ron Ormson of CPAC told Crompton “… this is what your peers have expected from you all along."108 These emissions consisted of toluene, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and hydrogen sulphide among others. Elmira residents had been breathing this toxic brew literally for decades. Of course, no scientific study done in regards to Crompton ever took into consideration that both drinking water standards and air standards were totally independent of each other and did not presume multiple routes of exposure simultaneously.<br /><br />CPAC were advised on March 24 that Crompton had been hit with a $50 million fine for price fixing of rubber additives. Both the Record and the Observer carried these stories. None of us in Elmira would be shocked by the suggestion that Crompton preferred not to play by the rules in other business matters as well.<br /><br />The June 11, 2004 explosion and fire at Uniroyal/Crompton in Elmira was one of the more visible, violent, and scary episodes at an Elmira company and location that has lurched from crisis to crisis for decades. All these crises have not just been about their third world waste disposal practices. They have a long and never-ending history of fires, explosions, spills, and fugitive air releases into the community. The Record carried stories on June 12 and 14, 2004 describing the explosion and fire that sent a huge black cloud over Elmira. On that day my brother and I were west of town on our way back from a walk at the Woolwich Dam when we spotted the moving cloud. We actually had to think long and hard about whether or not to come back into town. The Woolwich Observer of June 14, 2004 and the Elmira Independent of June 18, 2004 also carried stories about the crisis. The Record later on suggested that the cause was still somewhat ambiguous. Both the Fire Marshall’s office as well as the Technical Standards and Safety Authority [TSSA] were called in. Susan Bryant was quoted as saying “That plant shouldn’t be there. We’ve known that for a very long time."109<br /><br />On June 23, 2004 the Record carried the following headline, “Remediation principles get nod from Council.” There was indeed discussion at CPAC in regards to principles and there was a lot of pressure on individual CPAC members to go along with these principles. At the time, I thought the presentation of principles were a substitute for the strongly unpopular “Optimization Plan” put forward by Conestoga Rovers on behalf of Uniroyal/Crompton. In hindsight, I’ve wondered if, in fact, it was a behind –the- scenes bait and switch. In other words, as Crompton already had been served with the June 21, 2000 Amended Control Order, were these Principles used as a pretend authorization or acceptance for the very quiet and contemptible June 2000 Amended Control Order?<br /><br />On June 11, 2004, Julie Sawyer wrote in the Elmira Independent that an agreement had been reached between Crompton, Nutrite, and the Ontario MOE regarding ammonia concentrations in the municipal drinking water aquifer. Three weeks of Environmental Appeal Board hearings were cancelled after the agreement was reached. Susan Bryant is quoted in this article as saying “It’s bloody well time, that’s how I feel."110 Indeed Nutrite played hardball as exactly as Uniroyal has from day one, hiding behind process and legal manoeuvring whenever possible rather than own up to its public responsibilities.<br /><br />Gail Martin in the same Independent edition wrote an article on sport fish in the Canagagigue Creek. The Ontario MOE was actually suggesting that PCBs in the fish might be related to caulking that the Grand River Conservation Authority used in the Woolwich Dam. My personal opinion is that as usual the MOE are full of “poo poo del toro”.<br /><br />The Record in its June 25, 2004 edition suggests that bad wiring might have caused the earlier explosion and fire in the waste water treatment system. At the moment, I’m wondering about migrating methane gas in this area from the M2 Landfill buried beneath these Uniroyal buildings. Of course, Crompton and the MOE would never admit to such a thing as it would necessitate major expense at all the former landfills within the Elmira town limits. Bob Burtt wrote in the August 20, 2004 edition of the Record that the Ontario MOE laid a new control order on Crompton regarding both the June fire plus 212 spills they’d had over the previous five years. The control order required a comprehensive document from Uniroyal managers stating in detail what caused the fire and how to avoid future fires. The previously mentioned “spills” included past Crompton air emissions.<br /><br />In September 2004, Crompton had a new boss, namely Ron Lackner. While he put a softer voice on Crompton’s dealings, I didn’t see anything but superficial changes in the company’s dealings with the public.<br /><br />Click On "Older Posts" (below right) to access Chapter 8<br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 7<br /><br />105 Bob Burtt, “Elmira study shows higher cancer risks”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, February 25, 2003<br /><br />106 Ibid.<br /><br />107 Cary Lessard, “Canagagigue Creek new home for more fish”, Woolwich Observer, September 27,2003<br /><br />108 Bob Burtt, “Crompton slashes pollution”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, February 24, 2003<br /><br />109 Julie Sawyer, “Cause of explosion still unknown”, Elmira Independent, June 18, 2004<br /><br />110 Julie Sawyer, “Agreement reached”, Elmira Independent, June 11, 2004</div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-47594464358080108772023-12-19T11:35:00.000-08:002023-12-19T11:35:07.246-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/chapter-8-very-odd-decision-there-was.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3281754126792270086" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Eight:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />69 .... A Very Odd Decision<br /><br />70 ....Both Good and Bad in 2004<br /><br />72 ....Fires Burning With and Without Smoke<br /><br />72 ....Perhaps the Badger Game<br /><br />74 ....Never-ending DNAPL Cover Ups<br /><br />76 ....Popcorn Lung<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 8<br /><br />A Very Odd Decision<br /><br />There was an extraordinarily bizarre incident at Susan Bryant’s home in Elmira that needs to be mentioned. I no longer know the exact date even though I was present at the time. My best estimate is that it took place in the summer of 2004 although it might have been the following year. It was one more strange incident on top of so many that one’s mind can only hold so many dates and times correctly. I got the call from Ms. Bryant probably around 9:30 or 10 o’clock in the morning. This call was not at all unusual to me because we were friends and colleagues. My respect for her and belief in her basic honesty and decency had been steadfast. Although she was an APT member and I an EH-Team member, I had made it of paramount importance never to give her or any other citizen or member of either group the idea that we were not on the same page in regards to restoring the environment in and around Elmira, Ontario. I was adamant that there would not be anything other than respectful debate and discussion on any matters of disagreement. I have already stated a number of issues in which there was disagreement, such as UPAC becoming a committee of council in 2000 as well as the major DNAPL issue that APT had badly mishandled in January 1994. Therefore, Ms. Bryant and I talked regularly and routinely, comparing notes and questions on various matters regarding Uniroyal/Crompton.<br /><br />Ms. Bryant’s call to me was a little unusual but no big deal as far as I was concerned. Her husband had already left for the day to go to his job at Renison College (University of Waterloo) and she wanted to cut their grass. Her lawnmower wouldn’t start and would I come over and see if I could get it started. Susan and Darrol’s home on Park Street was all of a four - minute drive from my wife’s and my home on Church Street. I don’t recall if I was working shift work at the time or why I was home during presumably a weekday. I got to Ms. Bryant’s home shortly afterwards and she took me to her recalcitrant lawnmower. Indeed, a few pulls on the cord and nothing was happening. Hmm. I suspected a spark plug problem and if I recall correctly, I removed the spark plug. About that time I heard a voice say “Hello Alan”. Fortunately I was already sitting on the ground because I might otherwise have fallen over in shock when I saw it was Dwight Este, the Environmental Health and Safety Manager employed at Crompton. Okay, I thought as I gathered my wits. Ms. Bryant hadn’t said anything about Mr. Este coming over so perhaps he was just delivering a report or document that Susan had requested. Nope, Ms. Bryant had phoned him regarding her lawn mower problem. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. What the bloody hell was going on? Why in ten million years would Ms. Bryant ever contact Uniroyal/Crompton about a lawn mower problem and why would she contact me as well? My recollection is that either Ms. Bryant or Mr. Este later on clarified that Ms. Bryant had called Mr. Este first for help but he was either in a meeting or otherwise engaged. He was at work after all. Therefore, she called me to fix the problem.<br /><br />Well, it turned out that Mr. Este was quite competent with lawnmowers and he figured out the problem shortly. We departed with Mr. Este presumably back to work and me back home. Was I stunned? Yes. Was I shocked? Yes. Did I put two and two together and either come up with four or any other number? I did not. When your basic premise is that your friend and colleague is honest and straightforward, then you don’t jump to either conclusions or confusions. When I later asked Ms. Bryant why on earth she would phone Crompton for a personal favour she simply made it out to be an insignificant, trivial impulse. I really can’t recall any specific excuses or reasons but I was left in the position of either accepting her response that it was no big deal or I could start to come up with some very negative answers of my own.<br /><br />I have previously stated that I was very naïve in regards to human psychology, human motivations, frailties and weaknesses. I absolutely never remotely considered that Ms. Bryant could be co-opted or corrupt. I never considered that she was anything but a dedicated citizen, mother, wife, and human being with a serious commitment to the environment. Heaven help me, but as I’m writing this in 2018 I’ve just had a horribly, nasty thought. This thought absolutely never crossed my mind literally before today. Other than that bizarre happening with the lawn mower I have had absolutely no reason to ever suspect the following. That said maybe this possible interpretation is less shocking and less damaging than what could have been my first thought. Maybe Susan wasn’t co-opted at that time. Maybe it was some sort of personal thing with Mr. Este. There I said it. I repeat I don’t know that but it makes no sense otherwise phoning the public persona of the town polluter for personal help with a lawnmower.<br /><br />Both good and Bad in 2004<br /><br />In August 2004, the MOE laid yet another control order on Crompton. This one was in regards to the June 11, 2004 fire and explosion as well as a total of twenty-one spills over the previous five years. Now these twenty-one spills included fugitive air releases along with spills into the Creek. The June 11, 2004 incident likely was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as David Ash’s tenure at Crompton in Elmira was concerned. He was replaced as General Manager of Crompton in September 2004 by Ron Lackner. I viewed his departure as a case of being “consolidated” as he so cutely referred to the departure of Brian Beatty as Uniroyal’s consultant more than a decade earlier. Whether or not Mr. Ash actually bore direct responsibility for the June 11th explosion and fire is unlikely however he seems to have been held accountable in some ways.<br /><br />In September 2004, Dr. Henry Regier formally appealed to the Auditor General of Canada for assistance, support, and funding towards the cleanup of the Crompton plant in Elmira. Dr. Regier accurately pointed out that Uniroyal Chemical had been involved in war time production of explosive stabilizers on behalf of the Canadian government. He also pointed out that Uniroyal had produced Agent Orange on behalf of the U.S. military in the ten-year American War on Vietnam. Another reason to appeal for federal help had to do with the fact that there was a significant federal focus on the Great Lakes as well as federal cooperation and jurisdictional environmental overlap with the United States. The Canagagigue Creek in Elmira flows into the Grand River, which then dischargs into Lake Erie. Canada and the U.S. also worked together on the International Joint Commission (IJC), which involved environmental remediation of the Great Lakes.<br /><br />There were other reasons why it seemed to make sense to have the federal government involved. First, the provincial government certainly wasn’t doing a great job. This poor job performance included their lack of overall funding as well as the fact that many citizens in Elmira felt that the MOE had been either co-opted by Uniroyal or were somehow under its thumb. Second, the federal government had previously been involved in various studies both of the Creek as well as remediation of toxic waste sites with Uniroyal as the test case. This was mentioned in an earlier chapter and occurred in 1988 to 1989 just prior to the Elmira Water Crisis.<br /><br />Lynn Myers, Liberal Member of Parliament at the time agreed with Dr. Regier by stating “… it was government agencies … that requested these materials be produced. …in my view, the responsibility has to be partially borne by the federal government … in terms of cleanup."111 CPAC members were also supportive of Dr. Regier’s request to the federal government.<br /><br />Despite these facts and Dr. Regier’s detailed and proper request, the answer came back with an unequivocal no. In my opinion the rationale given by the Auditor General that Elmira was solely a provincial responsibility, was less than convincing. Perhaps politics, as it always does, raised its ugly head.<br /><br />There was another incident in 2004 that certainly should have been an eye-opener for me. In one sense it was the only time I ever gave Susan Bryant a piece of my mind. CPAC had designated some of its members to negotiate a Comprehensive Long Range Plan (CLERP) with Crompton. This CLERP was to outline future clean-up projects for Crompton and it encompassed a large variety of issues including air, water, groundwater, and source removal of contaminants. I attended one meeting at the Crompton site, which of course was my first mistake although Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant had no issues with that whatsoever. Pat McLean and Susan Bryant and I talked, discussed, cajoled, and negotiated with Crompton employees, likely including Jeff Merriman and Dwight Este, for at least a couple of hours or possibly more one afternoon. Pat McLean was still a Woolwich Township Councillor and had time constraints forcing her to leave around 4:30 p.m. Susan Bryant seemed much more keen and enthusiastic than I about progress being made at the meeting and near five p.m. abruptly told the Crompton folks that, “Yes we had a deal.” I was momentarily stunned as I knew that she and I were merely representing CPAC and any tentative deal would need to be ratified by CPAC in a vote. Ms. Bryant’s words and manner however made it very clear that she had just unilaterally spoken on my behalf, Pat McLean’s behalf and even all of CPAC’s behalf. That solo declaration crossed a line about a mile past anything that I was prepared to go, even though I was with the person I trusted environmentally more than any other. I then stood and quietly advised Crompton that while it was an excellent meeting, Ms. Bryant had misspoken. Turning to Ms. Bryant I gently reminded her that Pat McLean, Chair of CPAC, was absent and, of course, we had to run this by her first. I did not lecture or get excited in front of the Crompton folks. I saved that for when Ms. Bryant and I were outside in the parking lot. Once there and out of sight and hearing of any Crompton personnel, I demanded to know what the hell she was thinking. I made it abundantly clear to her that she did not have a veto, a unilateral vote, or anything even close to that. She, like me, was but a single vote among several CPAC members and we represented them in these talks. No one had given us any right to finalize deals or arrangements on their behalf. Ms. Bryant was appropriately contrite and suggested that she had just temporarily gotten carried away as she felt that we were so close to a deal with Crompton. Once again, I let bizarre behaviour go as I believed her that it was simply a one- off, an aberration, an honest mistake while under pressure. I was blind.<br /><br />In December 2004, Uniroyal/Crompton, after four previous attempts and failures, finally achieved the *Responsible Care designation. They did not remotely deserve it by any standard whatsoever. I expect that Crompton simply advised the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA) that they and their dues would be departing if they felt that they were not going to be receiving the designation any time soon. Another thought is that both parties wanted Crompton to receive the *Responsible Care designation; however, they needed some sort of rationale. In my opinion the CCPA got tired of waiting for Crompton to do something positive environmentally, and hence, they grasped at the first possible straw of improvement. That may well have been the replacement of Dr. David Ash after the June 2004 fire and explosion with Ron Lackner. Mr. Lackner, at least on the surface, seemed to be a gentler, kinder version than Mr. Ash. All smoke and mirrors in my opinion, however.<br /><br />Late in 2004, Crompton announced that it was going to excavate contaminated Creek banks and part of an island in the Canagagigue Creek where it flows through the Crompton property. The idea was to remove dioxins and DDT that adhered to the soil particles and which could be mobilized via heavy rains or flooding in the Creek. The initial source of the dioxins and DDT to the Creek banks was disputed with Uniroyal/CRA’s usual logic. No, the chemicals hadn’t been transported there via groundwater. They had been deposited along the banks via dredging the bottom of the Creek. So, how exactly did these Uniroyal signature chemicals get into the bottom of the Creek in the first place? Well, they were transported overland via storm water from various waste pits on the west side claimed Crompton. The reality, of course, is that these hydrophobic compounds can be readily mobilized by solvent contaminated groundwater as well as by heavy surface water flows.<br /><br />There certainly was no doubt that dioxin and DDT concentrations were high in and around this south-west corner of Crompton. In fact, this area of the Creek was exactly beside the west side ponds and all the contamination formerly in and beneath them and currently just beneath them. The timing was also such that the Upper Aquifer Containment & Treatment System (UACTS) had been running in that south-west corner since 1997 and was believed to mostly stop the groundwater contamination from discharging into the Creek at this location.<br /><br />This clean-up was extensive and wasn’t completed until November 2006. A piece of the island was actually totally removed and the Creek banks were partially removed and what was left was stabilized so as to inhibit future erosion of soils into the Creek. While all CPAC members were fully in support of this project, I did find the timing a little peculiar. Yes, in 2003, CPAC had supported remediation work being done in that area via the three- page, 2003 Request For Action. Therefore, CPAC members were all ecstatic that Crompton was stepping up like this. Perhaps that might have been a more appropriate time, after completion of the project, for Crompton to have received their *Responsible Care designation. It would have made sense and it would have been much more difficult to argue against it. We had in our 2003 Request For Action suggested priority items but other black and white urgent issues seemed sometimes ignored while others that were needed, suddenly were green-lighted with little or no discussion or presentations at CPAC. It was one more example of back door, back room negotiations among Crompton, the MOE, and third parties all while bypassing the Crompton Public Advisory Committee. Funny how after they all got the boot by Mayor Todd Cowan in 2011, none of them other than Pat Mclean and Susan Bryant ever applied to be on CPAC, RAC or TAG again. That was unfortunate because there certainly were a few good and honest members on that committee. My opinion is that they too began noticing anomalies and then the removal of the whole committee by Todd Cowan and the new Woolwich Council was simply the final straw.<br /><br />Fires Burning With and Without Smoke<br /><br />Dr. Henry Regier departed from APT Environment and joined the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team with Richard Clausi and I in 2005. Recall that we had lost Esther Thur two years earlier. While he was welcomed within the EH-Team by Richard Clausi and I, I did have concerns regarding “poaching” him from APT. I phoned Susan Bryant and to my astonishment she had absolutely zero concerns with his departure from APT and in fact welcomed his joining the EH-Team. It took me many years to finally figure that one out correctly. You know patience is a virtue and this book is a direct result of patience and slowly figuring out some things that were never supposed to be figured out.<br /><br />The June 2004 fire and explosions that appeared to have caused the departure of David Ash from Crompton have never really ended. The company seems able to go for a few years without them but, just when you think you’ve experienced the last one, boom, you hear, see, or smell yet another. A public meeting was held at Lions Hall in Elmira on March 23, 2005 to discuss the causes of the June 11, 2004 major fire at Crompton. The public were advised that the causes were unknown. Well, with hindsight being 20/20, I wonder if the presence of methane from the on-site, south-west corner, former municipal landfill named M2 could have been the cause or an aggravating factor. What is clear is that if the company or any of their partners in pollution didn’t want the cause to become public, then for sure it would never see the light of day. Eventually, citizens begin to understand that blatant lies are to be expected. Certain elephants in the room would absolutely never be admitted to by Uniroyal Chemical and all their successors.<br /><br />During this year of 2005 we had a meeting of the Soil and water Sub-Committee of CPAC at Dr. Regier’s home. At that time the members were Fred Hager, Henry Regier, Susan Bryant, and me. Somewhat slightly to our surprise Susan Bryant showed up with the CPAC Chair, Pat McLean. No big deal however unusual as Ms. Mclean was way out of her league and comfort level. She was an excellent chair in regards to organizational matters and in regards to running meetings, but she clearly did not appear to have read the technical reports perhaps beyond the Executive Summary.<br /><br />During this meeting I commented in general that we all had to a certain extent been co-opted by the process and we were tacitly accepting the snail like “progress” and other bureaucratic behaviours exhibited by both Crompton and the Ontario Ministry of Environment. To the astonishment of Fred Hager, Henry Regier and me, Susan Bryant went ballistic! I instantly made it clear that my comments were for everyone, myself included, and that it was almost an inevitable consequence of sitting down with the polluter and regulators on their terms and dealing with them. Susan Bryant was not to be mollified and stormed out. Five minutes later, after giving the rest of us a lecture, so did Pat McLean. Fred Hager, Henry Regier and I were astounded a second time. Again, it was to be years later before I figured out exactly what was afoot.<br /><br />On July 19, 2006, another fire and explosion occurred, this time in the Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) a fancy name for an incinerator. We were told that fan blades had ignited some flammable vapour. This fire coming recently after the June 11, 2004 fire was scrutinized carefully by both the media and by CPAC members. Concerns were such that residents returning to town were directed to a staging area at the Price Choppers near the edge of town on Arthur Street, the main street in Elmira, until officials were certain that it was safe to enter the area. The residents of Pilgrims Provident Retirement Home located nearby on Duke Street were evacuated by Grand River Transit buses.<br /><br />Ron Ormson of CPAC sent a Letter ToThe Editor of the Elmira Independent asking why the Community Alert Network (CAN) telephone warning system had not been activated. He also advised that this latest fire and explosion comes much too soon after the last major fire and explosion in June 2004 when a wastewater tank exploded. Ron felt that Woolwich Township officials had failed to activate the warning system on a timely basis. There had also been a small fire at Crompton just a few months earlier, as well.<br /><br />Perhaps The Badger Game<br /><br />James Michener in his book “Centennial” makes reference to a “badger game”. Prior to reading his book a few years later, I had not heard of the term. Differences in Mr. Michener’s “badger game” to what occurred here in Elmira, include in his book the use of physical threats as well as the main motive being financial.<br /><br />This one incident clearly revealed to me that something serious and bizarre was going on. Again it was a case of refusing to think ill of a friend and colleague. I admit that there are other interpretations of the bizarre behaviour of both the Bryant’s than mine. Some of the other interpretations are less damning and some are more so. You, the readers, feel free to determine any other interpretations.<br /><br />As I walked to my car parked in the laneway beside the Bryant’s house all I could think of was what the hell just happened? Was that a set up of some kind? What in the name of God was Susan doing. What the hell, was Darrol part of whatever that was? I had many questions and zero answers. For not the first time I had serious concerns about Susan Bryant’s behaviour, but this time I couldn’t pretend to myself that it was nothing. Something very weird just happened .<br /><br />It started with a phone call. One of hundreds over the previous roughly fifteen years. We talked often on the phone as both of us were persistent and adamant that the best possible clean up needed to be done in Elmira. We worked together in the citizens’ forum known as CPAC or the Crompton Public Advisory Committee. I never hesitated to share any new facts or data with Susan anymore than I would with Dr. Henry Regier and Richard Clausi of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team (EH-Team). I trusted Susan Bryant’s integrity implicitly and always had. Certainly neither of us were naïve about whom we were dealing with. Uniroyal and Chemtura combined with the Ontario MOE had spent a decade and a half misrepresenting facts in what appeared, with but a few exceptions, to be never ending attempts to minimize the extent of pollution in the air, the soil, the surface water and the groundwater.<br /><br />Probably within ten minutes of the phone call, I, as usual, knocked on the unlocked, side of the house, screen door. Nobody was in sight in the kitchen so I stepped in and hollered Susan’s name. This was typical as it was a large old house and if she wasn’t in the kitchen she could easily not hear a knock on the door. Susan immediately answered my call with the shout “I’m up here. Come on up.” Most of the time we compared notes, news, reports or whatever in the kitchen but on occasion she had taken me upstairs to the top floor where she kept her Uniroyal files. Therefore being called upstairs was no big deal. Up the stairs that were beside the kitchen I went. I called out for Susan again and she responded “I’m in here.”<br /><br />I followed her voice into a room on the second floor and there she was with papers and reports spread out on the floor as well as on the bed. Susan was sitting on the bed. She was wearing casual clothing, either pants or blue jeans with a comfortable shirt. Her apparel was not what caught my attention. She was sitting in what I would generally believe to be an uncomfortable position, other than for a few seconds. That is she was sitting with her legs spread very wide apart. It certainly didn’t look either comfortable or normal or usual. I expected that she would quite casually either bring her legs together or perhaps swivel sideways and put her feet on the floor. She did not. She mentioned casually that Darrol had an early class or some other early work commitment that morning and the implication for me was that he had left for work at the University. She started talking to me about whatever the issue of the day was, in other words about her phone call indicating that she had been looking up data on the matter. As of this point in time I no longer have the foggiest notion of what the discovery, questions or news was about. I expect that ten minutes after I left her house that I had no recollection of what the Uniroyal issue was about.<br /><br />To my surprise Susan kept sitting there with her legs stretched wide apart in what I can best describe as a most unnatural pose. I knew Susan at this point in time for somewhere near fifteen years and also knew her husband Darrol well. I had met her younger children Emma and Lucas and older daughter Jessica and son Ben. Susan knew my wife Betty and my two children Dan and Katie. For a moment I was tempted to make a smart ass comment such as “well Susan are you really that happy to see me” but decided not to. It would have been just so far out of character for me to make a comment like that and it was so far out of character for Susan to be intentionally provocative or whatever else she might have been doing.<br /><br />Susan kept on talking and behaving as if everything was absolutely normal so I did as well. After a few minutes I thought that this was ridiculous and standing on courtesy, while saying nothing about an odd situation, for someone I knew as well as Susan, seemed even more ridiculous. Therefore I was going to come right out and say to Susan “What are you doing? How can that position be comfortable for you. What’s up?” Before I could do so I heard a creak just outside the door of the room and lo and behold Darrol stepped into view. I was surprised for two reasons. One Susan had led me to believe that he was at work or on his way and two I’d only heard one creak of the old floorboards and there he was. What the hell? Those old wooden floors creaked whenever walked on. Had Darrol been in the doorway of the next room standing still and listening? Then while I was facing Darrol and saying hello or good morning, out of the corner of my eye I saw Susan bringing her legs together, in a reflexive motion that should have happened several minutes earlier. Darrol mumbled a good morning and told Susan that he was on his way to work. Susan and I talked for a couple of more minutes and then wound up the discussion of the Uniroyal issue of the day. Throughout Susan made no mention that anything was bothering her or that she wanted to talk about anything other than Uniroyal Chemical. Yes I should have confronted her then and there and said “What the hell was that all about? What are you doing?” I did not because I was too shocked and I did not fathom what just happened.<br /><br />Hence my confusion as I walked to my parked car. Hence my questions. Over time and over other incidents I have come to some conclusions on this matter. Susan never spoke of the incident to me, nor did I to her. A few years later after circumstances and other betrayals occurred I did share this incident with three trusted friends. I also shared it with my wife first. You the reader can come to your own conclusion. I felt this was an attempted set up and the purpose was for me to make some inappropriate comments or to act inappropriately and then get “caught” by Darrol. I would then be advised that Susan could no longer work with me as a colleague on either CPAC or the Soil and Water Committee and I should therefore resign. Recall this was Sylvia Berg’s behaviour in telling APT that she could no longer work with me on UPAC because her integrity had been slightly questioned by Rich Clausi in January 1994 over her inappropriate letter of support of Uniroyal to the Canadian Chemical Producers Association. Something similar occurred later on with Pat McLean and Susan Bryant in 2007-2008 in regards to my appeal to the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) regarding the inappropriate monitoring well pairs Crompton wanted to use to “prove” hydraulic containment during the Ammonia Treatment System (ATS) construction. Susan Bryant demanded my resignation from CPAC because of my appeal to the ERT.<br /><br />Ultimately I felt this was a level of betrayal, manipulation and underhanded backstabbing of a friend, supporter and colleague of world class proportions. I have never before and never since seen what I viewed as such scurrilous and contemptible behaviour. Getting stabbed by an opponent or enemy is one thing but being stabbed in the back to this extent by a supposed friend requires a level of supreme nastiness. What exactly was her motivation? Time will tell.<br /><br />Never - ending DNAPL Cover Ups<br /><br />Again starting in 2005, DNAPLs magically seemed to be back on the agenda. From 1992 on UPAC and later CPAC discussed, debated, and argued with Uniroyal/Crompton, CRA, and the MOE in regards to DNAPLs in the sub-surface. Were only residual DNAPLs left? Did Crompton’s sub-surface still contain free phase DNAPLs? Had DNAPLs travelled off the Crompton site underneath Nutrite and behind Varnicolor causing high concentrations of chlorobenzene, for example?<br /><br />In the summer of 2006, a CPAC meeting was held with DNAPLs front and centre on the agenda. CPAC were graced with the presence of several citizens from the City of Cambridge in the gallery who were victims of trichloroethylene (TCE) poisoning in the Bishop Street area of Cambridge. TCE is a particularly nasty chlorinated solvent and it had leaked from two companies on Bishop Street into the sub-surface where it then partially dissolved into the groundwater. The companies were Northstar Aerospace and G.E. The contaminated shallow groundwater flowed towards the Grand River but unfortunately an entire subdivision of homes was between Bishop Street and the Grand River. The TCE in the groundwater volatilized into a gas and could then enter basements via what is called vapour intrusion. TCE is highly carcinogenic and lesser symptoms upon exposure in humans include headaches, vision problems, and neuropathy.<br /><br />I was aware that a treatment for chlorinated solvents dissolved in groundwater, called In –Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO), was used in Cambridge to help break- down the TCE. Therefore I asked Crompton and the MOE whether this treatment could be used in Elmira. They stated that ground factors were much different here and it could not be used successfully. I felt that they simply had no interest in taking advice directly or indirectly from citizens and lay persons. However when CRA came up with the same idea, years later, it rated a test near pumping well W3 on Industrial Drive in Elmira. Time would prove implementing the test properly was less than stellar, something discussed in Chapter Seventeen.<br /><br />Both Wilf Ruland, and Jaimie Connolly of the MOE, who were hydrogeologists, spoke to the long-term nature of the DNAPL issue at the Crompton site. The two also suggested that further on-site source removal of DNAPLs was likely necessary for groundwater improvement. Hydraulic containment alone could not do the job. Surprise, surprise. As of (2018) the vast majority of those sub-surface DNAPLs are still on site in the sub-surface and slowly dissolving into the groundwater. Some areas in the south-west corner are mostly hydraulically contained whereas the shallow groundwater contamination in the rest of the site is not. This includes the whole east side where DNAPL contaminated shallow groundwater continues to flow off-site.<br /><br />In August 2006, I wrote a strong and lengthy critique of this ongoing DNAPL situation for CPAC members that hammered CRA and Crompton for studiously avoiding all the DNAPL evidence and scientific knowledge available while constantly minimizing the presence of either residual or free phase DNAPL on its site. To this day, that 2006 critique has never been given the response or attention it deserves. In fact, again in hindsight, I wonder if that was a significant contributing cause of the behaviour of Ms. Mclean and Ms. Bryant the following year to have me extricated from CPAC. By that time, Dr. Regier had resigned from CPAC partially due to hearing issues leaving me with one less trusted supporter on the committee. At that time when it came to politics, I was as much out of my depth as Pat McLean is with groundwater or any technical issues about it.<br /><br />DNAPLs were an ongoing topic throughout 2006 at CPAC despite Uniroyal/Crompton/Chenmtura’s resistance. Due to the 2003 Request For Action presented by the Soil and Water sub-committee to CPAC, the MOE and Crompton put DNAPLs back on the agenda. That being said, I knew that challenging the DNAPL status had to be a bit of a difficult topic for Susan Bryant given APT’s bizarre embracing of the DNAPL status quo when the (MOE) accepted Uniroyal/Conestoga Rover’s position in a December 10, 1993 letter. APT’s quiet acceptance then had initiated the split from APT of Richard Clausi, Esther Thur, and myself. Sylvia Berg’s position alone on DNAPLs would not have caused the split; It was her winner take all, hostile attitude, instantly displayed when she won APT members support that did it for me. It seemed clear to me that she felt emboldened to take punitive action against me within APT.<br /><br />In December 2006, Susan invited me to attend a meeting with Pat McLean and Wilf Ruland at the University of Waterloo. Keep in mind that I was the CPAC “expert” on DNAPLS based both on my discovery of Brian Beatty’s DNAPL misquote way back in 1992 as well as my hard work, research, and effort about DNAPLS since then. We were meeting with two world renowned experts in the field, namely Dr. John Cherry and Dr. Beth Parker, to discuss DNAPLs. What a breath of fresh air to talk with two scientists interested only in the evidence and the facts, and who had no political agenda, no need for ego stroking, nor any other peripheral considerations that I could tell. Wilf Ruland had been a student of Dr. Cherry’s and Wilf considered him a mentor.<br /><br />Prior to the meeting, as we drove together to Waterloo, I was getting an odd impression. It seemed to me that Pat McLean, Wilf Ruland and Susan Bryant viewed this meeting possibly as a confirmation that DNAPLs were best left alone in the sub-surface. This leave alone position seemed odd to me considering that Susan Bryant, Fred Hager, Henry Regier, and I had all worked together on the 2003 Request For Action, strongly advising source removal of free phase and possibly residual DNAPLs. Regardless, we were soon talking to the two hydrogeologists who offered a number of their various recent publications on the subject of DNAPL management. Well…! Yes Wilf was correct in remembering that when he attended university, the theory of that time was that sub-surface DNAPLS, if disturbed, might be remobilized and move further either vertically or laterally, thus compounding the groundwater contamination problem. However, both Dr. Cherry and Dr. Parker emphasized that new thinking was unanimous that DNAPLs, especially free phase, needed to be either removed physically from the sub-surface where possible or somehow, either physically encapsulated or chemically broken down. Otherwise, their long-term dissolution into the groundwater would contaminate it above drinking water standards for decades or even centuries.<br /><br />I left the meeting almost floating above the ground. I was ecstatic, whereas the other three were incredibly subdued. What the hell? I found their downcast attitudes very strange. At the meeting when Dr. Parker handed out a number of her and Dr. Cherry’s technical DNAPL publications for later reference, the other three handed them to me stating that I could read them all first. Later, I tried to give them to Susan Bryant for her to read but she never wanted them. It was an eye opening, albeit too late. Not one of the three of them appeared to want to learn more about DNAPLs.<br /><br />All through the rest of 2007, I asked Pat Mclean and Susan Bryant when we were going to make a presentation to CPAC about this meeting with Drs. Cherry and Parker. IT NEVER HAPPENED. Wilf Ruland, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant NEVER to my knowledge have told anyone at CPAC or the public about this meeting. It was almost as if they had made previous commitments either to Uniroyal/Chemtura or the MOE that they would back off the DNAPL file despite the 2003 CPAC Request For Action. The non-disclosure of the proper DNAPL management from this meeting reminded me of Sylvia Berg asking me alone to sign APT’s critique of the MOE December 10, 1993 letter accepting Uniroyal’s DNAPL position despite the fact that both she and Glenys McMullen had participated as well as me. Both scenarios were and are bizarre and have led me to suspect the worst.<br /><br />Was the 2007 Ammonia Treatment System (ATS) Certificate of Approval merely a red herring by Pat McLean and Susan Bryant to get me off CPAC? At the time, I found their ATS position ridiculous especially after I had Wilf Ruland in my home and showed him my groundwater data and boreholes logs indicating that CH97 was totally inappropriate to be designated as one of the “well pairs.” Wilf had absolutely no dispute with my data and its interpretation. I could tell that he was trying not to be over enthusiastic about my discovery but I repeat he had zero objections or disagreement with the facts presented to him. Then, after I filed my appeal to the Environmental Review Tribunal, I agreed to a sit down with Chemtura, CRA, and the Ontario MOE to determine if a meeting of the minds could occur. The meeting was a sham and absolutely not conducted in good faith by the other three parties. Wilf Ruland presented my information regarding CH97 being an inappropriate well to use as a “well pair” because the screen of the well was drawing both municipal aquifer (MA) water as well as upper aquifer water into it. There was no aquitard between the two aquifers. This stratigraphy would artificially raise the groundwater level in the MA thus incorrectly “proving” that there was hydraulic containment on site because just off-site well CH97 had a higher groundwater elevation reading in the municipal aquifer than the corresponding on-site well.<br /><br />Mr. Ruland tried, I’ll give him that. CRA simply ignored his facts. CRA arrogantly, as always, advised him and us that they were right. There wasn’t even so much as a hint that Wilf Ruland’s [i.e. mine] points had any merit whatsoever. Mr. Ruland then backed down, I did not. As is my way when dealing with arrogant liars, I bluntly told them off. I advised that my appeal would be reinstated the next day and that I didn’t appreciate having my time wasted by parties with zero intent to either listen or respond factually to my and Wilf’s position. Whether in agreement or disagreement with the undisputed facts about CH97, CRA representatives said no, with absolutely zero technical reasons why they believed they were right and we were allegedly wrong.<br /><br />This is the background for Wilf Ruland’s further plunging of Pat Mclean and Susan Bryant’s knife into my back. Mr. Ruland then went to CPAC and advised them that he would no longer work for CPAC as long as I was a member. He claimed that my “behaviour” at this meeting attended by him, Henry Regier, Pat McLean, Susan Bryant, CRA, Chemtura, and the MOE was objectionable. Apparently, unlike Mr. Ruland, I am not deferential enough when being lied to by intellectual prostitutes. Unlike Mr. Ruland, I will not be treated disrespectfully and accept it just because the speaker has more credentials than I. Unlike Wilf I am not in a conflict of interest position hoping for future contracts from the MOE and or collaborative, paid private meetings with CRA and Chemtura. Furthermore Wilf apparently viewed Pat and Susan as part of his future paid consulting. I strongly advise Wilf Ruland to stay out of Elmira in the future. I found his behaviour to be contemptible.<br /><br />Prior to the incidents regarding the ATS planning, Pat McLean showed her true colours. This would have been in June 2007 at her house, six months after the meeting at the University of Waterloo. During this meeting, I again asked Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant what their plans were as far as advising or presenting the conclusions of the DNAPL meeting to CPAC. Pat got quite hostile and I actually thought a little paranoid as she accused me of either working against her or of undermining her. I thought both those scenarios were ridiculous and told her that. Susan kept her own counsel and said nothing. My take on it much later on was that a certain guilty party was expecting pushback for her behaviour and was on her guard. In fact I expect both of them knew that they couldn’t continue their behind – the - scenes gamesmanship and that I was starting to catch on.<br /><br />A year and a half later there was an article in the December 3, 2008 Elmira Independent describing the November 28, 2008 CPAC meeting.112 The article described a DNAPL discussion and it turned out that CPAC --without my presence --had decided that DNAPLs were pretty much a settled issue. What Pat McLean and Susan Bryant failed to provide CPAC members including myself with was two letters from Wilf Ruland and Jaimie Connolly of the MOE advising that they disagreed with CRA’s conclusions. Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant, of course, still hadn’t advised CPAC of the January 2007 meeting about DNAPLs at the University of Waterloo. During the next reincarnation of CPAC, in 2012, these key letters surfaced and I spoke publicly to CPAC about their significance disputing Chemtura’s and CRA’s do nothing conclusions. Susan Bryant suggested that she and Pat McLean [CPAC Chair] may have failed to send these letters to me because I was not on e-mail at the time. What a pathetic excuse for hiding crucial information from the public.<br /><br />Popcorn Lung<br /><br />Uniroyal and successors have always had an amazing ability to land on their feet no matter how serious the problems they caused and eventually had to face. The next chemical used at Uniroyal to cause problems was diacetyl and is but one of numerous highly toxic products that Uniroyal and its successors have manufactured and sold over the decades which were far more dangerous to either human life or wildlife than intended. This is saying a lot when you realize that the company has manufactured so many pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides all designed to kill certain life forms.<br /><br />Chuck Kuepfer, reporter for the Elmira Independent, wrote an article on May 4, 2007 titled “The hidden dangers of microwaves."113 Chuck talked about diacetyl long used in manufacturing a butter flavouring used in microwave popcorn. Shortly after the lawsuits started in the U.S., Crompton suddenly stopped production of it in Elmira. The odour of this butter flavouring could often be smelled around town and folks didn’t realize that it was harmful. They were wrong because diacetyl has caused severe and irreversible lung damage in people working with the chemical. It allegedly has caused “popcorn lung” in customers who routinely stick their faces into the microwave popcorn bag and inhale the butter flavouring into their lungs. Just one more case of “better living through chemistry” as the chemical companies like to say.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 8<br /><br />111 Kyle Rea, “Calling on feds to join the party”, Woolwich Observer, September 18, 2004<br /><br />112 Gail Martin, “Contaminants should be removed, says Marshall”, Elmira Independent, December 3, 2008<br /><br />113 Chuck Kuepfer, “The hidden dangers of microwaves”, Elmira Independent, May 4, 2007<br /><br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-86480528191868352162023-12-19T11:27:00.000-08:002023-12-19T11:27:00.959-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/chapter-9-henry-dr.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6932674661281331820" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Nine:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />77 ....Henry<br /><br />78.....2006 to Early 2007<br /><br />79.....The Big Split<br /><br />84.....Follow-up<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 9<br /><br />Henry<br /><br />Dr. Henry Regier is a thinker, a writer, and an excellent speaker. I am in constant awe of his ability at CPAC meetings where he chastised various scoundrels and wrongdoers in such a fashion that at the end of his comments they would thank him. His usual targets were the MOE and Chemtura. Dr. Regier is able to call a spade a spade while avoiding personal insults even to the truly deserving. He produced a number of what I call treatises over his years as a CPAC member and afterwards. We’ve already seen his 2004 treatise in Chapter Seven regarding the Site Specific Risk Assessment.<br /><br />The following verbatim treatise from Henry is dated May 4, 2006 and is titled, “A Mid-Course Correction.” I am stepping back slightly in chronological sequence but I think you the readers can keep up. Here is Henry’s treatise:<br /><br /><br />“ A MID-COURSE CORRECTION?<br /><br />In discussion with FH and AM; by HR; 04 05 06<br /><br />In a recent exchange of e-mail between Ron Ormson and me, Ron commented as follows”<br /><br />“I would hate to see CPAC die with any departure of the current good members, although nothing lasts forever. Perhaps a …quasi-legal arrangement with the MOE-Woolwich-Crompton-Region of Waterloo is required to ensure something actually occurs.”<br /><br />At CPAC’s March breakfast meeting about the long range plan, Ron and I both queried how the plan would be implemented. I wanted to know what MOE’s signature meant operationally and Ron asked about “teeth” as I recall. I suggested that we may be converging on “inter-jurisdictional adaptive co-management”.<br /><br />According to the Municipality’s terms of reference, CPAC needs some reconsideration currently with an option of enrolling new members. This could be a good time to consider an alternative organization to that of the current CPAC.<br />So I support Ron’s idea as sketched in the quote above. Such a reorganization could be premised on wide-ranging changes that seemed to have occurred in the basic positions of different stakeholders and hence the relationship between them in the last couple of years.<br /><br />Important progress has been made with (still partial) documentation of hazards and with (still partial) remediation of some hazards still related to our shared (but still partial) understanding of what works and what doesn’t work with respect to numerous aspects of this complex issue.<br /><br />MOE officials are now better informed, are more involved in CPAC meetings, are reviewing more company documents critically and are taking important practical initiatives.<br /><br />Elmira’s Crompton company has a personable new manager who has shown strong evidence of committing to collaboration, with support from his head office and with strong involvement of his local staff.<br /><br />Much of the technical information that the company now offers is more compendious and reliable than was the case a couple of years ago and before that.<br /><br />The Municipality may be ready to rematriate the ownership deed for Elmira back from the company; with a new election we may end up with more than just one councillor actually demonstrating concern about local contamination with commitment to its remediation.<br /><br />The Region and GRCA may be ready to move beyond their shared modus operandi of denial on the contaminants issue; over the years the ethical stance of Eric Hodgins has been much-appreciated and Sandra Cooke is expanding her water quality work.<br /><br />With happy collaborative experiences in the future, impatient activists may actually experience growing confidence that Elmirans and many more people downstream and downwind won’t be victimized until the end of time by this Company’s legacy and current practices, and thus be less censorious in their communications and interventions.<br /><br />Altogether, time for a major mid-course correction? To inter-jurisdictional adaptive co-management? (Gail Krantzberg of McMaster University could advise us on such a transformation.)<br /><br />From a perspective of soil and water issues, I think that it would be crucial that Alan Marshall should be active in any new governance arrangement, if he so chooses, as a community representative perhaps on a retainer. As a whistle-blower and an avenging angel against injustice, he remembers more about the relevant details of past contamination and related documentation than anyone else. Within adaptive co-management to implement the long-range plan, sharing a credible narrative of the past is helpful.<br /><br />In addition to her leadership on soil and water issues, Susan Bryant has excelled in coercing remediation of fumigations and inducing more responsible plant management generally. So her participation in a new organization is essential, though it is presumptuous of me to make this point.<br /><br />Fred Hager and I are looking for an opportunity to resign because of creeping senility, and the thought of a better organizational arrangement in the offing could help us to recognize that our stellar kinds of expertise would then be redundant. “<br /><br /><br />Author’s note: Henry was into his seventies when he wrote this treatise but believe me, twelve years later he is still as sharp as a tack. I can only hope to age half as well as he has. Fred Hager was a chemist at Uniroyal until retirement. He was a UPAC/CPAC member for years.<br /><br />2006 to early 2007<br /><br />In October 2006, Pat McLean lost her Ward One Council seat to newcomer Sandy Shantz. Pat McLean had served several terms on Council, was experienced, and presented herself well. What she didn’t have was the township hockey lobby behind her as Sandy Shantz did because she, Pat, wasn’t pushing hard for two ice pads in the new Arena as Ms. Shantz was. She also didn’t have either Ms. Shantz’s looks or Mennonite last name. As superficial as both those attributes were, they carried the day. Ms. McLean had been the Council representative on UPAC and CPAC for six or seven years and normally would have been off CPAC when she lost her Council seat. Her good buddy Mayor Bill Strauss, threw her a bone and said she could stay on as CPAC’s chair; however, Ms. Shantz would be Council’s new township representative. Irony of ironies, Ms. McLean behaved quite nastily to Ms. Shantz in the early days of Sandy Shantz’s term on CPAC. I took Ms. Shantz under my wing and provided her with background maps and simple documents to assist her learning curve. On more than one occasion Pat intentionally didn’t advise Ms. Shantz of either CPAC breakfast meetings or other CPAC related information. This neglect was a reflection of Pat McLean abusing her position as CPAC chair for personal benefit or payback. I kept Ms. Shantz in the information loop and on one occasion when she was left out of the loop as a CPAC member, by Ms. McLean the Chair, Sandy Shantz said to me “Oh, that brat!” That was interesting to me in that Sandy clearly recognized Ms. McLean’s willingness to be nasty simply because she’d lost the election and that Ms. Shantz, while provoked, was quite restrained in her response.<br /><br />CPAC were advised on January 26, 2007 that the Ammonia Treatment Plan was just about ready to go and in fact by November was supposed to be under construction. Unsurprisingly, construction was not ready to go for more than another year. This delay had nothing to do with my later objection to the Ammonia Treatment Certificate of Approval because all CPAC parties, including myself, had no objections to construction taking place while we were waiting to see if the Environmental Review Tribunal would hear my appeal of the 2006 Certificate of Approval (C of A).<br /><br />On February 26,2007, Crompton Co. presented in Woolwich Council Chambers its “Worst Case Scenario.” The public were advised that a major leak of anhydrous ammonia was their worst case scenario from a human health standpoint. This Worst Case Scenario was extremely serious to the point that there was an effective kill zone within several hundred metres of the plant if a wind was from the east blew westwards into town when a spill occurred. To this day, that Worst Case Scenario hangs over the heads of nearby residents as well as the rest of Elmira. The Worst Case Scenario also should have been a much larger factor in a later OMB hearing regarding a proposed residential development to occur within the kill zone. It was not and in a future chapter I will discuss that OMB hearing.<br /><br />The Big Split<br /><br />Unknown to most of the CPAC members including me at the time, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant were in September and October 2007, negotiating by telephone with the Ontario Ministry of Environment in regards to the Ammonia Treatment C of A. The MOE had learned that opposition could be reduced by discussion and negotiation ahead of introducing either control orders or C of A s. Officials negotiated with the company in private while at the same time negotiating with other stakeholders if such were actively involved in the issues under consideration. As a voting member of CPAC, I would not have been surprised if Ms. Bryant or Ms. McLean had received the odd phone call from the MOE outside of the CPAC venue. Actual negotiations, however, were a whole other matter. Over the years Ms. McLean hypocritically had blasted the MOE for private talks with Uniroyal Chemical on matters under discussion at public CPAC meetings and had told the MOE that public consultation meant that the public stakeholders were to be fully involved in discussions, negotiations, and updates on all matters relevant to the restoration of both the water supply and the natural environment in and around Elmira. It turned out that what resulted was Pat and Susan talking to the MOE privately just as Crompton did. That woefully uninformed and out of their depth pair usurped the authority of CPAC by making decisions on matters that never went to CPAC. For a number of years Dr. Regier had repeatedly asked me if I knew of some sort of executive committee within CPAC. I had never known of such a committee that had been advised or voted on by the CPAC members. If I had known that such a body existed, I would have publicly and loudly quit CPAC in disgust. As far as I was concerned, it was one vote per member with no members being more “equal” than others.<br /><br />I slowly became aware that these telephone conversations must be occurring because of the nature and specifics of Ms. Bryant’s concerns when she called me asking for technical advice. The advice she sought could either be chemical, hydrogeological, or even historical in nature. Ms. Bryant was often much better informed than almost anyone at CPAC with the exception of Ron Ormson and Gerry Heidbuurt on air issues and me on ground and surface water issues as well as basic chemical matters dealing with names, chemical components, etc. Ms. McLean knew little or nothing technical about any of the Crompton technical issues even after she’d been chair for a decade.<br /><br />After a few phone calls, it began to dawn on me that Ms. Bryant was negotiating the Certificate of Approval (C of A) over the phone with the MOE rather than at CPAC. I was a little surprised albeit not too worried as at least she was checking with me as a CPAC member who had greater knowledge than she and Ms. McLean had. Secondly I presumed all this background information would be brought before CPAC for member approval if not for discussion. I did advise Ms. Bryant that I had been carefully reading the technical details about this proposed C of A and that I had found a significant problem. The on-site pump and treat system for the municipal aquifer supposedly had to be shut down while the new and improved ammonia treatment system was under construction. This was very bad news. Therefore, the MOE had required Crompton Co. prove ongoing on-site hydraulic containment of the highly contaminated municipal aquifer such that new contamination wasn’t leaving the Crompton site and hence extending the thirty- year time frame required for off-site clean- up. In order to easily determine the status of containment, the MOE and Crompton Co. devised a system whereby well “pairs” would be assigned to each other, one being nearby off-site and the other nearby on-site. The idea for the pairings was that a quick look at the groundwater elevations in these well pairs could indicate whether or not the on-site municipal aquifer was leaking off-site.<br /><br />I advised Ms. Bryant that off-site monitoring well, CH97, due south of the site was a huge problem. CH97 was of course matched with an on-site well, screened in the municipal aquifer as was CH97. The problem was that while CH97 was screened in the municipal aquifer, that aquifer at that location was not what is known as a confined aquifer. In other words there was not an impermeable or even semi-impermeable aquitard above and below the highly transmissive, water- saturated aquifer i.e. the upper (shallow) aquifer is directly connected to the deeper municipal aquifer at this location. The result was that the CH97 monitoring well would have much higher groundwater levels in it than any other monitoring wells in nearby municipal aquifer monitoring wells. These higher groundwater levels and readings would then wrongly and inappropriately be used by Crompton Co. to “prove” successful hydraulic containment on-site during the greatly reduced on-site groundwater pumping of the municipal aquifer. Frankly, I didn’t believe for a second that this was simply bad luck or an inadvertent mistake on Crompton’s consultants (Conestoga Rovers) part. It was a typical piece of junk science in my opinion and fully expected that they hoped to hide their loss of hydraulic containment due to greatly reduced pumping and treating of contaminated groundwater on-site.<br /><br />I described this reality carefully to Susan including advising her where this information was located but she asked me if I would meet with hydrogeologist Wilf Ruland and go over this technical problem with him. I readily agreed to and shortly thereafter Mr. Ruland phoned me to arrange a time for he and I to meet. A couple of days later Wilf Ruland met me at my home, in the kitchen, where I had the reports and most importantly the stratigraphic boreholes and cross-sections just south of Crompton Co. spread out on the table. I showed Wilf all the details, the diagrams, and the cross-sections of the sub-surface with the various wells in them including CH97. Initially I sensed some skepticism on his part about my findings but within a few minutes his attitude totally changed. He was suddenly involved and engaged and I could tell that he was shocked at the data. Monitoring well CH97 was screened in the municipal aquifer but completely, directly connected to the upper aquifer as well. Either contaminant readings or groundwater elevation readings in that well clearly could not be assigned as readings in the municipal aquifer. The two aquifers were joined as one right there. Wilf was speechless. I didn’t expect that he was going to jump up and down or call me a hydrogeological prodigy but I did expect a flat out, plain spoken yes you’re right. He wouldn’t do it. He didn’t give me any explanation or argument or any indication whatsoever that there might be other factors or relevant considerations that might somehow mitigate this apparently obvious goof on Conestoga Rovers part. He did suggest that he would certainly explain everything to Susan clearly and that yes, well done for my astute observations but he so avoided committing himself that I was concerned. I had reason to be as it turned out.<br /><br />I spoke with Ms. Bryant a couple of days later and I asked her if Wilf Ruland had stated plainly to her that Conestoga Rovers choice of CH97 was a totally inappropriate well for an off-site well pair because it was directly connected to the upper shallow aquifer as well as to the municipal upper aquifer. Ms. Bryant hesitated and then said no, he had not. I likely responded with a “What the hell?” Susan Bryant then added that it was too late anyway to make a change because the MOE were going ahead with the Certificate of Approval as it was, including CH97 being part of the off-site well pairs being used to prove hydraulic containment during the construction of the new ammonia treatment system. I then asked Ms. Bryant if she meant that the MOE were going to take the Certificate of Approval, as was, to CPAC for their input. “Well, no” said Susan. “Why the hell not?” I asked. Susan responded that she, as part of the Soil & Water Sub-Committee, and Pat, as Chair of CPAC, had given their okay to the MOE to proceed with the Certificate as it was. I was stunned. I was speechless. And I did not see the trap unfolding. Why would I? Oh right, because of several prior instances of bizarre behaviour on Susan’s part. What is obvious to me now still wasn’t then in the fall of 2007. I took Susan’s words at face value. I wasn’t on my guard around her as I was around both Crompton Co. and the MOE who were proven miscreants.<br /><br />It is possible that I had a flashback to Ms. Bryant’s behaviour at the Comprehensive Long Range Plan (CLERP) discussions at Uniroyal two or three years earlier. She had just admitted to me that she and Pat had just done exactly what I caught her doing earlier on and had confronted her about. What was the difference this time in 2007? That was the question I should have asked myself and did not. The answer was that Henry Regier was now gone from CPAC and Pat McLean and Susan Bryant, while having extensive support from most CPAC members weren’t prepared to play political games with me while Dr. Regier was still a member and still so highly respected by all.<br /><br />I was disappointed, I was angry, and I was mostly shocked. What the hell did Susan Bryant think she was doing bypassing CPAC? Who the hell did either she or Pat McLean think they were, speaking on behalf of CPAC without any kind of consultation with them at all? I slowly began to realize why my calls for additional CPAC meetings were ignored by the Chair Pat McLean. Essentially, Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant were, behind CPAC’s back, using CPAC’s status and numbers of members to legitimize their decisions and direction they wanted. Another thought crossed my mind. Did the MOE know that they were dealing with only two citizens and not with all the voting members on CPAC including myself? Of course they did. The MOE was doing it intentionally for two reasons. First, it was a hell of a lot easier to pull the wool over Ms. McLean’s and Ms. Bryant’s eyes than it was to do so over the entire CPAC membership. Second, it was much faster and more convenient to conduct business with two people versus seven or eight. One or two phone calls were a whole lot easier to make than waiting for the next monthly public CPAC meeting and then pitching its proposals to CPAC as a group whose members would often take their time in deliberations, questions, and research. It was a win-win-win for the company, for the MOE, and for Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant. CPAC, the public, and the environment were often the losers. Crompton Co. as well had to know what was going on. After they negotiated with the MOE they should have expected vigorous debate at CPAC yet the matter wasn’t even raised by the chair or anybody else. How many other issues had there been and were resolved by this back door method?<br /><br />Another matter came to me shortly afterwards. Henry had sensed or known that something was amiss. Perhaps he had picked up on disappearing issues at CPAC that months later were suddenly presented as done deals. Perhaps Henry Regier was far more politically astute than I was. Perhaps he had already experienced more of Susan Bryant’s peculiar behaviours with her supposed friends and colleagues than I was aware of. This was exactly what Henry was referring to when he asked me if there was some sort of executive committee within CPAC that either met or made decisions on its own. A light came on inside my head at Susan Bryant’s revelation that the MOE was proceeding with the Certificate and had “CPAC’s” approval. It was neither bright nor clear but from this point onwards, I began to look at things in a different light. Too little, too late perhaps. Or not.<br /><br />Certificates of Approval, like control orders, require public notice. They also allow for appeals by all parties and stakeholders. At least in theory they do. Recall years earlier in 1995 when APT unsuccessfully tried to appeal the Upper Aquifer Containment and Treatment System (UACTS). They were supported by both Richard Clausi and I with the Environmental Hazards Team (EH-Team) and the Region of Waterloo, yet they were denied leave to appeal by the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB). It’s all about politics folks, not facts.<br /><br />Regardless, I appealed this Certificate of Approval. I went through an onerous and arduous process of not only formally requesting leave to appeal the C of A but I eventually sent the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) a couple of hundred pages of technical backup to prove the quite frankly obvious fact that at least one of the well pairs, demanded by the MOE to “prove” hydraulic containment during the Ammonia Treatments System (ATS) construction, was poorly chosen and in fact grossly inadequate and would give misleading information as a result.<br /><br />Susan Bryant and Pat McLean were not amused that I had appealed the MOE’s Certificate. After all they had improperly, on their own, given the Ontario MOE the go ahead with it, allegedly on behalf of CPAC. It mattered not that the MOE knew that Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant had no such mandate or authority from CPAC and, if they did, it was conducted behind closed doors without all voting members present. Maybe if it ever did occur it was at one of Pat McLean’s “breakfast” meetings without all members present. No such mandate to make private decisions was ever put in writing and distributed to all CPAC members.<br /><br />I was aware that something was very rotten, very close to home. Wilf Ruland was being way too cautious and prudent and uncommunicative with me, a voting member of CPAC, regarding what appeared to be a black and white hydrogeological issue, his area of expertise. By this point in time in the fall of 2007, Henry Regier had warned me about the relationship between Mr. Ruland, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant. Dr. Regier had suggested that Wilf Ruland seemed to be parachuted in every couple of years or so to give support to Ms. McLean’s and Ms. Bryant’s opinions, to enlighten CPAC, or to comment hydrogeologically on the latest report by Conestoga Rovers. Henry Regier suggested that Wilf Ruland’s role therefore had changed dramatically from his initial role as adviser and consultant. When he participated now he talked strategy and direction for CPAC, which really wasn’t his area of expertise. While I admired and trusted Dr. Regier’s technical expertise and his integrity, I had been a friend and colleague of Susan Bryant’s for seventeen years. I had only known Dr. Regier for about seven years. Turned out, Henry Regier was right all the way down the line. My bad.<br /><br />Ms. Bryant phoned and asked if I would be willing to participate in a meeting with Chemtura, CRA, the Ministry of Environment (MOE), and Wilf Ruland. The meeting was to be a form of mediation intended to determine if we could come to an agreement and some sort of compromise on the issue of the efficacy of CH97 as part of a monitoring well pair. The meeting was to discover if all parties could avoid the time, expense, and trouble of a formal hearing. Hallelujah, I thought. Common sense and reasonableness might prevail yet. Once again, I was deceived and fooled by someone whose integrity and decency I trusted for so long in this battle to environmentally protect our community and the health of our neighbours.<br /><br />Fortunately, I had learned a decade earlier never to go to private meetings alone with people lacking in the human characteristics of fair play, forthrightness, and decency. I learned this good sense, of course, the hard way when I had to deal with the Waterloo Region District School Board. This time I imagined that Ms. Bryant had come to her senses and to clear up Conestoga Rovers’ bone- headed plan to use monitoring well CH97. I invited Henry Regier to join us. As was usual, none of the parties were interested in an evening meeting at which Richard Clausi could attend. Mr. Clausi was a teacher and was in the classroom during the day.<br /><br />The meeting began as scheduled. MOE officials were present along with a number of Chemtura personnel such as Jeff Merriman and Dwight Este. Conestoga Rovers & Associates (CRA) was out in force. Susan Bryant, Wilf Ruland, Henry Regier and I were there. Perhaps a couple of others. I will give to Wilf Ruland this recognition: he tried. Oddly, while never straightforwardly telling me that I was dead on the money with my concerns, Mr. Ruland did show CRA the stratigraphic cross-sections of the sub-surface and explained them clearly. Wilf Ruland was direct, honest, and compelling in his presentation and he was ignored.<br /><br />CRA didn’t even have the courtesy or respect to agree or disagree with Mr. Ruland’s presentation. They didn’t give him any comment. They didn’t suggest that his concerns even merited so much as a glance. Chemtura followed suit as did the Ontario MOE. Mr. Ruland, seeing the writing on the wall, backed down. By that, I don’t mean he put his tail between his legs and ran. I don’t mean he was necessarily cowed. He simply accepted it without question or complaint. He was beaten and he immediately surrendered.<br /><br />I looked at him. He had been doing an excellent job advocating for a CPAC member on behalf of the public interest and they had shut him down cold with literally zero rationale or explanation. They didn’t tell Mr. Ruland that his analysis was inaccurate. They didn’t tell Mr. Ruland that his analysis was thoughtful and well worth bringing forward. They went out of their way to be ignorant and arrogant. And he just sat there.<br /><br />I stood up and told CRA, Chemtura and the MOE off. Bluntly and concisely in a manner that they were not used to but should have been treated to by citizens on an almost ongoing basis. “Fine,” I said, “If you want to be this stupid then you obviously want to go to a formal hearing. This meeting is over, right here and right now.” I packed up my paperwork and walked out.<br /><br />That should have been that, right there in regards to the disgusting behaviour of Chemtura and Conestoga Rovers. The MOE, of course, just sat there and made no attempt to get those two parties to either discuss or negotiate in good faith. Susan Bryant and Pat McLean had nothing to say at this meeting. They should have demanded that Chemtura give some kind of rationale or justification for so readily dismissing Mr. Ruland’s presentation without even an attempt to explain why. I had attended upon Ms. Bryant’s request and with full intention of listening carefully to any technical points or facts that Chemtura or their consultants had regarding the issue of CH97 drawing both shallow and deeper groundwater and thus it being inappropriate to measure groundwater levels in the municipal upper aquifer.<br /><br />Neither Chemtura nor CRA seemed to have attended in good faith. There had been exactly zero attempt to discuss, clarify, or persuade anybody of anything. They simply said no, everything was fine. End of story!<br /><br />It was obvious to everyone present from Henry Regier to Wilf Ruland, Susan Bryant and me that this meeting was a set-up of some kind. Of course I didn’t realize that I was the one being set up. Unknown to me, that gutless piece of crap Wilf Ruland then sent a letter to CPAC members giving them an ultimatum. He would no longer work for them as long as I was a member of CPAC! He supposedly didn’t like my “behaviour” at the meeting that he and Susan Bryant had set up. No mention of course about the behaviour of the other parties or my defense of his and my evidence of the facts.<br /><br />Susan phoned me a day or two later and demanded my resignation. I responded: ”From what?” “CPAC” she said. “Who exactly are you to demand my resignation from CPAC?” I asked her. She simply said that I had to resign from CPAC because by appealing the C of A I was in contravention of the will of CPAC members who wanted the Ammonia Treatment System built in an expeditious manner. I laughed at that one and told her that it was years past the ATS being built expeditiously. Susan repeated that I needed to resign forthwith. “No thanks,” I stated. She hung up.<br /><br />Part of the irony here, of course, is that Pat McLean and Susan Bryant, just like Woolwich Council six years later, violated every rule, term of reference, and code of conduct for CPAC that you could imagine. Six years later, Woolwich Township Councillors would demand private meetings with CPAC even after their own Chief Administrative Officer David Brenneman had ordered CPAC from 2011 onwards never to hold private meetings. This order even included private, get-togethers after members would be appointed to CPAC in 2011 by Woolwich Council.<br /><br />Pat McLean then called a private meeting of CPAC after Susan Bryant’s phone call to me and intentionally did not advise me, the subject of the meeting, about it. She and Susan Bryant badmouthed me and misrepresented the facts to the rest of CPAC and those idiots accepted that improper meeting as appropriate and swallowed the self-serving prevarications of the two members who had been caught in the act speaking and negotiating on CPAC’s behalf without appropriate authority. I may have been naïve about personal relationships and even politics, but I would have never stood for a pair of CPAC members calling a private meeting to discuss getting rid of a voting member behind that member’s back. That takes a really special kind of human being to play political games like that especially with someone who had always supported and treated them well. Clearly, we had totally different ideas about what democratic institutions were all about. Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant believed that rules governing committees, etc., were simply there to be manipulated and violated with impunity as long as you felt you had enough votes to back you up. Deceit, lying and ignoring rules was their specialty.<br /><br />I was informed by Ms. McLean about the private meeting that I had been excluded from and was plainly disgusted with both her and Susan Bryant. Pat McLean had always concerned me although she was generally careful never to step out of line to my face. Susan and I had been friends and colleagues since 1990 and I had trusted her implicitly for all those years despite disconcerting behaviour that I have identified. As upset as I was, I still hadn’t grasped the implications of what that pair were doing. Nor did I have any understanding of the betrayal of both the public and APT that Susan Bryant seems to have been involved in for years. To this day I am not sure if her actions were due to accolades and awards from the GRCA, the Region of Waterloo, or wages from Conestoga Rovers for editing work or even possibly her background in Rochester, United States where her father was an executive at Kodak, a large U.S. polluter. Or, did she actually believe that she alone, technically and intellectually, was designated and qualified to be the sole voice on behalf of the citizens of Elmira with Pat McLean simply as a political protector? Had I become competition to Ms. Bryant in her mind? Do recall Pat McLean’s hostility towards me in June 2007 at her home and what I thought at the time was a somewhat paranoid accusation of me.<br /><br />I had never questioned Susan Bryant’s commitment to the environment but I was now. What was the real reason that she and Ms. McLean clearly wanted me off CPAC? Was it all about preserving their control and pre-eminence over CPAC? That seemed very odd and unlikely to me. Did they both believe that if CPAC understood the reality of what they had done, speaking and negotiating on CPAC’s behalf without proper authority, that they would get the boot? Was this some sort of power play that I wasn’t remotely interested in or being a part of?<br /><br />I was then advised by Pat McLean that there was an upcoming meeting of CPAC, after the secret one, to discuss my future with them and I was invited. How sweet of you, I thought. The invitation was in writing, likely by fax. I did not respond and I did not attend because I wanted first and foremost to have a legitimate opportunity to have a discussion with the CPAC members regarding the ATS and the inappropriate well pairs that were in the C of A. Shortly thereafter I received a written note advising me that CPAC members had voted me off of CPAC. The swine.<br /><br />Councillor Ruby Weber got wind of things a week or so later and phoned me to tell me that Pat was doing what she did best, which was usurping authority. CPAC members had virtually zero authority on their own to kick one of their fellow members off the committee. Council and council alone had that authority, not any committee of council. Well? So the whole pretend set-up meeting along with Wilf Ruland’s accusations against me, combined with Pat McLean and Susan Bryant telling CPAC that they needed to give me the boot was all a joke? A farce? A charade? Surely, I thought, Pat and Susan have some explaining to do now. They’ve just set me up, orchestrated a phony scenario, held an improper private CPAC meeting and falsely told CPAC that they had the authority to kick one of their own members off of CPAC. The scheming of Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant really couldn’t get much more obvious than that it seemed to me. By this time I didn’t so much underestimate the dishonesty and nastiness of two self-serving women as much as I overestimated the common sense and reasonableness of all the other CPAC members. Exactly how stupid were they? Plenty stupid it turns out.<br /><br />During the 1990s, other UPAC members and I often found ourselves at odds with Councillor Ruby Weber. The impression we had was that she simply had too much faith in, and respect for, Uniroyal Chemical. I never found her to be deceptive or dishonest; she simply appeared to have more confidence than I ever had that Uniroyal would eventually step up and do the right thing. Then, Ruby and I actually ended up on the same side in regards to the Waterloo Region District School Board. Her brother, Jim Wideman, had been the Chair of the Board and Ruby’s granddaughter along with my son was on the receiving end of some unprofessional behaviour by a Board employee. Since that school board problem then and this issue now with Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant I started to look upon Ruby much more favourably. She stepped forward and simply said no to my being railroaded.<br /><br />Additionally, while I had lots of reasons to be dissatisfied with Woolwich Township’s lack of gumption towards Uniroyal and their subsequent corporate ownership, I mistakenly hadn’t paid enough attention to just how slick council and senior staff could be in matters of public deception. David Brenneman, the Township’s Chief Administrative Officer, took the lead in setting up a process allegedly designed to patch up the differences within CPAC. It apparently would not do for Township Council to simply kick me off of CPAC despite former councillor and current chair, Pat McLean’s wishes. Yes she and Susan Bryant along with Wilf Ruland, who always knew who buttered his bread, had manipulated a bunch of Susan’s friends and colleagues on CPAC into voting me off the island. Or, at least that’s what I was told by Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant. I never did see or read anything directly from CPAC members. Regardless the township felt the need to put a ribbon on this whole public embarrassment and so they introduced some interviews and mediation.<br /><br />These attempts too, were just another sham. This time David Brenneman and councillor and CPAC member Sandy Shantz were involved - the same Sandy Shantz who had gotten off to a bad start with Pat McLean. However, politics are strange bedfellows. Both Ms. McLean and Ms. Shantz at a later date would run for mayor although not at the same time. Ms. McLean lost to Todd Cowan and Ms. Shantz won four years later against Todd with Ms. McLean actively campaigning on her behalf. Todd Cowan, however, had self-destructed by that time with an expense scandal. Irony of ironies, Sandy had her own expense scandal in 2015 and 2016.<br /><br />Finally, being much more attuned to the lying and manipulation going on, I was on my guard. The defining moment occurred in a private meeting with me and several councillors, Sandy Shantz and David Brenneman. The allegations against me, as often with false allegations, were a moving target. Now, as CPAC had voted me off the island allegedly, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant had expanded the allegations into my being disrespectful, rude etc., to CPAC members. Of course, zero CPAC members were at this meeting, to substantiate this allegation in addition to only Ms. McLean, Ms. Bryant and Ms. Shantz. Okay, I thought, here is how to shut this down. I buttonholed Sandy Shantz directly in front of the council members. “Sandy,” I said “In your time on CPAC have you EVER seen or heard me disparage, criticize, or insult any CPAC member, yourself included?” Stunned silence from Sandy. She hadn’t expected that. She hemmed and hawed and possibly even stuttered a bit. I further asked “Have you ever seen or heard me criticize or insult any CPAC member either in a public meeting or even in a private breakfast meeting?” This simple, straightforward question had only one simple and honest answer, namely “no,” and she didn’t want to give it. Finally, she weasel - worded her answer and said, “I don’t remember any particular incident of that.” That right there should have been the end of my respect for Sandy Shantz. That lack of endorsement from a first-hand witness told me volumes. She was in on the railroading. Furthermore, after she supposedly had voted me off of CPAC along with the rest, exactly how was she going to justify that behaviour to Council while admitting that my relationships with the CPAC members were fine? The answer was that she didn’t have to. Council wanted me off just as much as Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant but they had no honest grounds to do so, and hence the drivel about my behaviour at the Chemtura meeting, combined with my appeal of the C of A, and then the pathetic shots at how I got along with my fellow CPAC members.<br /><br />I am a team player, far more than many. I would never criticize or undermine a fellow CPAC member especially in front of the public, Chemtura, CRA, or the MOE. The only thing that I was guilty of was being brusk, and yes , skeptical of the professional deceivers at the table, and that meant Chemtura, CRA, and the Ontario Ministry of Environment. That was why they wanted me off CPAC. I wasn’t willing to play the pretend public consultation game that they all were. CPAC members, like the public, seemed to have become pawns to be manipulated by Pat McLean and Susan Bryant and apparently Sandy as well.<br /><br />Ruby stuck to her guns to support my membership to CPAC but in the past she had often been outvoted by the other Woolwich councillors. They dillydaddled all winter and didn’t bring the issue to a Council vote until the spring of 2008. Mark Bauman was not present for the vote, yet a few years later he crowed in a Council meeting about voting me off of CPAC twice. And the fool wonders why I have nothing but contempt for him. Murray Martin who has never in nearly thirty years ever attended a UPAC or CPAC, RAC, or TAG meeting voted me off as did Sandy Shantz and then mayor Bill Strauss. That would be Bill Strauss owner of two grossly contaminated sites namely the Heidelberg Service Station and the Strauss Fuel Depot on Arthur Street at the north end of Elmira. As stated, Ruby voted to keep me on CPAC but was the only vote of four to do so. In hindsight, it is an honour to be voted off that municipal committee by such a pack of disgraceful, self-serving, pro - polluter hypocrites.<br /><br />Susan Bryant it seems had decided a long time ago to lay down with the political dogs. As the saying goes she may have picked up a few fleas.<br /><br />Follow-up<br /><br />The media were essentially surprised by the whole mess. Ms. McLean, Ms. Bryant and Sylvia Berg, of course, all blamed the victim, me. The Council clowns all pretended to be neutral and simply trying to pour oil on troubled waters by allowing Chemtura and the MOE’s favourites, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant, to get my dissenting voice if not silenced at least somewhat muzzled. Sandy Shantz made cooing sounds about how I could continue on at CPAC meetings as a member of the public. Henry Regier came out of retirement and blistered Wilf Ruland, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant in one very harsh, for him, Letter To The Editor (Woolwich Observer) on May 3, 2008.114 Dr. Regier very pointedly asked questions about paid consultants whose income, mandate, and even position on issues could have been compromised. In other words, was Wilf Ruland in a conflict of interest position regarding these events and could that have induced him to take positions contrary to a CPAC member to the advantage of Chemtura and its consultants?<br /><br />In February and March 2008, both the Woolwich Observer 115 and the Elmira Independent 116 weighed in on the final outcome. The Observer’s cartoon while a simplification, nevertheless, like all cartoons, has a strong element of truth in it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rKBoq-iA3Fc/XZDaN17jhiI/AAAAAAAAAHo/xpEQ9VgxmPcgtA839PDZw8k5IzCXgTZ1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/cpacremoval%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1229" data-original-width="1600" height="492" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rKBoq-iA3Fc/XZDaN17jhiI/AAAAAAAAAHo/xpEQ9VgxmPcgtA839PDZw8k5IzCXgTZ1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/cpacremoval%2B2.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9vVuJspYIn4/XZDhdQsha-I/AAAAAAAAAH0/3-QkfEVlANceiucuyxq2fu8TxXIAWJGJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/dismissalof%2Bmarshall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1229" data-original-width="1600" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9vVuJspYIn4/XZDhdQsha-I/AAAAAAAAAH0/3-QkfEVlANceiucuyxq2fu8TxXIAWJGJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/dismissalof%2Bmarshall.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I find Gail Martin’s Editorial to be absolutely excellent. It covers so many of the plain, simple, and clear truths. CPAC, Pat, and Susan had no legitimate or honest reason to give me the boot. Dissent or disagreement is not a crime. Neither is ruffling feathers or even irritating people. In the context of public consultation, these differences should not be reason to remove someone from a volunteer committee whose mandate is an environmental cleanup to protect public health. Certain designated and elected people felt unpopular opinions or ones that create strong debate are not welcome at CPAC. As stated by Gail, “nice, peaceful meetings” are not and should not be the primary goal of CPAC despite the wishes of Pat McLean, Susan Bryant, and Wilf Ruland. I have one objection to Ms. Martin’s Editorial and that is characterizing me as a “critic of CPAC”. I am an unrepentant critic of Chemtura, the MOE, CRA, and others whose self-serving interests lead them down the garden path of fictional facts and highly truth challenged statements.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 9<br /><br />114 Letter to the Editor, Woolwich Observer, May 3, 2008<br /><br />115 Scott Arnold, “The View From Here”, Woowich Observer, April 2008<br /><br />116 Gail Martin, “Dismissal of Marshall is troubling”, Elmira Independent, March 2008<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-35687866692701682762023-12-19T11:14:00.000-08:002023-12-19T11:14:34.366-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_30.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2498466143469122842" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Ten:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />87 ....Henry, the Quiet Heart and Soul of Public Participation<br /><br />91.....Have I Been Suckered<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 10<br /><br />Henry, the Quiet Heart and Soul of Public Participation<br /><br />I want to share another of Dr. Henry Regier’s treatises this one dated November 19, 2007 titled, “What Goes Around, Comes Around.” In hindsight I certainly chuckle at Dr. Regier’s choice of title. Ms. Mclean and Ms. Bryant got a taste of their own medicine in 2011 although none of us could possibly have known that in late 2007 and early 2008. Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean were somewhat restored onto the committee dealing with Chemtura/Lanxess in 2015 namely TAG, but they have not had any in-charge position since 2010.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND.<br /><br />Henry Regier, 19 November 2007<br /><br /><br />Please note: The contents of this aide memoire relate to the soil and water aspects associated with Naugatuck-Uniroyal Chemical-Crompton-Chemtura site over the decades and not, in any obvious way, to surface water and stream-related issues, to atmospheric issues, to accidents on site etc.<br /><br />The current mini-crisis at CPAC concerning Alan Marshall's steadfastness in his ethical commitments may have echoes from an earlier crisis about fifteen years ago. At that earlier crisis, Alan and some of his colleagues were <i>boldly and rudely confrontational</i>, BARC, in their campaign to correct the environmental abuses above, on, under, near and down-gradient of the Naugatuck-Uniroyal Chemical-Crompton-Chemtura site. Alan was originally a member of APTE which had more members who were <i>politely if resolutely persuasive</i>, PIRP, in their behaviour.<br /><br />Alan and Rich Clausi, once members of APTE, teamed up with an out-of-town activist, Pat Potter, who had a richly deserved BARC reputation. She started her activism at Brock University where, about 30 years ago, she and colleague Mike Dickman sucessfully sued the government for not enforcing anti-pollution laws against a chemical plant which was polluting the Welland River near St. Catherines. So Alan and Rich with Esther Thur, and eventually I, joined Pat Potter's Environmental Hazards Team.<br /><br />Pat Potter was much appreciated by the experts and activists working under the aegis of the International Joint Commission remediating Areas of Concern. For example, she and colleagues created a map of contaminated hot spots in the Grand Valley none of which had been designated as an Area of Concern under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Technocrats working in government agencies and municipal councillors in company towns like Elmira may have been unenthusiastic about her <i>BARCing</i> behaviour.<br /><br />There may still be members of CPAC who find Alan's <i>BARCing</i> insufferable. I don't; rather I find him a loveable and considerate person but one who simply won't tolerate unethical injustices nor the behaviour of credentialed persons who work to impede recognition and correction of such injustices.(Generally, technocrats ignore the issue of injustice.) Some members of our municipal government may still be comfortable with the waning features of old governance traditions of Elmira as a "company town". (This clearly wouldn't include Sylvia Berg who, years ago, as a municipal councillor combated the company.) Since the 1940s, Elmira has been-to a gradually diminishing degree-a company town "managed" to an important if diminishing extent by our branch plant of an American multi-national corporation. To refer openly to this rather obvious and odious fact is taken to be rude in Elmira's polite society, into which I was never inducted,alas.<br /><br />The approach of some of the municipal old guard (emphatically not all) has been to "Manage the contaminant issue politically", for example , by trying to keep information about the contaminant issue out of the media and out of the public eye. Also most of them choose to remain uninformed about the issue, perhaps to safeguard a commitment to "plausible deniability" in case any serious accident were to occur. "I was never informed and, in any case, I have no legal responsibility.") For these folks, Alan's <i>BARCing</i> may be particularly offensive. Hence an interest by some to get him off CPA?<br /><br />Some members of APTE with PIRP predilictions have found Wilf Ruland's way of operating congenial. Wilf, who lives near Dundas, has an advanced degree in hydrology from the University of Waterloo where he studied with the justly reputed John Cherry. Wilf has been an on-again, off-again consultant with CPAC for some 15 years. His service on particular soil and water issues have usually been triggered by Susan Bryant as the leader of APTE. Perhaps Susan brought in Wilf, on occasion, to trump the advice that the other members of the S & W SubCttee generated through intense discussions. I have never seen a document that specifies Wilf's responsibilities at Elmira and I don't know how his services are assessed for purposes of compensation.<br /><br />Though I was raised as a PIRP and have no real talent for <i>BARC</i> behaviour, I have had trouble understanding and relating to Wilf's modus operandi. In a PIRP -kind of way, Wilf may have his own rude and insulting features. It seems to me that his role could have been to assist the S & W sub-Cttee, to complement the combined expertise and understanding of its members and to correct inevitable mistakes during prior discussion and then to help make the SubCttee's case more reliable and credible at CPAC. But he has seldom played a role like that. During CPAC meetings he has distanced himself from the oral contributions of Fred Hager, Alan Marshall and myself as members of that SubCttee, and has taken alternative positions; but not always. Usually he has not interacted directly with us (i.e. Fred, Alan and me) and may not even have read our written documentation prepared for CPAC. He seems to be confident that his opinion trumps that of the SubCttee and its individual members. In his interventions at CPAC it has sometimes been obvious that he had less knowledge than Fred and Alan about details of the contaminated complex of pits, groundwater, aquifers and aquitards. So his main role as consultant/advisor to CPAC seems not to have been to focus on the technical details of the contaminant problem. Instead it seems to have served as a kind of "all-round kind of fixer". From on-going interactions with MOE and consultant technocrats in various contexts and his experience with "management" of other contaminated lands and waters, he has some informal understanding of the real-time conventions related to practical, legal and bureaucratic aspects on problems like those we have with soil and water contamination in Elmira. Perhaps in an attempt to cajole a cooperative stance on the part of the technocrats, his modus operandi seems to be to stop any <i>BARCing</i> by Alan or me and to speak soothingly to any MOE or Company technocrat that might feel affronted. Perhaps he tries to use his pragmatic expertise to finesse incrementally more thorough and better action jointly by MOE and the Company concerning contaminants than would be the case than what one or more CPAC members could achieve on their own. If perish the thought!, there happened to be a struggle of personal wills between personalities with <i>PIRP</i> versus others with <i>BARC</i> predilictions on CPAC, then Wilf could be hired to buttress the interests of those with PIRP behaviour and trump what the <i>BARC</i> scoundrels had to say.<br /><br />One of the differences in past years between the PIRP and the BARC factions on the S & W SubCttee related to the long-term fate of the contaminants under the site of the Company's plant. Regardless of what MOE's Control Order stipulated, PIRP members in APTE only committed to <i>containment</i> of extant contaminants within a volume of aquifers and aquitards below the ground water layer and within the geographic and lateral boundaries of the site. BARC members campaigned for containment plus physical removal (source removal) of contaminated hotspots such as pools of DNAPL where that could be done in a cost-effective way, i.e. if it would not bankrupt the Company. Years ago John Cherry, Wilf's mentor in graduate school, had sided with the <i>containment</i> option but more recently Cherry and his colleague Beth Parker have campaigned publicly for <i>source removal</i>, as above. With this change of mind by Cherry and Parker, CPAC's <i>PIRP</i> members, and perhaps Wilf as well, may be in a gradual change of mind process on this point. That Alan Marshall has been correct on this point all these years may not have endeared Alan to the <i>PIRP</i>s.<br /><br />Coming to the near past, my membership in CPAC lapsed last year and I have not tried to stay current with all that has been happening since then. I sat in on a CPAC meeting a couple of months ago where the issue of selecting wells to monitor the effects of pumping of onsite wells as part of the containment commitment came up for discussion. At that time Eric Hodgins intervened orally with comments about selection of monitoring wells. Pat McLean as Chair permitted me to make a comment along the following lines: "In view of the hydrological complexity under the site, inappropriate (perhaps intentional) selection of wells could lead to misleading or meaningless data; proper selection was a difficult task." But it seems that the Company proceeded carelessly, i.e. without due diligence, in this responsibility, as Alan found when he looked carefully at the wells that the Company had subsequently proposed and had endorsed by the Ministry. That the Ministry did not exercise due diligence in this case seems obvious. Due diligence is both a legal issue and a responsibility of professional ethics.<br /><br />Interesting things happened with respect to CPAC dynamics since then. I don't know all of the details. One that I found particularly surprising was that a CPAC meeting was convened to which Alan was deliberately not invited; any decision bys uch a meeting would presumably be set aside if Alan were to appeal under due process considerations, if due process conventions are of any concern to other CPAC members. Also the Ministry was apparently advised that CPAC had no objections to the Company's proposed monitoring wells when Alan clearly had objections; the Ministry issued a Certificate of Approval forthwith. So Alan chose to refer the issue for official review. Taking into consideration the way Alan has been treated by some members of CPAC and by Wilf Ruland and that the Ministry had signed the Certificate of Approval, I may well have supported Alan's decision to go for official review, had he asked me.<br /><br />With respect to Alan's appeal for an official review, he invited me to sit in on two meetings concerning the specific and general shortcomings that he found in the details of the signed Certificate of Approval: one meeting on October 30 at Chemtura and one in the Municipal Council Chambers on November 13. I noted some interesting parallels:<br /><br />-Pat McLean assumed the chair/convenor role in the first meeting and Wilf Ruland assumed the chair/convenor role in the second meeting. In view of the fact that each had publicly exhibited animus toward Alan I wondered how each could imagine the s/he could fairly exercise the responsibilities of a chair. Perhaps they had no such intention? And, in my judgement, on balance these meetings were conducted unfairly toward Alan.<br /><br />-Immediately after a meeting got started, the convenor began to interfere in Alan's occasional <i>BARCing </i>though every person present must already have been inured to it because of past experience. So I wondered whether these continued interventions were intended, in part, to harass Alan in order to disorient him.<br /><br />-After Alan got through the first two items on his agenda, which took about an hour at each meeting, each convenor tried to end the meeting. At least, their behaviours were like that typical of a chair/convenor at the close of a meeting. I wondered whether the convenors were trying to achieve a token compromise: give Alan a few face-saving crumbs in return for his withdrawal of his appeal. Of course Alan ignored the end-of-meeting shuffle of papers and glance at the clock., and proceeded with the remaining items of his agenda.<br /><br />-A difference between the convenors: Wilf Ruland had met previously with Alan to examine Alan's objections in detail and said or implied that some of Alan's points might merit further consideration by the Company and Ministry, so I understand from Alan. So at the second meeting Wilf tried to wheedle concurrence from the Company and Ministry that some of what Alan had to say could be accommodated, perhaps by incremental revisions of the signed Certificate of Approval. I saw some body English on the part of some Company persons indicating modest interest but none on the part of the Ministry.<br /><br />-At the first meeting after the first two items of Alan's agenda had been processed, the convenor suggested that the Company's Consultants consider Alan's arguments and provide information in response. I didn't hear whether she specified a time for delivery of such comments. The Company's new plant manager, Dmitri Makaros, was sitting beside me, and he interjected that the Company would also need to have those comments. I don't know the current status of any such comments.<br /><br />-At the end of the first meeting, when Alan had completed most of his agenda, the convenor looked angry and flushed while she tried to conclude the meeting by re-iterating a request that the Company respond to Alan's first two agenda items, and continued with emphasis that the comments were intended for Alan. At this point Sandy Shantz intervened with a question about the status of Alan's remaining items; I didn't hear the convenor's response to Sandy Shantz, if in fact the convenor made a response.<br /><br />-At the second meeting, in spite of some apparent effort by the convenor to get at least a few incremental improvements in some details in the Certificate of Approval and of some apparent interest on the part of one of the Company's Consultants, any positive responsiveness withered as Alan continued. His demeanour on this occasion was less pronouncedly <i>BARK-like</i> than has sometimes been the case in CPAC meetings. About two hours after the meeting began, the convenor called a break. During the break the Company and its consultants seemed to have made a decision to stonewall the whole "settlement" issue, as was also the case with the Ministry. I don't know whether the Company, its Consultants and the Ministry consulted during the break: perhaps only a word or two in passing, if that. Later Alan stormed out of the meeting whereupon one of the Company's Consultants smiled broadly and the other looked pleasantly relieved. The convenor made a brief comment across the room to one of the Company persons, perhaps he said "I tried." The Company person responded with a friendly nod.<br /><br />-Retrospectively comparing and contrasting what happened at these two meetings, I wonder whether the two convenors had:<br />-planned a joint strategy to arrogate the role of chair;<br />-tried to contain, harass and perhaps disorient Alan;<br />-tried to limit the agenda of the meeting to only the first two or three items of Alan's agenda;<br />-tried to induce the Company and Ministry to respond favourably though only incrementally, to Alan's shortened list of concerns; and<br />-to induce Alan to withdraw his appeal.<br /><br />-If the above was the convenors' joint strategy, then Wilf in particular failed. Perhaps it was this failure which has irked Wilf most since it may relate to his future "saleability" as an "all-around fixer who can reliably deliver the goods".<br /><br />So now I list some questions that may be worth considering:<br /><br />1. Is there a power struggle between dominance -seeking personalities on CPAC that needs remediative attention?<br /><br />2. Is any lack of commitment to due process on the part of a Chair of any interest to CPAC members?<br /><br />3. What have been the terms of Wilf Ruland's consultancy role with respect to CPAC's/Woolwich concerns about soil-and-ground-water contamination in and around Elmira, and who holds Wilf Ruland accountable for services rendered?<br /><br />4. With consideration of how due process and other democratic conventions of CPAC have become "abridged" increasingly over recent years, culminating in the recent mess, was Alan justified in his official appeal?<br /><br />5. In view of the fact that the Ministry has repeatedly, with some exceptions, signed off on studies and proposals based on technical information that was obviously "extremely imperfect", does the Ministry have a written protocol concerning which kinds of issues it finds relatively important for which due diligence with respect to information "reliability" is practiced and others that are low priority for which information "reliablity" can be ignored? What specifically do their commitments to due diligence mean in this context?<br /><br />6. Considering the way Pat McLean and Wilf Ruland inserted themselves into the Settlement meeting procedures and then "managed" them, were those meetings actually valid?<br /><br />7. More broadly has the Company's change in plant managers brought with it changes to past commitments by a previous plant manager? I sensed behaviour on the part of the Company's representatives at these meetings that seemed different from what they used to be, say two years ago. Perhaps commitments to technical excellence have been relaxed?"<br /><br /><br /><br />I am completely in agreement with the overall findings and significant attitudes as presented by Henry Regier in his treatise. I felt that at both meetings members were strongly biased and that there were no serious attempts to resolve any problem. I believe that the various guilty parties from Pat McLean, Susan Bryant, CRA, Chemtura and the MOE had already decided their strategy and it simply entailed some window dressing in order to sell to the general public and the media the reasons for removing the best informed and by far most knowledgeable CPAC member. I do have two comments however. First Dr. Regier’s kind words for Sylvia Berg were based upon her later public, excellent, and critical comments towards Uniroyal and Crompton on matters such as the LNAPL pool floating on the water table as well as on other issues. Henry was not living in Elmira in late 1993 and January 1994 when Sylvia successfully inspired the departure of three outstanding members from APT Environment namely Richard Clausi, Esther Thur, and me. That nasty behaviour critically damaged both APT as well as the public interest, and hurt the three.<br /><br />Second, I do respect the timing of Henry’s treatise of November 19, 2007. It is possible that my recollection of the two meetings, the one at Chemtura and the second in Council Chambers with several council members, is different to Henry’s on some details. For example, while either Pat McLean or Wilf Ruland could have chaired the meeting at Chemtura, I am surprised if Wilf Ruland had actually chaired. I remember being in council chambers, and that the meeting was to ostensibly mediate a peaceful settlement between myself and CPAC. It is also possible that Henry is describing a different, second meeting in council chambers rather than the one that I have described in Chapter Nine. Unless further honest evidence clarifies this, I will accept Henry’s more immediate written recollections.<br /><br />Henry after adding his observations and opinions into the mix in early November 2007, then wrote another treatise in early April 2008 after Woolwich Council councillors Murray Martin, Sandy Shantz and mayor Bill Strauss made their Chemtura-centric decision to remove me from CPAC. Later, facts elucidate that old joke about not knowing who is on each team without a written roster.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-82egS3z-Vuo/XZJ7W-X5u3I/AAAAAAAAAKI/MPxxqzCXDqwGDkiEhkLEjJEZjeVUm5JGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-82egS3z-Vuo/XZJ7W-X5u3I/AAAAAAAAAKI/MPxxqzCXDqwGDkiEhkLEjJEZjeVUm5JGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B1.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-46A1Q3PA-6o/XZJ8JUskWiI/AAAAAAAAAKY/cCHS22OV67gWUdqcSSsSMMzwpcnOjTslwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-46A1Q3PA-6o/XZJ8JUskWiI/AAAAAAAAAKY/cCHS22OV67gWUdqcSSsSMMzwpcnOjTslwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B2.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s2hXxcOIVVo/XZJ8Mg88UXI/AAAAAAAAAKc/Pm3EuEK7_fM7UHDsA2BsUZhutKBNFCrewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s2hXxcOIVVo/XZJ8Mg88UXI/AAAAAAAAAKc/Pm3EuEK7_fM7UHDsA2BsUZhutKBNFCrewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2uNFJIrP4U/XZJ8PWly6cI/AAAAAAAAAKg/DUafkZZ3r3worCzcR3uCm1YDoIKXDucTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1235" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2uNFJIrP4U/XZJ8PWly6cI/AAAAAAAAAKg/DUafkZZ3r3worCzcR3uCm1YDoIKXDucTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f4gQdfysdyc/XZJ8Rhy8j1I/AAAAAAAAAKk/5Z_PZgpBj6cOH4ZRBx7bUgaULwZrQBg8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f4gQdfysdyc/XZJ8Rhy8j1I/AAAAAAAAAKk/5Z_PZgpBj6cOH4ZRBx7bUgaULwZrQBg8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dM-V3bqSbo4/XZJ8UE0w0QI/AAAAAAAAAKo/dwt4nfL8GbIerk9TPqC8V-qDPkHR9szXgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Page%2B6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1235" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dM-V3bqSbo4/XZJ8UE0w0QI/AAAAAAAAAKo/dwt4nfL8GbIerk9TPqC8V-qDPkHR9szXgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Page%2B6.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qLRamhtMIsg/XZJ8Wmds3aI/AAAAAAAAAKs/y5almgNEIhQGXGSyouUxy9zLMWZFO5u_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qLRamhtMIsg/XZJ8Wmds3aI/AAAAAAAAAKs/y5almgNEIhQGXGSyouUxy9zLMWZFO5u_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B7.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ltEp9XVD5GA/XZJ8Y86GFrI/AAAAAAAAAKw/j6zD3unfwJUwsNLRZTkUG-O7i3n0Psz5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ltEp9XVD5GA/XZJ8Y86GFrI/AAAAAAAAAKw/j6zD3unfwJUwsNLRZTkUG-O7i3n0Psz5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B8.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ebykw44KGC8/XZJ8bqph0aI/AAAAAAAAAK0/HRhGq6p4OTgqLrXRMWsHRYqz2kIiFv3rgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1234" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ebykw44KGC8/XZJ8bqph0aI/AAAAAAAAAK0/HRhGq6p4OTgqLrXRMWsHRYqz2kIiFv3rgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/page%2B9.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br />I have always enjoyed Dr. Regier’s writing as well as his observations of people’s adherence to democratic institutions and protocols. I suspect that I’ve always taken them for granted and really never realized that there are individuals for whom rules and procedures are simply tools to use to avoid informed debate. Henry provides an assessment of the manipulation and deception that went on within CPAC and UPAC for many years. His descriptions of Ms. McLean’s and Ms. Bryant’s bizarre behaviours are particularly informative and eye- opening. His much quicker than mine understanding that an executive committee of some kind had usurped the authority of CPAC is an indication of his superior understanding of how a minority of individuals who are so willing and intent can manipulate a larger body to their will. Dr. Regier is a scientist with the heart of both a humanist and a political scientist. He knows what is and what is not proper. Speaking of Dr. Regier's humanity, he made a very rare mistake. The University of Waterloo professors were Dr. Beth Parker as Henry stated however it was Dr. John Cherry not John Power.<br /><br />Individuals with brass and nerve along with a shortage of ethics and morals really have no problem with deceiving and manipulating larger groups of people. I believe that most of us are inherently decent and honest in our interrelationships and respect the truth. Those for whom the truth is flexible and who believe that lying is simply a method to obtain their goals think nothing of lying. The smarter ones are careful and can go for incredible lengths of time while manipulating facts and people constantly. They especially know how to say what seems like the right things, in front of the right people, at the right times. They are essentially politicians who are always searching for ways to get and keep their positions of power and influence. They are masters of conning people and take quiet pride in those accomplishments. Most normal people would be appalled and ashamed to behave in such a manner.<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-71051335706138497302023-12-19T10:57:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:57:26.644-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5548928143385719779" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br /><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Eleven:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />102 ....Disappointing Times<br /><br />104 ....Past Cover ups Come Back to Haunt the MOE<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 11<br /><br />Disappointing Times<br /><br />The rest of 2008 and into 2009 were not CPAC’s brightest moments. The so- called hydraulic containment of the on-site municipal aquifers was horrible especially during 2008. This was exactly what I had foreseen and it could have been avoided if Pat McLean and Susan Bryant hadn’t played CPAC and CPAC hadn’t fallen for the nonsense, hook, line and sinker.117 Their strengths combined with Ron Ormston, Gerry Heidebuurt, Henry Regier, mine, and the other CPAC members gave CPAC a fighting chance for greater success against Chemtura, the MOE, Conestoga Rovers, Woolwich Council, etc. Most importantly, Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean undermined citizen solidarity. Sylvia Berg with Susan Bryant’s knowledge had undermined APT by manipulating the departure of Rich Clausi, Esther Thur and I in January 1994 over the DNAPL issue. On their own, Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean made poor decisions not in the public interest. They were so caught up in the hurry up and wait syndrome combined with their own belief in their inherent superiority to make tough decisions that they made serious mistakes often to the benefit of Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura. The hurry up and wait syndrome was typical of the company representatives. They would make members of CPAC and the public literally wait for decades for action but feedback to them had to be yesterday, otherwise they’d claim dire consequences always loomed. Two very bad poker players were bluffed into some really bad decisions. Not surprisingly their later political friend, Sandy Shantz, was of the same ilk. Ms. Shantz also ridiculously felt that the polluter should make all the decisions. Again unsurprisingly those decisions were far more often in the polluter’s best interests, not the public’s.<br /><br />The pumping rate in the municipal aquifer (MU) was awful from May 2007 until November 2008 for both on and off the Chemtura site. Some might even wonder if Pat McLean’s and Susan Bryant’s backstabbing was as much to create a diversion as it was to allow their continued dominance in CPAC decision- making. Certainly, after the fact, everyone was all over Chemtura for that lost year and a half of both on-site and off-site containment and treatment. For a short period of time, suggestions were made that MOE officials might charge Chemtura management for failing to meet its commitments. Of course when the MOE allows those commitments to be no more than “best efforts,” then they’ve already handcuffed themselves. Please understand that Chemtura’s pumping rates were already in the toilet a few months prior to the manufactured CPAC crisis starting in September 2007. Also of interest is the fact that the cold winter months at the end of 2007 and start of 2008 made little or no difference to the summer pumping rates when it should have. That was odd considering that allegedly ammonia concentrations were only a problem to Creek biota in the warmer summer months hence causing effluent pumping reductions. This was neither the first nor the last time such a manufactured crisis was used to further Uniroyal/Chemtura’s interests. Essentially when 75% of the parties and individuals are corrupted, co-opted or simply uninformed in a process, it becomes extraordinarily difficult for the remainder to make progress, no matter how much the others pretend to be on side.<br /><br />A pattern began to emerge in regards to new members on CPAC started earlier with the positive additions of Ron Ormston and Gerry Heidebuurt. In November 2009, friends of Susan Bryant were appointed to CPAC. Two were unremarkable and did not stay as members for long. A third turned out to be more interested in loyalty to Susan than in learning what Chemtura and CPAC were all about. The fourth new member, probably not a friend of Susan’s, was the best of the bunch and that was Ken Driedger, the pastor of Zion Mennonite Church in Elmira. He and Gerry Heidebuurt were a definite loss when they were not reappointed to CPAC in 2011 by mayor Todd Cowan. The jury for me is still out in regards to Ron Ormston. Technically he was very solid but where he stood in regards to Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant and the proper democratic operation of a committee, I am not sure. I had advised Todd Cowan in early 2011 to reappoint both Ken Driedger and Gerry Heidebuurt to no avail.<br /><br />In the November 18, 2009 edition of the Elmira Independent, Gail Martin, editor, wrote an excellent Editorial titled “Remembering Elmira’s water crisis”. Five people were given credit for their efforts to assist in the restoration of the local environment in Elmira as well as downstream in the Canagagigue Creek namely: myself, Richard Clausi, Dr. Henry Regier, and Esther Thur - all members of the Elmira Environmental Hazards Team and Susan Bryant of APT Environment.118 While the recognition was nice I found it revealing that 100% of the former APT members, now EH-Team, were all recognized while only one current APT member was.<br /><br />The Elmira Independent carried an article in the October 21, 2009 edition titled, “Second source of contamination: Marshall.” I presented a Delegation to the October 5, 2009 CPAC meeting on the matter. In the presentation I stated that I believed other companies in addition to Uniroyal closer to the south wellfield contaminated the drinking wells with NDMA. I specifically mentioned monitoring well CH38 near Industrial Drive as having NDMA readings much higher than other wells closer to the Uniroyal Chemical property. Gail Martin quoted me as naming several likely candidates that included Sanyo (slim evidence), Borg Textiles (more evidence), and Varnicolor Chemical (highest evidence). The article also mentioned that I had brought this information to Woolwich Council as well as to (CELA) the Canadian Environmental Law Association.119<br /><br />A proposed residential development, Hawk Ridge Homes, first appeared on both CPAC’s and the public’s radar in the fall of 2009. The premise was simple. The chair of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ken Seiling, I have been told did not change the zoning in this area next to Chemtura and Sulco from residential to commercial years past when he was the mayor of the Town of Elmira. Now, of course, politics being what they are, Mr. Seiling may have had several other conflicting circumstances or Woolwich councillors blocking a directive from the province of Ontario advising municipalities to keep residential zones away from chemical facilities. The fact that it was his mother-in-law who owned the apple orchard that went to his wife after his mother-in-law passed on and was then sold to Hawk Ridge Developments may have been embarrassing for him. Chemtura, Sulco, and Woolwich Township were all in opposition to this property being developed into a residential subdivision because the land is in the “kill zone” of the Worst Case Scenario release of anhydrous ammonia by Chemtura. After a few years the issue went to the Ontario Municipal Board who astoundingly to me and others denied approval of the subdivision not because of the life and death safety issues of being beside two chemical companies but because of middle of the night noise from the shunting of rail cars at either Chemtura Canada or Sulco Chemicals. Go figure. Noise pollution trumps death threats. To this day this development project hasn’t been killed, merely wounded and delayed, and round two is still expected likely in 2019.<br /><br />Since 2005 and as mentioned earlier I had been keeping an eye on a horrific environmental issue in Cambridge, Ontario in the Bishop Street community. Several hundred homes downgradient from Northstar Aerospace and General Electric (formerly Rozell) had been affected by vapour intrusion into their basements from trichloroethylene (TCE) spilled or dumped decades earlier. Several of the residents had attended an earlier CPAC meeting to learn about DNAPLS of which TCE is one. I was aware that In-Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) was used in Cambridge as a form of source removal at the industrial sites. Basically, ISCO could chemically break down chlorinated solvents in the subsurface. In Elmira, several different DNAPLS exist underground including chlorobenzene. I brought this information to the attention of CPAC via a Delegation to them and neither they nor Chemtura and the MOE appeared the least bit interested. Strangely enough a few short years later Chemtura Canada trumpeted ISCO as a method they were going to attempt to speed up the cleanup of the off-site aquifers. Of course with Chemtura Canada and the MOE, talk was always cheap. Now in late 2018 they still haven’t managed to get ISCO treatment successfully underway.<br /><br />An article in the November 25, 2009 edition of the Elmira Independent raised concerns about a number of monitoring wells that Chemtura Canada wished to drop from regular monitoring. For Chemtura Canada it was strictly a cost- saving mechanism as there was little or no rationale provided for the removal of these monitoring wells. CPAC kept delaying on formally commenting because Wilf Ruland, was out of the country and CPAC members apparently weren’t capable of commenting themselves. I was quite capable of so doing based on my ongoing reading of both Chemtura Monthly Progress Reports as well as of the Annual Monitoring Report. From those reports I knew full well which monitoring wells provided consistent and accurate groundwater concentration data. Unfortunately, as I had been removed by Woolwich councillors from CPAC, all parties then refused to give me the list of proposed wells for removal in a timely manner. That seems to be what public consultation looks like in Woolwich Township. I call it dog in the manger behaviour by Pat McLean and Susan Bryant.120<br /><br />At the March 29, 2010 CPAC meeting CPAC and the public were advised that DNAPL remediation would be yet again put on hold. I was quoted as telling CPAC members that as long as you are willing to sit and talk nicely with Chemtura Canada that is exactly what they will do. Uniroyal/Chemtura representatives do not talk, bargain, or negotiate in good faith. Public consultation in Elmira seems to be about going through the motions for the company and the MOE. Chemtura Canada are masters of the delay and do nothing strategy, because it saves them money.<br /><br />On April 28, 2010, Mike Hicknell of Elmira sent a Letter To The Editor (Woolwich Observer) asking why the town of Elmira historically gets all the problem sites. He referenced Uniroyal, Varnicolor, Nutrite, slot machines, and finally, the proposed new bio-gas installation at the north end of town. He asked why Elmira residents don’t tell these industries to get lost. He also asked whether “…smart business people know they can always get their way and do what they want in Elmira."121 Mr. Hicknell appeared to feel that our local council was less concerned with existing residents and more concerned with a larger tax base irrelevant of future environmental and social problems.<br /><br />Past Cover ups Come Back to Haunt the MOE<br /><br />The Elmira Independent published an article in its March 17, 2010 edition titled “Deep monitoring wells required on former Varnicolor property.” Approximately nineteen years after the MOE laid a control order on Varnicolor in 1991 demanding deep monitoring and a deep investigation, MOE officials were ordering the current owners (Three Eights Inc.) to do so.122 At the current time the company is better known as the Elmira Pump Co. This article follows my public comments in October 2009 that there were other sources of contamination to the Elmira Aquifers. Time since then has only reinforced those claims although the MOE and other authorities refuse to advise the public regarding these other local polluters.<br /><br />Wally Ruck of Uniroyal infamy said in 1989 that “NDMA is not in our vocabulary.” He and others employed by Uniroyal were lambasted in various media for that ridiculous comment as it was later proven that Uniroyal had found NDMA at extremely high levels in its wastewater in 1979, ten years previously. Uniroyal and the MOE also had found it in the air surrounding their facilities many years beforehand and they both knew it was a health concern.<br /><br />Similarly, the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE) claimed ignorance of NDMA in 1989. They claimed that September 1989 was the very first time they had ever tested for it in Elmira drinking wells. MOE officials claimed that they had no drinking water standard for it. They claimed that it was some recently discovered industrial chemical and that they had no experience or knowledge with it whatsoever. Some of their comments were falsehoods. That makes me wonder how many other comments were.<br /><br />NDMA is known as N-Nitrosodimethylamine as well as dimethylnitrosamine. Both are one and the same. Both are known to be highly carcinogenic. Some scientists including Dr. William Lejinsky from Maryland, USA have referred to NDMA as being just about the most carcinogenic compound there is. That’s quite a claim with stiff competition from dioxins and PCBs.<br /><br />In the summer of 2018 Mike Hicknell gave me a copy of a booklet that the MOE published in November, 1978 titled “Water Management Goals, Policies, Objectives and Implementation Procedures of the Ministry of the Environment.” Harry Parrot was the Minister of the Environment.<br /><br />Page 45 of this booklet lists chemicals with zero tolerance limits. They include DDT, PCBs, PBBs, mercury and mirex. To this day, DDT, PCBs, and mercury can be found the length of the Cangagigue Creek below the Lanxess (Uniroyal) site. It is possibe mirex exists in low quantities there too. Additionally dioxins/furans exist in the creek. Lots of them. Not to worry, however, as the MOE have since raised the allowable limits in surface water. What was a zero tolerance level by the MOE in 1978 now appears too onerous for some manufacturers to comply with and apparently MOE officials to enforce.<br /><br />Page 50 of this MOE booklet contains a list of “Herbicides Actively Used in Ontario.” The chemical compound 2,4,5-T is on that list, which is known as 2,4,5 trichlorophenoxyacetic acid. It contains as a by-product of manufacture the most toxic dioxin there is: tetrachlorodibenzodioxin or 2,3,7,8 TCDD. This dioxin is the toxic ingredient in the infamous herbicide, Agent Orange that Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira produced and sold to the U.S. military and others in Canada and the U.S. Here in Ontario it was sprayed along power corridors and highways from the 1950s to the 1970s.<br /><br />Finally on page 48, there is a listing of substances with undefined tolerance limits. The list includes Dimethylnitrosamine (NDMA) and describes it thusly: “used in herbicides and cutting oils – identified as mutagenic and carcinogenic.”<br /><br />In 1978 (and likely earlier) the Ontario MOE knew that Uniroyal had been manufacturing herbicides since the late 1940s or early 1950s and that NDMA would be found in the products and/or waste waters. Allegedly they didn’t think to test Elmira’s drinking water for another eleven years. Uniroyal had been testing its waste waters for NDMA at least since 1979. Did the MOE knowingly look the other way while Uniroyal poisoned the water supply in Elmira? Did their lack of a standard allow Uniroyal to profit for an additional decade or longer while handing out death sentences to some Elmira residents? Do we, the public, allow corporate murder for profit?<br /><br />I believe that David Brenneman, Chief Administrative Officer of Woolwich Township, is a part of the problem. Many years ago I approached him both by phone and in writing for information from Woolwich Township regarding the incidents of solvents in the Howard Street storm drains. A formal investigation by the Township was conducted in 1983 and allegedly nothing could be proven as to the source although Varnicolor Chemical was the focus of the investigation. These incidents of solvents in the storm drains in the early 1980s, running between Varnicolor Chemical and Borg Textiles on Howard Street and their discharge point, Landfill Creek which empties into the Canagagigue Creek occurred a number of times. Mr. Brenneman intentionally stalled and delayed providing me the reports for many months with no follow up or response and then pulled his usual figurative whining and crying that I was rude to him when I demanded an answer. What an arse. Sorry David, I keep forgetting that I seem to be the one in public service and that I report to you not the other way around.<br /><br />In hindsight, I ask why would Borg Textiles send any of its liquid wastes through the storm sewers when they had a perfectly good creek (Landfill Creek) running through the back (south end) of its property that discharged directly into the Canagagigue Creek ? The surface topography of the Borg site means that all waters flow south into Landfill Creek. Furthermore the storm sewer on Howard Avenue is on the north side of the street. To this day there are catch basins (grates) on both the Elmira Theatre Company property next door to the former Varnicolor site as well as on the Elmira Pump Co. property, which is the former Varnicolor site. Over the years I thought it would have been almost impossible for Borg to discharge high strength liquid wastes into the Howard Street storm drains without running a hose across the road and into the catch basins, whereas it would have been simplicity itself for Varnicolor to do so on its own property. Recently, however, I have observed a catch basin not on the south side of Howard Avenue but actually on the former Borg Textile site quite close to Howard Avenue. The catch basin is actually at the north-east corner of Borg’s former site. Old maps showing the odourous and discoloured liquids position also indicate the down gradient location of these observations as being on the south side of Howard Avenue. I had assumed that there was simply a pipe underneath Howard Avenue, east of Union Street, which transported storm water from the north side to the south side. Is it possible that this catch basin at the north-east corner of Borg is directly connected to the catch basin on the Township’s south side of Howard Avenue, east of Union Street? If so as seems certainly plausible this might indeed indicate that Borg, not Varnicolor, was responsible for the chlorobenzene in the Howard Avenue storm sewers. Of course with authorities from Woolwich Township and the MOE routinely refusing ready access to the public of taxpayer funded documents, it obscures the truth which is likely their intent after all.<br /><br />Regardless as to the responsibility of Borg, there are issues with the lack of chlorobenzene found on the Varnicolor site. Chlorobenzene is one of the solvents found in the Howard Street storm sewer in the early 1980s. Several rounds of monitoring, both private and MOE, apparently never found chlorobenzene on the Varnicolor site. This finding is suspicious due to the fact that chlorobenzene is a common solvent used to remove or clean-up spilled paints. Varnicolor was a solvent recycler as well as a hazardous waste disposal site. So, did the MOE fudge the samples they sent to the lab? Did they fudge the written reports afterward and replace detections with non-detects (ND), knowing that any detections of chlorobenzene would both likely prove Varnicolor’s guilt in the early 1980s regarding the contamination of the storm drains as well as implicate the Varnicolor owner with the Elmira Water Crisis? Chlorobenzene is a major compound contaminating the Elmira Aquifers. I have already discussed that the MOE was desperate to cover up the extent of Varnicolor’s pollution on both of their sites to minimize their negligence and incompetence as well as to put and keep the much larger and financially capable Uniroyal Chemical on the hook to pay for clean-up.<br /><br />In my discussions of past cover-ups returning to haunt the MOE, I remind readers that the MOE, despite the changes in personnel, seemed consistent in covering up the extent of remediation needed on the old Varnicolor site since 1993. Extensive shallow excavations were done across the site. Those excavations looked impressive. Despite the initial control order demanding it, deep testing never occurred or if it did occur was never reported to the Varnicolor Liason Committee, of which I was a member. If the data was given to either Susan Bryant or Sylvia Berg then they buried it because Richard Clausi, Ted Oldfield, and I never saw it. Another extremely painful thought is that the removal of deep soil and groundwater testing from the Varnicolor control order, while done without the prior knowledge or consent of Richard, Ted or I, may have been done with the private consent of two other APT members. This is the insidious nature of back room deal making.<br /><br />Finally, deep monitoring wells were ordered by the MOE at the expense of Elmira Pump in March 2010. Again the MOE are hiding and refusing to give the details of that information to the public. They are so far past being unreliable it is incredible. Even now they refuse to give Elmira Pump its Record of Site Condition (RSC) so that the owners can sub-divide the property and build commercial storage units on the surface of the site. I mentioned earlier that in May 2016 this RSC was allegedly imminent after the presentation of the results of a Risk Assessment. Nothing yet as of this publication.<br /><br />There might be one reason for all this subterfuge and that is that Varnicolor contributed NDMA and possibly chlorobenzene as well as at least a half dozen other toxic chemicals to the Elmira Aquifers, under the MOE’s watch. Bad enough the MOE couldn’t control Uniroyal a multi-national corporation, but they couldn’t even stop little, dinky Varnicolor. That reality is pathetic and that, folks, in my opinion is Ontario tax dollars at work - protecting industry, both large and small.<br /><br />The investigation of the contamination of the Howard Street storm sewers was primarily done by Varnicolor and its hired consultant, Canviro Inc. Exactly how objective do you think that investigation was? Most of the investigative activity it turns out occurred closer to 1986 to 87 and not in 1982 to 84 as I had formerly understood. Relative to the Howard Street storm sewers, an entire appendix as well as references exist in Canviro’s 1987 hydrogeological report regarding the Varnicolor Chemical groundwater situation. Canviro was a subsidiary of CH2MHILL Consulting who dropped Varnicolor as a client when the Region of Waterloo hired CH2MHILL to do extensive hydrogeological work for them after the start of the Elmira Water Crisis in 1989.<br /><br />Woolwich Townshp was involved in the Howard Street sewer investigation through the former Public Works Department. Employees provided information regarding drainage in the Howard Street and Union Street area as well as pipe connections from the Varnicolor property into the Howard Avenue storm sewers. Bill Kowalchuk, CAO for Woolwich Township, also was involved in defending Varnicolor and in an amazing coincidence was hired by Varnicolor approximately a year later after being fired by Woolwich Township. I learned that it was a firing by Woolwich Township rather than a voluntary leaving by someone reputedly in the know, and I’ve never heard the firing disputed.<br /><br />The excuses as to why Varnicolor didn’t contaminate these storm sewers came fast and furious from all parties with a vested interest in keeping Varnicolor’s, at the time, pristine reputation intact. This included the MOE. Then, after I blew the whistle on Varnicolor’s toxic waste management in 1990, the MOE continued their stalwart defence of Varnicolor for some reason. You know, it’s almost as if the MOE knew that an environmental day of reckoning was just around the corner and officials wanted no distractions from Uniroyal Chemical being made responsible for as much of the toxic mess as possible.<br /><br />Evidence of the illegal dumping included volumes of liquids in the storm sewers far beyond what should have been in them long after rainstorms. Officials as well as consultants felt that groundwater en masse had to be being directed into the Howard Street storm sewer. Perhaps what they didn’t consider was the possibility not just of contaminated groundwater from Varnicolor but outright intentional dumping. In other words, waste solvents and waters that owner Severin Argenton couldn’t recycle were nothing but an expense to him, unless he dumped them illegally. These solvents found in the Howard Street storm sewers at high concentrations were all solvents found as well in Varnicolor’s groundwater except for chlorobenzene. The solvents included 1,1 dichlorethane and 1,2 dichloroethane which the Canviro reports incorrectly stated weren’t in Varnicolor’s groundwater. They were, although they may have been found at a slightly later date, after the MOE tested the Varnicolor site.<br /><br />Regarding chlorobenzene, an innocuous solvent commonly found in paint thinners and other uses, I’ve never understood why along with the dozens to hundreds of other solvents found at Varnicolor, chlorobenzene allegedly was not. Either there is yet another source or as stated earlier, the MOE did some serious fudging of lab data and or reporting.<br /><br />This chapter has described what I view as a narrow and limited thinking on CPAC. Evidence of other sources abounded yet no citizens on CPAC seemed interested in pursuing them for the purpose of enhancing the overall clean-up of the Elmira Aquifers. After all simply hydraulically containing the Uniroyal site, in theory at least, would do nothing to stop the spread of contamination from multiple other sources around town. Also simply pumping and treating the aquifers outside the Uniroyal/Chemtura plant would also not stop ongoing new contamination in instances where DNAPLs were present. This included behind (west) Varnicolor Chemical and below Nutrite/Yara just to name two locations.<br /><br />The next chapter describes the environmental revolution that occurred in Elmira once the citizens cleaned out the bulk of the old guard on Woolwich Council. While nobody disputes Todd Cowan as a terribly flawed individual, he did at least set the stage for both an environmental turnaround and for public awareness as to the pro polluter partisanship of most of our old guard councillors, especially after Mr. Cowan’s brief tenure.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 11<br /><br />117 Letter To The Editor, “Ministry should lay charges”, Elmira Independent, December 3, 2008<br /><br />118 Gail Martin, Editorial, “Remembering Elmira’s water crisis”, Elmira Independent, November 18, 2009<br /><br />119 Gail Martin, “Second source of contamination: Marshall”, Elmira Independent, October 21, 2009<br /><br />120 Gail Martin, “Monitoring wells still in question”, Elmira Independent, November 25, 2009<br /><br />121 Letter To The Editor, “Why is Elmira unfairly targeted?”, Elmira Independent, April 28, 2010<br /><br />122 Gail Martin, “Deep monitoring wells required on former Varnicolor property”, Elmira Independent, March 17, 2010<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-90618595278895762482023-12-19T10:50:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:50:37.313-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-12-municipal-election-of.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-96451323057761559" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Twelve:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />107......Municipal Election of October 2010<br /><br />109......Old CPAC Takes a Hit From the New Council<br /><br />110......New CPAC Has Major Growing Pains<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 12<br /><br /><br />Municipal Election of October 2010<br /><br />What a massacre of the old order. Only Mr. Flip Flop, Mark Bauman, was re-elected although he received a stiff challenge from newcomer Eric Schwindt. Everybody else got the boot. Murray Martin, Ruby Weber, and Bill Strauss lost their council seats. Sandy did not run for extremely personal reasons which as we were still on good terms she had shared with me. Pat McLean ran for mayor against her old buddy Bill Strauss and they both lost to newcomer Todd Cowan. The new council therefore consisted of Todd Cowan, Allan Poffenroth, Mark Bauman, Julie-Anne Herteis and Bonnie Bryant.<br /><br />There were a number of factors leading to this sea change. I had been noticing the decline in environmental news coverage for many years. The Elmira Independent stalwartly covered CPAC meetings but the K-W Record, CKCO-TV News, and the Woolwich Observer had few articles or news stories concerning the environment in Elmira. With assistance from my daughter I started the Elmira Advocate blog (elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com) in May 2010. She showed me how to format it and get it off the ground. Almost immediately I received feedback, both positive and negative, about my environmental reporting, mostly on events as they pertain to Elmira and Woolwich Township. It seemed that a number of local parties with shameful environmental histories did not approve of their dirty laundry being aired on the Internet. It seemed that many people who were practitioners of the fine art of gossip and innuendo, especially behind their targets backs, were also upset. Some comments received on my blog were thoughtful and many were simply ignorant and or defensive. The masthead on my blog states: “Advocating for citizens of Woolwich Township with regards to the environment, groundwater, surface water, drinking water and contaminated industrial sites.”<br /><br />Over the course of the 2010 summer I had a few meetings and conversations with Todd Cowan, an old friend of Richard Clausi. Mr. Cowan advised us that he was running for mayor of Woolwich Township in the October 2010 municipal elections. He had a plan as to how to achieve the mayor’s seat. Richard assured me that Todd had political experience from having worked with the Liberal Party provincially as an administrative assistant to MPP Liz Sandals from Guelph and had worked in Toronto in that capacity.<br /><br />Mr. Cowan, it turned out, had learned that things were in very bad shape regarding Chemtura Canada and CPAC. Todd had learned some of this from David Marks, a hydrogeologist who worked in Guelph with R. J. Burnside Consultants. He also had had some conversations with Ron Campbell, an environmental professional living in Elmira. The impression I was given by Mr. Cowan was that Conestoga Rovers and Chemtura had been inadequately running the clean- up on their own and not in the public interest. Allegedly various informed and professional parties all knew this. Todd was convinced that with the current regime on CPAC there was virtually no hope of the 2028 Elmira groundwater clean-up deadline being achieved. The problem in hindsight was, of course, that Mr. Cowan was completely truth- challenged. He had promised me that he had both David Marks and Ron Campbell fully on board as members of the new CPAC that he, Todd Cowan, was going to appoint to replace the former one that Pat and Susan had been running from behind the scenes for a long time. This all sounded great to me. I was invited to join the new CPAC and accepted. It turned out nearly eight or nine months later that I learned that Todd had totally lied about having Ron Campbell on board. Regarding David Marks I am not sure.<br /><br />Todd had also mentioned some folks that he had been involved with who had concerns about a new company formed in Elmira to produce methane from food wastes. None of the names mentioned to me were at all familiar. Todd’s election plan involved a lot of shoe leather for him and he won handily. I was thrilled to see Bill Strauss, Pat McLean, and Murray Martin go down. While Ruby Weber and I had not seen eye to eye years earlier when she was part of the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC), nevertheless I had gained an appreciation of her work in regards to her support in the late 1990s regarding the Waterloo Region District School Board’s reprehensible behaviour and with her efforts to keep me on CPAC in late 2007 and early 2008.<br /><br />On September 27, 2010, barely a month before the municipal election, Chemtura messed up big time. They managed to release a combination of diphenylamine and acetone across a big chunk of Elmira. The actual product, a fugitive emission from a pressure vessel, was a batch of BLE-25. This product was released reportedly due to human error as the pressure built up much too high that in turn caused a rupture disc to do exactly what it was designed to do: It blew out, releasing the highly pressurized contents out of the vessel and sent them up a stack to the roof of the building where the chemical contents were released into the air. While these two chemicals were not acutely toxic neither were they good for anything or anybody. They had a sticky gooey texture which stuck to houses, cars, decks, outdoor patios, and furniture. The acetone, which is commonly used as nail polish remover, dissolved car paint finishes upon landing.<br /><br />Speaking of paint finishes, mayoralty candidate Todd Cowan had his vehicle liberally sprayed with BLE-25 when he was at work on Union St. near the Chemtura plant. We talked afterward on the phone and he was certainly not a happy camper. I had an idea and phoned reporter Jeff Outhit at the Record to give him Todd’s contact information. A large close-up picture of Todd and his damaged car appeared in the Record.123 That kind of free publicity you just can’t buy. Thank you Chemtura and the Record. Mr. Cowan, on the other hand, expressed his loyalty and appreciation to me in a somewhat different fashion six months later, despite knowing that I had seriously helped his campaign by giving Jeff Outhit his contact information and background.<br /><br />Chemtura immediately owned up to this mess that they had inflicted upon the long-suffering residents of Elmira. It seemed that, despite Chemtura Canada’s ownership and promises to clean up the damage they had caused, that Elmira folks at last had had enough. Recall that Uniroyal’s air emissions and the “Duke Street rowdies” had been a huge deal less than a decade earlier. People were still angry.<br /><br />I have said for decades that but for Uniroyal, Crompton and Chemtura screw ups, they could have gotten away with even more than they have. Fires, explosions, and fugitive emissions really are in people’s faces whereas ground and surface water contamination are mostly out of site. The Canagagigue Creek is on the east side of town once it is passes the former Uniroyal plant. Who’s immediately downstream? Mostly Old Order Mennonites who surely aren’t going to lodge any complaints with authorities.<br /><br />There was one other reason why Elmira residents were unhappy with Chemtura after BLE-25 was released and landed on houses, cars, and outdoor areas. Families with children playing outside and people were walking about conducting their business. Neither the town siren went off nor the automated phone warning system activated. Kari Rayner, a local resident, sent a Letter To The Editor of the Woolwich Observer advising that high school students on the football team at Elmira District Secondary School suffered burning eyes and a foul taste in their mouths from the air emissions.124 The children and older school kids should have been brought indoors. This failure to warn citizens of Elmira likely was the major reason why the sitting council went down in the 2010 election. They were rightfully seen as the Old Guard who were too closely aligned with the status quo. Interestingly even a member of the old CPAC, Richard Petrone, months later blamed CPAC’s poorly handled dismissal by the new council on the spraying of Elmira with BLE-25. The reality is that new members on incoming councils generally know little or nothing of the history and past issues. Hence, they are likely to follow the lead of the mayor. Todd Cowan may have been an idiot in regards to many things but he could project confidence and leadership. Too bad he couldn’t back it up with much else. It was pretty difficult for me to have any sympathy for CPAC members whatsoever. I did try to get Todd to reappoint a couple of previous members namely Ken Driedger and Gerry Heidebuurt, unsuccessfully. The rest, especially Pat McLean and Susan Bryant, were in strong need of a reality check and Todd gave it to them. Frankly, his handling of the CPAC appointments was inept although it wasn’t completed with personal attacks on citizen volunteers as what followed years later with Sandy Shantz. Poor old Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman bought themselves a peck of trouble with their personal attacks, lying, and manipulation, which culminated in Mark Bauman’s September 6, 2018 whining in the Woolwich Observer about how hard done by he had been by me. More on that later.<br /><br />Old CPAC Takes a Hit From The New Council<br /><br />I sent a Letter To The Editor of the Elmira Independent that was published on January 26, 2011. It was titled, “CPAC Needs To Change.” In it I discussed numerous issues and failures of CPAC members over the years. I further suggested that the new mayor and council had good reason to look carefully into what was passing as public consultation in Woolwich Township. I mentioned concessions being given to Chemtura Canada while no clearly defined quid pro quo, for the public interest seemed to be forthcoming.125<br /><br />There was some mention made of new terms of reference for CPAC. Likely these came from Woolwich’s CAO, David Brenneman, who always did his best to ingratiate himself with incoming mayors. Kind of a form of self-preservation, I expect. Long chosen new CPAC members including me received drafts of the terms of reference as presumably did former CPAC members to make comments. Frankly I saw little change whatsoever in the terms of reference and was not impressed simply because all the previous terms of reference had never been enforced or even referred to over decades of UPAC and CPAC. By this time the old CPAC members were getting very antsy. That was hardly surprising under the circumstances. That said I had no idea of just exactly how self-entitled Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant had become over the years. They actually couldn’t fathom anybody ever getting rid of them, allegedly because they had decades of experience between them and however, unknown to me at the time, had ingratiated themselves with those in power for just about as long. I, on the other hand, already thought I knew how thin the ice was under any appointees of committees of a municipal council. Citizens do not elect either smart or experienced people to council or to any other positions. They elect those with name recognition for whatever reason, combined with preferably good looks and who are both well spoken as well as soft spoken. The smoother the better is the general preference. Hence, with qualifications like that, good councillors and politicians seem to appear through sheer good luck.<br /><br />Pat McLean and Susan Bryant both had the ear of Gail Martin at the Elmira Independent as did I. She had seen Ms. Bryant and I take on Uniroyal, Crompton, and Chemtura over the previous eighteen years and she believed in both of us. Ms. Martin had written editorials about my removal from CPAC less than three years earlier and made it clear that she was shaken by both CPAC’s and Woolwich Council’s behaviour. I’m not quite sure how she reconciled Ms. McLean’s and Ms. Bryant’s leading CPAC and the council down that path, but she did. Now it was their turn to take their lumps and Ms. Martin was equally concerned for them as well. Ms. Martin suggested that immense experience could be lost if the new council did not reappoint the experienced hands on CPAC. Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant made similar comments but somehow managed to ignore that fact when they were working very diligently to have me removed simply for questioning certain terms in a Certificate of Approval.<br /><br />One of the most hypocritical concerns came from Richard Petrone, hydrogeologist . He worked at Wilfred Laurier University and over the course of this CPAC, after I left, I had seen him all of once at the public CPAC meetings. Keep in mind that I attended them all. What the hell was that all about? Was he a member or wasn’t he? Clearly something peculiar was going on because nobody else on CPAC would have been allowed to miss as many public meetings as he had and remain a member.<br /><br />Mr. Petrone actually had the brass and nerve to resign early in 2011 from CPAC while publicly castigating the new council but for what exactly? Was he criticizing a lack of respect towards the CPAC volunteers by the new council? He didn’t have enough respect either for his colleagues on CPAC nor for the public to attend CPAC meetings yet he had the brass to publicly criticize the council for not consulting with them more. Having seen Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant in action I knew what was going on. Obviously Mr. Petrone had little or no interest in Chemtura and CPAC and wanted to resign anyway. Pat McLean and Susan Bryant simply did what they do best, which was to orchestrate and manipulate, exactly as they had done with Wilf Ruland and myself a few years earlier. They got Wilf Ruland to resign from CPAC unless the CPAC members gave me the boot. Then when CPAC improperly attempted to give me the boot, Mr. Ruland took off anyway. Maybe he didn’t like all the press that followed as Woolwich Council finished the job that was improperly started by Pat and Susan.<br /><br />There was a Woolwich council meeting in January 2011 that was beyond embarrassing. This performance was the ineptness that I referenced earlier regarding appointing the new CPAC. Todd Cowan attempted not to embarrass or disparage the former CPAC members but he and he alone screwed up royally. Council publicly announced both verbally and in the agenda for the council meeting that they would be announcing the CPAC members for the rest of their term. Well, of course, it didn’t happen. There were some pathetic excuses made about a lack of applicants which was plain nonsense as all the former CPAC members had applied as well as the ones previously promised to be appointed by Todd Cowan. I and other already privately chosen CPAC members were present in the gallery as well as some of the former ones. Everybody was unhappy. What the heck!<br /><br />Todd was both a bullfritter and a fibber but this wasn’t the case on this occasion. He was simply incompetent. He had asked us the promised members, months earlier, to fill out applications to be on CPAC and those of us who had committed to it early on had done so. Unfortunately one and possibly two of Todd Cowan’s chosen appointees had not committed early on. Mr. Cowan had continued chasing them for months after the rest of us were ready and willing and, when they finally said yes, mayor Cowan forgot to tell them to fill out the application form. Come late January 2011 and just prior to the public council meeting, Woolwich council met in camera and it was discovered that they were missing those completed application forms. Then to add stupidity to incompetence, they publicly announced at the meeting that they were reopening the application process. All of this mess was explained to those of us in the know afterwards but you can imagine the horror and angst of the former CPAC. All their applications had been submitted and, months after they expected to be reappointed, they are told that applications were being reopened. They immediately knew that they were getting the royal send-off by the new council. Once again Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant decided to put the best spin possible on the situation. They publicly announced that each and every former CPAC member was withdrawing their applications for two reasons. First they had been disrespected by this current council and secondly the new terms of reference were inadequate. In fact, while this council following Todd Cowan’s lead were indeed getting rid of the former members, they did their best not to make it personal or nasty. About a year later Dr. Dan Holt, the Chair of the new CPAC, asked Pat McLean what was the problem with the new terms of reference. Pat McLean couldn’t say because it was simply an excuse.<br /><br />I was quoted again in the local newspapers that there were other sources to the Elmira groundwater contamination than just Uniroyal and Nutrite. On March 24, 2011 the Elmira Independent quoted me as advising that other manufacturers in town had contributed to the destruction of the Elmira Aquifers.126 Two days later the Woolwich Observer also quoted me as saying that other companies in Elmira had contributed to the groundwater contamination.127<br /><br />The new Woolwich Council of 2010 finally got around to appointing members to CPAC in March 2011 that at least six of us had known about for months. The former CPAC members, especially Pat McLean and Susan Bryant, were appalled. They and some of the other former members couldn’t believe that the powers within Woolwich hadn’t successfully pressured the new council into appointing them to CPAC. The new council did not reappoint a single former CPAC member except, of course, myself. Not that Chemtura weren’t trying to keep me off CPAC. At one point, just prior to the public announcements of the appointments, Todd Cowan phoned me to ask if I really was sure that I wanted to be on CPAC. I assured him that I did. As he and David Brenneman had done prior to appointing me, he again asked about my authored Elmira Advocate Blog. Would I consider dropping it while I was on CPAC? I said absolutely not. I was to be on CPAC because I was by far the most knowledgeable and experienced citizen at large in Elmira both technically and with my historical knowledge of what had gone on for the past twenty-two years. Todd said OK but that he was under pressure not to appoint me. I said nothing to that.<br /><br />New CPAC Has Major Growing Pains<br /><br />All of us on CPAC were getting very impatient. Councillor Julie-Ann Herteis had been appointed by council the previous January as chair of CPAC, which seemed a little odd in that she had exactly zero experience running meetings whereas Pat McLean despite all her back room machinations and deceit actually could run a meeting well. By April 2011 CPAC members were emailing Councillor Herteis asking for a date for the first public CPAC meeting. Keep in mind the last public CPAC meeting had been the lame duck CPAC meeting of November 2010. At that meeting I had referred to the meeting as exactly that, a lame duck meeting. That did not go over too well with them but really it was those fine folks who had started the push to remove me from CPAC. Ron Ormson had been pleasant afterwards and Fred Hager had actually apologized for so voting. With Fred I understood that at his advanced age it would not have been difficult for Pat McLean and Susan Bryant to make him think that he had to go along with everyone else. For people with a minimal moral compass, either browbeating or bullying a decades past senior age member into compliance would be child’s play.<br /><br />I had sent a proposed first agenda to Todd, Julie-Ann, and the rest of Council. No response. CPAC members were getting very close to the six month mark since the last CPAC meeting, which was especially ridiculous as we all had known that we would be on CPAC the instant that Todd Cowan won the mayor’s position back in October 2010. Councillor Herteis would not budge about setting a date.<br /><br />I had already given the CPAC members a package of basic maps and documents as well as a list of various issues. The new CPAC members met at my house in late April unofficially, so everyone could get to meet each other. We were all keen to get the show on the road. Emails started going back and forth between Councillor Herteis , CPAC members, and Mayor Cowan. As I recall, Lynne Hare, a Woolwich resident and gravel pit activist, Dr. Dan Holt, and myself were front and centre with that correspondence. We got to know Ron Campbell, owner of Acute Environmental Inc., whom I had first met a couple of decades earlier. Vivienne Delaney, ICU nurse, and David Marks (hydrogeologist) all showed up for a meeting or two. CPAC members were a talented group and we were ready to get down to work. Finally Mayor Cowan called a private meeting for CPAC members in the Councillor’s Boardroom at the Township building. The atmosphere was tense as soon as Councillor Herteis walked in. My God what a chip she had on her shoulder. Anger was all over her face and her body language spoke volumes. I had no idea what the problem was.<br /><br />Years later I found out that she was not good under pressure and likely she had begun to realize exactly how far out of her depth she was. It wasn’t just CPAC members demanding a start date from the Chair Julie-Anne Herteis. Mayor Todd Cowan told her to ignore us for the time being. Undoubtedly he had lots of irons in the fire, yet he wasn’t prepared to give her the go ahead to hold the first public CPAC meeting of this term. It turned out that he had known Julie-Anne from working in Toronto and had actually talked her into running for council. This situation was simply politics at its worst. Todd Cowan wanted a sure supporter and vote on council whenever he needed it and Julie-Anne owed him for helping with her election campaign. CPAC members knew nothing about the background between Julie-Anne and Todd Cowan at the time. In fact, Julie-Anne was on the verge of not just resigning as CPAC Chair but of resigning from council, just a few short months into the term. That was something that Todd Cowan certainly didn’t need his new administration to be marked with.<br /><br />Ms. Herteis was very upset. She was angry and loud and no one had said anything out of line at this meeting in the councillors’ Boardroom. David Brenneman droned on and on about basically nothing, wasting time. Ms. Herteis stormed out of the meeting and Ron Campbell, who was her neighbour and on good terms with her, believed and advised CPAC members that she simply was not chairperson material. I didn’t know her at all but her behaviour had certainly seemed way out of proportion to anything that had gone on at the meeting. Absolutely nothing was decided. Ron Campbell suggested that he had been reluctant to commit to the group and was late into these matters. I called him on that based upon Todd Cowan’s advising me ten months earlier that he had Ron Campbell all wrapped up to be on the committee. Mayor Cowan suddenly got loud and verbally offensive, yelling at me not to pursue that. I was shocked by his manners or lack thereof. I came to the meeting to find out an exact date to get CPAC business underway and all that had happened were angry words spoken by Councillor Herteis, stalling by David Brenneman who then departed after Councillor Herteis had, and then strong words from Mayor Cowan when I asked Ron Campbell what the hell he was talking about, about not being part of the group until very recently. None of this made sense. It turned out that this was all due to Todd Cowan’s lying and incompetence although I did not find out everything for many more months and even years.<br /><br />The new council had been elected the previous October 2010 and sworn in in December 2010. (However Sandy Shantz’s administration four years later didn’t get two new, more acceptable to Chemtura, committees (RAC , TAG) up and running until September, eleven months after the election.) I had been ready to work since the day after the 2010 election and had been promised a position on CPAC and after we were finally, formally appointed I had worked collegially with all the new members, getting to know each other. As of this point in early May 2011, and including the previous evening’s meeting we had been given absolutely nothing intelligent or reasonable as to why CPAC was not underway. There were so many pressing Chemtura issues that were now so many years behind schedule, issues such as hydraulic containment, DNAPL source removal, GP1 & 2 dioxin removal, LNAPL removal and more. Ms. Herteis may well have been frustrated by conflicting pressures but I was starting to doubt and wonder if I’d been sold some sort of bill of goods by Mayor Cowan. The meeting which had just occurred made exactly zero sense.<br /><br />The very next morning I wrote about the meeting and published my thoughts on the Elmira Advocate. I wrote about the meeting bluntly and honestly. The only regret I later had was that I mentioned Ron Campbell and David Marks critically. I thought that Ron Campbell had bizarrely lied to us all. It turned out that he hadn’t lied; the liar was mayor Todd Cowan. Pathological liars refuse to understand that their lies have unintended consequences. Sure, lies usually have intended consequences as well, but the unintended consequences can be even worse. After some weeks I apologized verbally to both Ron Campbell and David Marks for my critical and in hindsight inaccurate remarks in my blog. I also apologized in the Elmira Advocate. The truly professional and pathological liar, Todd Cowan, has never apologized. When Vivian Delaney and I went to Todd Cowan’s trial for Breach of Trust and Theft in the spring of 2016 he shook her hand and then reached for mine. I politely looked him in the eye and simply said “I don’t think so.”<br /><br />In my Elmira Advocate posting the day after the meeting, I mentioned the behaviour of Todd Cowan, Ms. Herteis and David Brenneman disparagingly. Who the frack did that little squirt Todd Cowan think he was, shushing me at that meeting? He literally, rudely and loudly shushed me repeatedly when I confronted Ron Campbell over what I figured was his deceptive statements. Todd Cowan knew exactly what was going on as he was the one who had lied and told me and likely others that Mr. Campbell had been on board for months. I had exactly zero intentions of being anybody’s token environmentalist. I was a citizen volunteer and citizen scientist who had been recruited for my knowledge, technical and historical, in order to assist numerous new members of the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) with good intentions but much less experience. I blasted Todd Cowan and Julie-Anne Herteis. Mr. Cowan deserved it, and while Ms. Herteis behaved poorly she certainly wasn’t as personally offensive to me as Todd had been. David Brenneman had been around for years and was part of the problem at that first CPAC meeting, not the solution. Lynne Hare resigned from the committee immediately afterwards. I got to know her better over the years following and she was a major loss to CPAC. Shame on Todd Cowan and his unending lying for the immediate loss of two excellent CPAC members, myself and Lynne Hare. Further shame on Mayor Cowan for having appointed Ms. Herteis to the Chairmanship of a committee, so far beyond her ability to manage.<br /><br />Todd Cowan phoned me a few days later to advise me that he, as mayor, had removed me from CPAC and that it would be done formally at the next council meeting. Once again, Todd Cowan did what professional liars do best. He lied! I didn’t find out for three and half more years but he falsely told the council members that he had an agreement with me that I would not put private or sensitive information into the Elmira Advocate. Both he and David Brenneman had tried to twist my arm into agreeing to that ahead of my appointment and I flatly refused. I made it clear that as we were all on the same team, how could there ever be anything that would embarrass him, the mayor, or harm the effort to clean up Chemtura? I also advised Mr. Brenneman and Mr. Cowan that I was a team player and nobody with good intentions needed to worry about the Elmira Advocate. Yes, as I had been doing for years at UPAC and CPAC, I would continue to expose liars and other deceitful persons such as the Ontario Ministry of Environment officials and Chemtura Canada and their consultants.<br /><br />Well, being what he was, I guess that had him terrified from the getgo. This information about Todd’s lying to council was told to me and a third person by Councillor Bonnie Bryant after that term of council was over. It certainly clarified several things. I had blamed Julie-Anne Herteis as likely to have misrepresented that evening meeting to the rest of council. In fact it was David Brenneman who had to know that Todd Cowan lied to his own council in order to keep Julie-Ann Herteis on council, by kicking me off of CPAC. Julie-Anne also resigned as chair of CPAC. That was for the best and simply a bone headed move by Todd Cowan in the first place.<br /><br />I have never been able to abide liars, which certainly has contributed to politicians and various authority figures not being able to abide me. Persons in authority have somehow learned to believe that it’s okay to lie to your subordinates. We, as citizens, of course are all subordinates to our elected politicians, bosses, and others with authority within large organizations such as school boards, police forces, the military etc. At least that is the attitude of those in charge of various institutions. It is not and never has been mine. For this reason I have pulled no punches over the decades in regards to what I call professional liars at the MOE, Uniroyal/ Chemtura and more. I can actually feel sorry for Todd Cowan but at the same time I wish that others with his affliction could suffer his same fate. It so rarely happens and we, the public, end up being inflicted with these self-serving liars for decades.<br /><br />On May 12, 2011 Councillor Mark Bauman, inaccurately and at the time I felt knowingly, stated that “he (me) is unable to work with the committee.128 What a filthy lie. Nowhere was Mark to be found during the prior two months. He did not attend CPAC’s initial get togethers. He did not interview CPAC members including me to enlighten him as to the facts. He simply did what he does best, which is spout off after somebody lied into his ears. The irony and blatant falseness of that statement is reflected by the fact that to the date of this publication I am still working with CPAC, the Citizens Public Advisory Committee, as the committee is now known since 2015.<br /><br />Then to add insult to injury, in August 2013, Councillor Bauman voted to keep me off of CPAC again. CPAC, (this time with him present as a member), had decided to formally try and get me reinstated. Mr. Bauman to his perpetual shame, and as the new boy on CPAC then voted at a council meeting against CPAC’s recommendation to council to reinstate me as a formal voting member. CPAC members both saw and recognized my dedication, vast knowledge, and willingness to share and work with them in the public interest. These details were publicized in both the Independent and the Observer during that week in mid August 2013. 129 130 Mark had no excuse to hide behind. He had no claim of plausible deniability. By now he had replaced Todd Cowan as council’s representative on CPAC and he knew of the respect and appreciation CPAC members had for me. This for me was the final nail in Mark Bauman’s credibility coffin. Clearly, he was acting in Chemtura and the MOE’s interests not in the public interest and they were two hugely dissimilar interests. Good riddance to Mark Bauman’s whining years later that I didn’t like him and that’s why I indirectly had him briefly kicked off of Woolwich Council in 2015. What a horse’s patootie! You were kicked off of Council because you violated the black and white law of the land, namely the Municipal Elections Act (MEA). Guess you and “your kind “ (quoting Councillor Murray Martin) can hand it out but aren’t so good at taking it.<br /><br />CPAC survived a very rocky start in 2011 and thrived. Was this rocky start intentional? It surely was by Chemtura Canada and the MOE. They had lobbied Mayor Todd Cowan and Councillor Mark Bauman because they were terrified of what was coming. Chemtura Canada and the MOE knew it meant no more back door influence with CPAC. The new CPAC meant no more private deals with Pat McLean and Susan Bryant and then counting on them to deliver the goods with CPAC approval. Todd Cowan, as CPAC Chair, continued to be a major disappointment over the next year or so. On two occasions he was paternalistic possibly even sexist with Vivienne Delaney at public CPAC meetings that he was chairing and she just put him in his place. That was exactly what Mr. Cowan needed and what he ended up receiving from a number of other CPAC members privately. At the time with Vivienne, Richard Clausi shared his opinion with me that Todd had just “lost” Vivienne’s respect and automatic deference to him as mayor. Mayor Cowan on one occasion privately threatened CPAC members that he would disband CPAC because they weren’t jumping to his dictums. Shortly after that, as promised months earlier by Mayor Cowan, Dr. Dan Holt became chairman of CPAC. From that point onwards it was all smooth sailing for CPAC as they held both Chemtura Canada’s and the MOE’s toes to the fire. No longer were vague promises acceptable. No longer were excuses left unexamined. New CPAC member Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach and other members held Chemtura Canada and the MOE accountable for their past and present promises and insisted upon detailed explanations when dates were missed or postponed. While the questions were aggressive and the criticisms blunt, Dr. Holt always maintained order and discipline according to both Robert’s Rules of Order and the CPAC terms of reference. For instance both CPAC members and the SWAT (Soil, Water, Air & Technical) sub-committee members only asked questions after being recognized by the Chair. SWAT was a sub-committee of CPAC and included myself, Richard Clausi, and Dr. Henry Regier. SWAT and CPAC worked together and were a force to be reckoned with. After CPAC was not reappointed by Woolwich Council in 2015, CPAC and SWAT joined together to be known as the Citizens Public Advisory Committee (CPAC). Of course, the MOE and Chemtura continued to dissemble whenever they felt it would help their cause but they knew that there was a price to be paid if and when they were caught. Their long attitude of arrogance and superior status slowly disappeared. This behaviour was what the CPAC members of the past had never understood. Showing deference to dishonest, corporate polluters was a losing prospect for the public and for the environment. These new CPAC members were professional and strong and would brook no hiding by Chemtura Canada behind either the MOE or Conestoga Rovers. Their opinions were listened to respectfully and carefully but when their positions appeared to be nothing more than self-serving junk science or worse, they were called to back up their claims with scientific evidence. Simply put: their word alone was no longer acceptable because history proved they could not be trusted to be frank and forthright.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 12<br /><br />123 Cherri Greeno, “Ministry of Environment investigates chemical leak”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, September 29, 2010<br /><br />124 Letter to the Editor, “Chemtura should be ashamed of silence following spill”, Woolwich Observer, October 9, 2010<br /><br />125 Letter to the Editor, “CPAC needs to change”, Elmira Independent, January 26, 2011<br /><br />126 Gail Martin, “New CPAC terms of reference approved”, Elmira Independent, March 24, 2011, p.3.<br /><br />127 Steve Kannon, “Council adopts new guidelines for CPAC”, Woolwich Observer, March 26, 2011, p.9<br /><br />128 Gail Martin, “Council removes Marshall from CPAC”, Elmira Independent, May 12, 2011, p.3.<br /><br />129 Gail Martin, “Marshall denied CPAC bid”, Elmira Independent, August 15, 2013, p.6.<br /><br />130 Steve Kannon, “Council denies bid to return Al Marshall to CPAC”, Woolwich Observer, August 13, 2013, p.2.<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-38102995008474174832023-12-19T10:42:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:42:54.382-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-13-new-cpac-revolution-new.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2693262992265948635" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Thirteen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />114 ....The New CPAC Revolution<br /><br />116 ....Issues Are Often Buried But Never Die<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 13<br /><br />THE NEW CPAC REVOLUTION<br /><br />The new Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) held its first public meeting in June 2011. Chemtura staff and the Ministry of Environment (MOE), West Central Region officials were there with their usual attitudes and puffery. My previously submitted agenda was ignored. Mayor Todd Cowan sat as the chair and actually did a pretty good job. The new CPAC members included Dr. Dan Holt (Dr. Dan), Dr. Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach (Sebastian), Vivienne Delaney (Viv), Ron Campbell (Ron), David Marks, and Mayor Todd Cowan (Todd). I was there in the gallery as was Richard Clausi. Henry Regier joined us as well on a fairly regular basis despite his hearing difficulties.<br /><br />As I mention in the previous chapter CPAC members had been through difficult times and still were with Todd as Chair. Overall Todd tried hard, and like Pat McLean he actually ran a reasonably good meeting. There was an eye-opening incident for both me and the CPAC members in June 2011. Dr. Dan had been trying to build some bridges with the old CPAC. Dr. Dan had already met Pat and Susan and had invited them to attend CPAC meetings and as such contribute their ideas and comments either as delegations to CPAC or as part of “Public Forum” just prior to the end of the meeting. This “Public Forum” had originally been suggested by Sandy Shantz after I got the boot from CPAC by council in 2008 and was supposed to be a compromise of sorts. Until then citizens had been able to speak and ask questions during the meeting after being recognized by the Chair. This Susan Bryant and I did from 1994 until about January 2000 when we rejoined UPAC. Pat and Susan thanked Dr. Dan and then invited him and a couple of CPAC members to attend an APT meeting at the Elmira Public Library. Dr. Dan, Vivienne and Sebastian accepted. It would later prove to be a setup.<br /><br />Dr. Dan and Vivienne were there on time for the start of the meeting. Sebastian showed up late after both the fireworks and the APT and former CPAC folks had departed. I’ve heard the story from three different people who were there from the start of the meeting namely Ken Driedger, Dr. Dan and Vivienne. The guilty and essentially nastiest parties were Susan Bryant, Pat McLean and Sandra Bair. Ken Driedger was there and has advised that he had no idea as to what was coming. He also did not participate in the attempted bullying and intimidation. The three ladies vented their anger and hostility towards the new Woolwich Council appointees to CPAC.<br /><br />I have a small confession to make. Despite the discomfort and unpleasantness that Dr. Dan and Vivienne experienced that was inflicted by Pat, Susan, and Sandra, I truly believe that Pat and Susan in their overwhelming arrogance, sense of entitlement, and just plain nasty, backdoor attacks actually helped me, the new CPAC, and the environment by showing their true colours. Much of their behaviour they had gotten away with for decades. They truly felt that they had some sort of lock on not only representing the citizens of Elmira but on CPAC, its membership, and its mandate. It seemed as if they felt that they had made substantial personal inroads into the political establishment on council as well as huge inroads with Chemtura Canada. They simply could not fathom that their decades of manipulation, lobbying, and dealmaking with Uniroyal/Chemtura and Woolwich Township and Council could be literally thrown away simply at the whim of the electorate. The citizens of Woolwich Township wanted change on their council especially after the BLE -25 fugitive emissions and with the unfortunate exception of Mark Bauman representing Ward Two (St. Jacobs and the west side of Elmira), they got it in spades. Al Poffenroth, Julie-Ann Herteis, Todd Cowan as mayor, Bonnie Bryant were all newly elected and, as citizens saw, a new broom sweeps clean. The irony was beyond delicious as far as I was concerned. Pat, with Susan Bryant’s support, had dragged UPAC members into being a committee of council. That was a horrendous mistake and I wonder if the likes of Ron Ormson and Gerry Heidebuurt now acknowledged it at least to themselves. Certainly Pat McLean and Susan Bryant didn’t as evident by the way they criticized, insulted, and harangued Dr. Dan and Vivienne. They demanded to know their environmental credentials, their proven past environmental commitments, and their historical knowledge of the Elmira Water Crisis. Of course this behaviour was all based upon getting Dr. Dan and Vivienne to that meeting under false pretenses. This was typical Pat and Susan Bryant, behind- the scenes- behaviour. Obviously, they were still in the early stages of grief as to having lost their exalted positions on CPAC. They were reduced to being second string players. So sad. So pathetic that that was how they felt.<br /><br />Dr. Dan and Vivienne were taken by surprise by Pat and Susan Bryant’s behaviour. They advised the rest of the new CPAC as well as Sebastian, who wondered why the meeting was over and done so quickly, that he didn’t get to see or hear the goings on. This is an example of the class and inherent decency of all the CPAC members in that a couple of years later when Pat and Susan decided that they needed to at least attend a few CPAC meetings in order to lie about the new CPAC members later on; Dr. Dan as chair and the rest of CPAC members welcomed Pat and Susan and treated them both courteously. At no point was Susan Bryant or Pat McLean treated disrespectfully by CPAC members whereas Pat and Susan Bryant felt the need yet again in April 2015 to lie and dissemble and basically carry on like a pair of pre teen juveniles. Their April 2015 nasty behaviour is described in detail in a later chapter.<br /><br />CPAC wasted no time in getting to the heart of various, long-simmering issues. DNAPL presence had been covered up for far too long. A failure to do either off-site source removal or adequate pumping was clearly jeopardizing the 2028 deadline to restore Elmira groundwater to drinking water standards as ordered in the 2000 Amended Control Order. The off-site source removal included contamination from other companies such as Varnicolor Chemical and possibly Borg Textiles among others as stated in Chapters One and Two. Other potential sources in the south end of Elmira such as Sanyo Canada and the former McKee Harvestor, all needed shallow soil and groundwater investigations to determine if they have contributed to contamination of the south wellfield.<br /><br />On December 1, 2011, Jane Glassco, manager of the West Central Region of the MOE, promised CPAC members that she would provide detailed information on the Varnicolor site cleanup. While she did provide some generalities regarding the site, CPAC members received nothing substantive from her, such as technical reports, etc. She could not explain the twenty year delay in adding deep wells.131<br /><br />Meanwhile, the November 3, 2011 edition of the Elmira Independent reported that Dr. Gail Krantzberg, a professor at McMaster University had been hired to look at whether or not the 2028 cleanup deadline for the Elmira aquifers was on track or not.132 Dr. Henry Regier had recommended Dr. Krantzberg because he was familiar with her work including the sediment cleanup work that had been done at the shipyards in Collingwood, Ontario. [Dr. Krantzberg had worked with the International Joint Commission (IJC) in regards to both the Hamilton Harbour and the Collingwood Harbour Areas of Concern. These were but two Canadian areas that the U.S. and Canadian governments had designated through the IJC as areas of concern requiring serious cleanup efforts.]<br /><br />In May 2012, Dr. Krantzberg reported back to CPAC. She had studied various Conestoga Rovers (CRA) and MOE documents regarding everything from total volume of contamination released on–site to the current concentrations of NDMA and chlorobenzene in the Elmira drinking water aquifers. Dr. Krantzberg had also studied CRA’s projected quantities of these contaminants removed each year from the aquifers via the Off-Site Containment & Treatment System. The most obvious roadblock to achieving drinking water standards by 2028 was the extremely low drinking water standard for NDMA, namely nine parts per trillion (ppt) or .009 parts per billion (ppb). Based on the relatively high readings of NDMA still in the aquifers and the declining quantities of NDMA removed each year as the concentrations slowly dropped, it became more difficult every year to remove NDMA in the same quantities without massive increases in pumping volumes that never happened even when promised. David Marks, a 2011 to 2015 CPAC member and practicing hydrogeologist with Burnside Associates in Guelph, was in complete agreement with Dr. Krantzberg and her conclusions regarding the projected 2028 cleanup deadline.<br /><br />Dr. Krantzberg in her presentation to CPAC not only advised that the 2028 cleanup was extremely unlikely but she also clarified other matters regarding the on-site disposal of contaminants. She made it clear that the on-site disposal of contaminants whether directly into the Creek or indirectly through the soil and into groundwater, both shallow and deep, was not a remotely viable solution to toxic waste production. A truly impervious and contained vessel or building was one possibility but in-ground pits and ponds were essentially useless. Even so-called lined waste pits or ponds simply delayed the inevitable migration of contaminants because buried toxic chemicals would migrate into the natural environment eventually, whether travelling through clay or geo- textile liners.<br /><br />In the late fall or very early winter of 2011, CPAC decided that they both wanted and needed Richard Clausi, Henry Regier, and myself to be more formally and closely involved with CPAC. The three of us were offered the opportunity to be members of a sub-committee of CPAC known as the Soil, Water, Air and Technical (SWAT) sub-committee. As we know, CPAC had been a creature of Woolwich Council since 2000.That said, CPAC members decided that they could form a sub-committee of technical people to help them with various technical as well as historical issues without requiring Council approval. Keep in mind they had folks such as David Marks and Ron Campbell on CPAC who were highly qualified. In 2012 they added a certified chemist and highly experienced environmental and health and safety consultant by the name of Graham Chevreau. Decades earlier he had worked for CRA and was known professionally by Ron Campbell.<br /><br />CPAC and SWAT all enjoyed the SWAT name immensely although we later found out that Chemtura management was extremely unhappy with it. Apparently, the name SWAT brought forth visions of a highly mobile raiding party descending upon their universe, which they didn’t care for. Ahh a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.<br /><br />Issues Are Often Buried But Never Die<br /><br />The Hawkridge Homes controversy that arose in 2009 and continued in 2010 was back before Woolwich Council in 2011 and the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) in 2012. Both Chemtura and Sulco (Canada Colours and Chemicals) were adamantly against any residential subdivision being built across Union Street from their factories and for very good reasons. While Sulco, over the years, appeared to get a handle on their occasional fugitive emissions, to this time in 2011 Chemtura had not. That, combined with the mandated “Worst Case Scenario” CRA study and presentation both to CPAC and Woolwich Council in 2009, made the dangers very clear. Interestingly, there had been provincial political attempts made years to decades earlier to avoid these kinds of problems. The province of Ontario had requested municipalities to zone in such a way as to leave significant buffer zones around chemical factories and facilities using toxic chemicals in their processes. It was just plain common sense and good planning principles to keep residential housing away from obviously dangerous and conflicting land usages. Really, what could be more conflicting than building residential housing in the “Kill zones” of a chemical company’s “Worst Case Scenario”?<br /><br />Woolwich staff was equally opposed to residential development in this former apple orchard owned for a long time by Waterloo Regional Chairman Ken Seiling’s mother-in-law. As stated earlier it was unfortunate that somehow directives or suggestions from the province to local councils advising them to rezone areas beside chemical companies to industrial or commercial had fallen on deaf ears.<br /><br />Somewhat to my surprise, Ms. Mclean and Ms. Bryant teamed up with Chemtura in opposition to this proposed subdivision. Now make no mistake here. While the joining of forces surprised both myself and the rest of the CPAC and SWAT members and citizens, we were overall in full agreement with all parties that building residential homes in this former apple orchard was beyond ridiculous. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Therefore, when the developers didn’t take the hint from both local opposition as well as Woolwich planning staff and booked a date with the OMB we were again surprised.<br /><br />The OMB Hearing took place in January and February 2012. Woolwich Township planning staff took the lead in opposition with Chemtura, Sulco, Pat Mclean, and Susan Bryant in support. Woolwich staff took the shotgun approach and not only identified the potential severity in the case of a full scale anhydrous ammonia leak from Chemtura, (its worst case scenario), but also spoke to issues of odours and noise. The developers, of course, and as usual, had all kinds of proposals to mitigate any issues that might arise. While these proposals included berms and fences to block industrial views and noise, they oddly enough did not include supplying emergency breathing equipment or training in its use. Chemtura and Sulco dropped out of the hearing early and right after so did Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean.<br /><br />The Ontario OMB has a well- deserved reputation, developed over the decades for siding with developers, whether development of housing or gravel pits. Considerable across-the- province criticism of the OMB mounted when the incumbent Liberals, the provincial governing party in 2012 was on the hunt for ways to polish its image prior to the upcoming 2014 election. Perhaps by letting the OMB know that they really needed to give a little more leeway to either local citizens or local municipal councils, it might be helpful to Liberal re-election chances.<br /><br />Sure enough Woolwich Township achieved its objectives to the suburb development and Hawk Ridge Homes was sent back to the drawing board. However, the win wasn’t based upon the worst case scenario or the spectre of a nasty, suffocating death. Not at all. The decision was based on middle-of- the- night noise that could be expected from trains shunting on either the Chemtura or Sulco property. Apparently, a quick death was less of an issue to the OMB than was a slow death by sleep deprivation. Or at least that is my opinion in regards to the OMB’s decision.<br /><br />In March 2012 an issue was resurrected from 1991. Ron Campbell of the 2011 to 2015 CPAC did his homework and in reading through a long list of MOE West Central control orders and amendments for Uniroyal discovered some particularly intriguing information. I must give credit to Mayor Todd Cowan for initially providing these documents to CPAC members. The private October 7, 1991 Settlement Agreement between the MOE and Uniroyal Chemical provided some thought provoking reading. Essentially it contained an Indemnity for Uniroyal for all known contamination on its site on the condition that the company abided by an upcoming control order requiring full hydraulic containment in all aquifers, excavation or full remediation of east side waste pits RPE 4 and 5, and DNAPL removal as a contaminant source. If they accomplished all this remediation then Uniroyal management could not be prosecuted or ordered in future control orders to clean up additional source areas. Unsurprisingly, this October 7, 1991 Settlement Agreement was not distributed to the media or the public. Instead, a media release from the MOE was provided that extolled the ordered remediation while astutely avoiding any talk of Indemnities.<br /><br />CPAC members fairly quickly understood that this Settlement Agreement was a true blue sweetheart deal. This Settlement Agreement prevented what might have been another messy Environmental Appeal Board Hearing. The MOE had presented its case and, after the summer recess, it was Uniroyal’s turn to present its case. Uniroyal management made it clear that in actions regarding its waste disposal from 1945 to 1970 that the MOE shared responsibility. This belated information had never been exposed to the light of day and it explained for most CPAC members in 2012 the MOE’s reasons for coming to a deal rather than being publicly exposed both for what they had done and for what they had not done regarding the gross contamination both on and off the Uniroyal site.<br /><br />At the start of this chapter we discussed Dr. Gail Krantzberg’s research and studies pertaining to Chemtura and their consultants achieving drinking water standards in Elmira’s groundwater by 2028 and her conclusions that it wasn’t going to happen. The new Woolwich Council were presented with her written report as was the MOE and Chemtura. To my mind this council, other than Mark Bauman, consisted of new blood and fresh attitudes, unshackled by either past commitments or biases favouring the world class polluters in Elmira, Ontario. In early May 2012 both the Elmira Independent and the Woolwich Observer reported on council’s public support of both the CPAC committee and the report of Dr. Gail Krantzberg.133 134 CPAC members had passed a resolution advising that in accordance with Dr. Krantzberg’s report, source removal and/or other remediation methods in conjunction with hydraulic containment (i.e. pump & treat) were necessary for the Elmira aquifers to be properly remediated by 2028. Apparently, receiving bad advice, Josef Olejarz, General Manager of Chemtura, was quoted in the Woolwich Observer as pledging to achieve drinking water standards in the Elmira aquifers by 2028. I said that he must be receiving unreliable advice and the evidence proved that as within a year or two Chemtura finally came around to admitting the obvious for those of us such as myself who had been publicly predicting for many years that it wasn’t going to happen. That CPAC members within less than a year after stepping into their role had weighed the evidence, listened carefully to all parties, and had come to this conclusion was shocking for the MOE, Chemtura, CRA, and their fellow travellors. A special thanks goes to, not only CPAC Chair Dr. Dan Holt, but to members Ron Campbell and David Marks for their insights and direction on this issue.<br /><br />CPAC under Todd Cowan’s brief tenure as chair and Dr. Dan Holt’s tenure established CPAC as credible, informed, and a professional body. Dr. Holt made it clear to all parties that these meetings would be run properly, politely, and respectfully. Yes, on occasion, as a SWAT sub-committee member, I had to be reined in from either excessive language or sarcasm towards more egregiously ridiculous statements and claims by Chemtura and its consultants. On each occasion, I immediately deferred to the direction and orders from Dr. Dan Holt. Dr. Holt also followed directions from Woolwich Council in regards to which parties had priority to be heard at public CPAC meetings: that CPAC members first, Chemtura staff and the MOE second, and SWAT members and the public third. Representatives from Chemtura , CRA, and the MOE West Central Region quickly destroyed their own credibility with the new members who looked upon the meetings and process as essentially starting from scratch. The company and the MOE officials often either refused to answer questions or delayed answering to the next meeting only to have “forgotten” when that meeting came around. Furthermore they often got hostile and aggressive to straightforward questions put to them by CPAC members. Only after much misdirection and constant waffling and wiggling from Chemtura staff and friends present did all CPAC members begin to understand what a rat’s nest CPAC business had become. If the former CPAC membership had somehow accommodated Chemtura’s behaviour then it was by being exactly that: accommodating. Chemtura management and staff and their corporate predecessors did not and had never responded positively to politeness, courtesy, or respect. It was their way or the highway as they had demonstrated routinely through the decades.<br /><br />Chapter Fourteen expands the CPAC efforts from 2011 to September 2015. Events of September 2015 make no sense but can be attributed once more to the nasty work of Mark Bauman and Sandy Shantz. Many more revelations are identified regarding politics, politicking, deception, and public and private manipulation by the guilty parties in Elmira.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 13<br /><br />131 Gail Martin, “Ministry to add monitoring wells on Varnicolor site”, Elmira Independent, December 1, 2011<br /><br />132 Gail Martin, “CPAC receives additional funding”, Elmira Independent, November 3, 2011<br /><br />133 Gail Martin, “CPAC seeks review of Chemtura cleanup”, Elmira Independent, May 3, 2012<br /><br />134 Steve Kannon, “Township backs call for more action on cleanup”, Woolwich Observer, May 5,2012<br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-40030975954360014282023-12-19T10:30:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:30:29.035-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_3.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6141002795364977020" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Fourteen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />118 ....The Public Consultation Revolution Continues<br /><br />119......DNAPLS Reappear<br /><br />121......Announcements<br /><br />122......More Corruption Revealed<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 14<br /><br />The Public Consultation Revolution Continues<br /><br />May 2012 turned out to be an active month for the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) members. Early in the month we had both public support for CPAC’s Resolution regarding the 2028 groundwater cleanup as well as Chemtura’s pledge to do what was necessary to complete the cleanup by that date. On May 15, 2012 Jeff Outhit, reporter for the Record, wrote an article titled “Chemtura fined $150,000.” This fine was in regards to the September 27, 2010 BLE-25 release of four tonnes of the high temperature reaction product of diphenylamine and acetone into the air affecting approximately three hundred homes and businesses in Elmira.135 I suggest that this fine on top of the expenses the company paid to clean up its mess almost was adequate. The only remaining issues were the physical symptoms described earlier in this book for people exposed to the BLE-25 release. One can only hope that their discomfort was short-term.<br /><br />Interestingly, at the end of May 2012 Chemtura finally began to express interest in a project that CPAC had been requesting for some time. While there was a written request in the July 2003 “Request For Action” from CPAC’s Soil and Water sub-committee, CPAC and UPAC (Jan. 1992-2001) had long known about dioxin and DDT contamination in the area of GP1 and GP2. Of course, as is the case with this entire cleanup, citizens were dependent on reports and data provided by Uniroyal, Crompton and Chemtura and their consultants (CRA). Further technical reports came from the West Central Region of the Ontario MOE. To say that citizens and stakeholders ever had full confidence in any of their reports and data would be ridiculous. As early as 1992, I learned that consultants to Uniroyal were expected to write reports that either put their client in a good light or that discovered less expensive ways to move them in the direction of apparent toxic cleanup. Reports that might shock or upset the general public, certainly in my experienced opinion, were not deemed as helpful to the local polluting industries, the MOE, or the local government representatives. Therefore, while we believed the reports from Chemtura and Conestoga Rovers and Associates (CRA) that identified extremely high levels of dioxins and DDT in the former gravel pits GP1 and GP2, CPAC were skeptical regarding the proposed cleanup plans. This was rightfully so. What members of CPAC and SWAT, including me failed to question more carefully was the reason why Chemtura had suddenly after all these years decided to go ahead with this project that so obviously needed doing. We were warned by CPAC member Ron Campbell that something was wrong with the notion that Chemtura was voluntarily willing to undertake what ended up being a three million dollar plus cleanup. I know that I simply assumed that the MOE was pushing and maybe even threatening a control order or some other instrument that CPAC didn’t learn until several years later from Ecojustice, was essentially unenforceable in the courts.<br /><br />The initial proposal by Chemtura was to simply cap the two former gravel pits. Chemtura was always on the lookout for the cheapest remediation alternative possible. Again, CPAC should have been more skeptical when Chemtura came back to us suggesting that they would do a partial excavation of parts of GP1 plus later capping and that they would still only cap GP2. This capping was with soil and vegetation to better bury any contaminants and to reduce erosion during flood events. While that plan was certainly better than the first, CPAC held out for more. Members wanted more than the worst areas in GP1 excavated because we felt then and now that there should be no acceptable levels of dioxins left in the ground for either human or wildlife to ever be exposed to. While the data suggests that GP2 was less contaminated with dioxins and DDT than GP1, nevertheless GP2 still had these contaminants in it both above and below the appropriate criteria. Perhaps a partial excavation of GP2 could have been acceptable in conjunction with a major excavation of GP1. That idea was rejected by Chemtura thus CPAC never endorsed the cleanup of GP1 and GP2. CPAC and SWAT did agree that some cleanup was better than none but our attitude was do it right the first time and don’t leave more to be done for either future generations or future corporate iterations of Uniroyal Chemical. Partial remediation had already happened with so called cleanups on both the west and east sides of the Uniroyal Elmira site as we found contamination remaining at RPE 3 in 2009 and contamination was certainly left behind in the mid 1980s cleanouts of the western ponds RPW 5, 6, 7, and 8. Other cleanups in the mid 1980s on the east side in the areas of BAE-1, RB-1 and RB-2 also left significant contamination behind that required further work. Further excavations at RPW5 and TPW2 for DNAPLS in December 1993 had left contamination behind as well.<br /><br />Of course, it wasn’t until a year or two after the 2013 remediation work was done in GP1 and GP 2 that members of CPAC and SWAT, understood that once again we had been misdirected and misled. While there was some logic and evidence pointing to GP1 and GP 2 being the repository of the overland flow of waste water from the further north, east side pits, namely RPE 1-5, I discovered evidence that the bulk of the overland flow, whether by occasional, intentional breaching of the pits as suggested by Jeff Merriman of Chemtura, or simple overflow during high useage and precipitation had been directed due to gravity flow, elsewhere. Further details of this discovery are forthcoming.<br /><br />Over a year earlier, the new CPAC had been pushing Woolwich Council to get the lead out, remove the shackles and let its members get into action. Whether it was stalling, lack of confidence by the new chair, or intentional foot dragging I don’t think CPAC and SWAT ever really learned. I do know that at one point Susan Bryant suggested that it was Woolwich foot-dragging with CPAC that initiated the APT/Chemtura Committee (ACC). I have my doubts on that score. It is my belief that decades ago Uniroyal Chemical made an accommodation with Susan Bryant in exchange for a concession from her on behalf of UPAC. It seems as if there have been favours back and forth and so I expect that Uniroyal essentially promised to always agree to sit down and talk with Susan after she had made a private concession to them perhaps early on in regards to DNAPLS or some such other issue. The members of the ACC met privately on Chemtura’s property and as it was without news media or the public present, there are not any minutes of any meetings available to outsiders (i.e. non-friends or fellow travellors).<br /><br />In early June 2012, CPAC members were advised that an Environmental Compliance Agreement (ECA) between Chemtura and the West Central MOE had been approved as acceptable by a peer reviewer. CPAC members were asked to give their nod of agreement by Woolwich Township and the MOE. Members were advised that this ECA was some sort of site wide conglomeration of old Certificates of Approval (C of A) and was the MOE’s new method of monitoring, controlling and supervising manufacturing facilities. Imagine our surprise when we were then advised that the ECA review had been undertaken by David Brenneman Chief Administrative Officer, of Woolwich Township. What the heck was that all about?<br /><br />Turns out that Mr. Brenneman had allegedly undertaken his review in late 2010 and early 2011, after the municipal election but before Woolwich Councillors had managed to get their act together and get CPAC underway. Therefore CPAC members were in the position after the fact to give their blessing to an ECA that we knew nothing about and had zero background knowledge of. So,in fact, while Mayor Cowan and Councillor Herteis avoided getting CPAC going in a timely manner, the Woolwich CAO was doing CPAC’s work. To say that I and other CPAC/SWAT members were vastly unimpressed is putting it mildly. CPAC, under Dr. Dan Holt’s chairmanship, politely advised the MOE and the Township that CPAC members felt that any comment on this particular ECA was inappropriate so long after the fact and under the circumstances.<br /><br />DNAPLS Reappear<br /><br />In late 2011, dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLS) raised their heads yet again. This practice was to be the recurring theme with the various failures of Uniroyal Chemical and their follow up entities such as Crompton and Chemtura over the decades. Major and likely expensive contamination issues were given the mushroom treatment albeit with the gloss and veneer of technical reports by professional consultants. CPAC members were kept in the dark as much as possible by the company regarding all the specific DNAPL information relevant to their existence or not in the sub-surface of the former Uniroyal site. CPAC and SWATmembers were also covered in manure via CRA doing what they’d been doing for the previous twenty years, which was attempting to dominate CPAC’s time with long- winded presentations that often were as much about wishful thinking as they were about proven science.<br /><br />I presented to CPAC members my findings that dnapls had been found just west of Varnicolor Chemical one hundred feet below ground level at observation well OW57-32. Unbelievably, they had been found by Chemtura’s consultants, CRA, in 1998 and the information was NEVER brought to CPAC by either the MOE, Chemtura, or CRA. It was a shocking and abhorrent display of their combined disrespect and contempt of both CPACs past and present as well as of the public and any public consultation process. The information was in three old monthly Chemtura Progress Reports namely June, July, and September 1998. This monitoring well was located almost beside off-site pumping well W4 where the concentrations of both NDMA and chlorobenzene had always been abnormally high. By abnormally high I mean that contaminant plumes generally were highest near the source whether buried wastes or from a spill and then the concentrations decreased farther away from the source area. Oddly at and around this location, both NDMA and chlorobenzene concentrations that were decreasing as they left the former Uniroyal site were suddenly much higher. I had long suspected Varnicolor Chemical as the second source even though chlorobenzene allegedly was not found in Varnicolor’s shallow groundwater.<br /><br />CRA responded to me and CPAC with formal memos in August and September 2012. It was clear to me that the truth was yet again to be a casualty of expedience and money as it had been throughout the previous twenty years. The monthly Progress Reports used the words “possibly DNAPLS”. The descriptions of their characteristics and location made the point that they were dnapls even clearer. These were free-phase dnapls found one hundred feet below ground surface where they were slowly dissolving into both the municipal upper (MU) and the municipal lower (ML) aquifers. These two are connected by a “window” as the municipal aquitard (MAT) between the two aquifers disappeared at this location.<br /><br />The ramifications of free-phase, slowly dissolving DNAPLs containing chlorobenzene, NDMA, and other components being found this far off the Uniroyal site were immense. There really were only two possibilities. Either the DNAPL came from another company, such as Varnicolor or Borg Textiles, or it came from Uniroyal and had travelled several hundred metres to get there. If the DNAPLs originated from Borg or Varnicolor, then it was a separate long term source of contamination for the Elmira drinking water aquifers that would slowly dissolve and contaminate the aquifers literally for many decades to centuries depending upon the volume of DNAPL. Hence, this would under the current remediation plan, absolutely guarantee failure. The current remediation plan assumed that Uniroyal/ Chemtura was the only source and that all contamination was now contained on-site by groundwater pumping systems, separate from the off-site pumping system.<br /><br />The ramifications of the alternate choice that the DNAPL had migrated from Uniroyal westward over to the area of monitoring well OW57-32 and pumping well W4 were also significant. The entire 2028 deadline was predicated on the blatant nonsense that Uniroyal and Uniroyal alone had contaminated the municipal drinking water aquifers. This nonsense had already been proven false around 2002 with the public admission that Nutrite had contributed ammonia to the drinking water aquifers. No reference was made to the fact that there was also NDMA and 2, 4-D found in shallow groundwater on the Nutrite site. NDMA had also been found on the Varnicolor site above drinking water standards, albeit at much lower concentrations than the levels found at Uniroyal. What had been conveniently ignored, however, was that dimethylamine (DMA), the precursor to NDMA, was either not tested for or the levels not published in the various groundwater reports done on the Varnicolor site. This is very significant because DMA in an acidic environment also in the presence of human or animal urine or feces such as in a sewage treatment plant or a large pig farm would produce NDMA. The high concentrations of NDMA found at OW57-32 and pumping well W4 could have been in a mixture within the DNAPL material or separately produced by the DMA from Varnicolor, having been released into the natural environment, which, according to a CH2MHILL report (1990), had previously had commercial pig operations along Howard Street and area.<br /><br />The assumptions that there were no off-site sources, as in off the Uniroyal site, meant that the pumping and treatment systems on the former Uniroyal site could theoretically at least prevent new contamination from entering the Elmira aquifers. At the same time an off-site containment & treatment system existed, consisting of pumping wells W5A, W5B, W3 (later W3R), W4, and E7. These wells and their computer modelled pumping rates incorrectly assumed that all off-site contaminants were dissolved in the municipal aquifers namely MU and ML. This assumption was inherently wrong even if CRA’s and Chemtura’s assumption that there were no off-site source areas was accurate. Dr. Richard Jackson, the first chair of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) committee that started in 2015 explained that contaminants diffuse into aquitards between aquifers over time. Then, if and when those aquifers are slowly remediated, the contaminants back diffuse out of the less permeable aquitards, back into the aquifers. This process greatly increases the time required to restore the aquifers to drinking water standards because there is much more contamination to be pumped and treated then was originally calculated. More revelations from Dr. Jackson are provided in Chapter Nineteen.<br /><br />The underground stratigraphy or layers of soils, clays, and gravels as provided by CRA in published stratigraphic maps indicated the possibility of DNAPL migration from Uniroyal/Chemtura not only over to the Nutrite property but actually all the way from Uniroyal, past Varnicolor, and on to the OW57-32 and W4 area. This area is actually close to the Region of Waterloo water tower on Howard Avenue in Elmira. DNAPL under pressure from a volume of DNAPL at the source area, such as a pit or pond, migrate via gravity flow through the subsurface. Essentially, the free- phase DNAPL sink through the pore spaces of fill and sand and gravel until they meet a more impervious surface such as a clay or silt aquitard. The DNAPL then flow laterally downhill under both the force of gravity as well as by the head or pressure from DNAPL pushing it along. In the case of the DNAPL found behind the Varnicolor property near the Howard Street water tower, the stratigraphic maps do show a downward slope on the surface of the aquitard making a release and migration from Uniroyal off its west side very possible. Jaimie Connolly, the hydrogeologist at the time with the MOE, incorrectly suggested that residual DNAPL left behind should have appeared in groundwater sampling with higher concentrations between the former Uniroyal site and the water tower if free- phase DNAPL had travelled that route. In fact, there weren’t many monitoring wells in that area but I believe that the one or two of the wells did show higher concentrations of chlorobenzene, one of the DNAPL chemicals involved.<br /><br />This question as to whether the free phase DNAPL found behind (west) Varnicolor Chemical near the Elmira water tower is but one more example of the grotesque failure of public consultation in Elmira is clear. Yes, both the MOE and Chemtura knew that the issue had to be addressed but their position was a foregone conclusion. Whether it was major evidence of free- phase DNAPL on the Uniroyal site, which they denied, or even free phase LNAPL from Building #15 migrating eastwards towards the Creek which they confirmed, they never lacked for highly creative solutions and explanations.<br /><br />In my opinion, most often these “highly creative solutions and explanations“ ended up being what I refer to as either junk science or pseudo science. Science as in religion, democracy, free speech, etc., can be perverted. Dishonest people live on the margins. They have little morals or ethics, thus grey zones in our knowledge are their playground. Grasping one or two principles of groundwater science and misapplying them is child’s play for those who wish to deceive.<br />Therefore, in the summer of 2012, senior officials at Chemtura and Conestoga Rovers and Associates essentially refuted its 1998 findings, and the observations and conclusions of its own staff. Their client was happy as apparently were the officials at the MOE West Central Region.<br /><br />Announcements<br /><br />On September 28, 2012, Eric Hodgins, Regional Municipality of Waterloo hydrogeologist, made an announcement at the CPAC meeting on behalf of the Region. Eric advised that the Region had essentially permanently written off the south well field consisting of wells E7 and E9. The Region had decided that until or unless the Elmira aquifers were remediated they simply would not even consider the two south wells in its planning for Elmira’s future water supply.136 137 This decision was a shock to CPAC members and I’m sure to the public as well. The whole idea of remediating the Elmira Aquifers was that someday preferably sooner than later these two wells would once again be the source of drinking water for the residents of Elmira. The following month we learned that the new well, E10, further south of E7 and E9, was included in the formal Ontario Source Protection Plans whereas E7 and E9 were not. These Source Protection Plans arose out of recommendations following the Walkerton Inquiry that had investigated the mass poisoning of Walkerton residents in 2000 by E.Coli bacteria.<br /><br />At the same meeting, George Karlos, assistant director at the time for MOE West Central Region, suggested that it might be time for the MOE to do another downstream sediment study. The last major effort had taken place in 1995/96 via the Rein Jaagumagi and Donna Bedard biological assessment of the Canagagigue Creek. Mr. Jaagumagi and Ms. Bedard were MOE employees and their efforts had been the first major effort in the Creek since the 1960s. They analysed for dioxins/furans, DDT, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides, PCBs and other chemicals. They looked at fish tissue as well as contaminants in sediments and floodplain soils. They examined both the numbers and variety of organisms living in the Creek sediments. Their conclusions were that the Creek was remarkably polluted with a large variety of industrial chemicals primarily from Uniroyal Chemical and that despite greatly reduced ongoing contamination, the effects of decades of indiscriminate disposal, burial, and dumping of both liquid and solid industrial wastes had taken a terrible and ongoing toll on the natural environment. Over the next three years, the MOE West Central Region sampled and analysed primarily for dioxins/furans and DDT in and around the Creek.<br /><br />The results of this sampling were not encouraging for anyone. For each sample result that appeared to be lower than samples taken seventeen years earlier, another sample would be problematic. Normally, for example, DDT breaks down into the metabolites DDD and DDE over time. DDT has been banned in Canada since 1972, and therefore, one would expect to find higher levels of DDD and DDE than DDT. Despite this fact DDT showed up in occasional samples at ridiculous concentrations including at 12,000 parts per billion (ppb) in a sample taken near the New Jerusalem Road, perhaps a mile downstream. CPAC and SWAT members including me criticized much of this sampling based on what we viewed as a “locational sampling bias”. It seemed that the higher results from 2012 and 2013 dictated the basis for the sampling locations from that point on. As the Creek is approximately five miles or more in length before it joins the Grand River, it seems bizarre to be sampling only in a handful of constantly repeating locations. After all we knew that dioxins and DDT are transported by soil sediments in the surface water of the Creek, especially during high flows. They are constantly eroded from some locations, transported downstream, and deposited in other areas. As a member of SWAT I spoke to Chemtura, CRA, and the MOE as well as submitted written concerns and criticisms to them regarding their sampling, analysis, and conclusions. The extremely low number of sampling locations failed to delineate all the probably highly contaminated areas in the Creek.<br /><br />A pattern seemed to develop where months would go by with few new issues raised, only to have multiple new issues suddenly appear almost simultaneously. This pattern certainly was evident in mid to late 2012. CPAC had presented a resolution to all parties and stakeholders in May 2012 concerning what members considered to be the upcoming failure to remediate the Elmira aquifers by 2028. Chemtura, CRA, and the MOE all raised a ruckus about this resolution. They attacked CPAC’s experience, credibility, and technical knowledge in an attempt to buttress their own long-held position that everything was just fine. No need to worry, all the professionals and experts were allegedly on Chemtura’s and CRA’s side. Well, in fact, they weren’t.<br /><br />In an act of unbelievable hypocrisy, all three parties made a significant announcement at a CPAC meeting on November 2012, a mere six months after the presentation of CPAC’s resolution. CPAC, the news media consisting usually only of Gail Martin of the Elmira Independent, and the public were advised … wait for it … that Conestoga Rovers team, all on their own, had determined through computer modelling and detailed analyses of years of groundwater results that the current off-site pumping regime wasn’t going to result in the Elmira aquifers achieving drinking water standards by 2028. The pump and treat method, otherwise known as hydraulic containment, either at the current pumping rates or without the assistance of some other technology just couldn’t accomplish the job anywhere close to 2028. CRA personnel looked at us as if they had just invented sliced bread. With perfectly straight faces they emphasized that they had discovered this result via intense scrutiny, scientific inquiry, and their allegedly vast hydrogeological consulting expertise. We were stunned yet again. Puffery, arrogance, smugness, self-entitlement … call it what you will … they had in spades. Of course, the partners-in-pollution all supported each other. It was a love-in.<br /><br />There was more of course. CRA went to great pains to advise CPAC and SWAT that not only were they going to TRIPLE the volume of off-site groundwater being pumped and treated, but they were also going to use a technology known as in situ chemical oxidation (ISCO). Does this sound at all familiar? Yours truly had approached the former CPAC in 2009 with a detailed delegation recommending ISCO be used in Elmira, especially to lower chlorobenzene concentrations in areas of higher groundwater concentrations. ISCO had been used successfully in Cambridge, Ontario to lower groundwater concentrations of both trichloroethylene (TCE) and trichloroethane (TCA) courtesy primarily of Northstar Aerospace on Bishop Street in Cambridge. All three of these chemicals are chlorinated solvents also known as dnapls. Unsurprisingly, the former CPAC members were still smarting from the 2007 to 2008 public relations fiasco they initiated with their initial improper, illegal attempt to remove me from CPAC. Eventually, the incompetent at best Woolwich Councillors did the deed for them. I had the strong impression that the very last thing that CPAC members now wanted to do was to give any more credence to the most technically credible citizen member that they had just gotten rid of frivolously and without any legitimate cause.<br /><br />Hindsight is often the true test, not promises. Chemtura managers and their fellow travellors CRA and the MOE made their brag. Now in November 2012 they promised to triple the volume of water pumped per day, per week, and per month. They promised to use a new technology to more quickly lower some of the higher chlorobenzene concentrations in the Elmira aquifers.<br /><br />Jump to 2018 for a moment. Did they come through on their promises? If you, the readers, are skeptical after reading these last fourteen chapters, you have reason to be. Chemtura and its next corporate successor Lanxess have once again behaved as if they were God’s gift to both the science and art of hydrogeology as well as to Elmira. They, to date, have failed miserably. Pumping rates today are not triple what they were in 2012. The rates have not even doubled. From 2012 until 2018 they have increased their pumping rates by approximately fourteen percent. Despite this broken promise they still pretend that they are honest brokers whose word is good and that they are the victims of harsh treatment by CPAC members especially between 2011 and September 2015. I believe they feel that their expertise and professionalism should be respected and applauded based upon their words, not their actions.<br /><br />More Corruption Revealed<br /><br />True to his promise to set up a meeting with the Ontario Minister of the Environment, Mayor Todd Cowan did so in mid-December 2012. Three CPAC members including Dr. Dan Holt and Mayor Cowan travelled to Toronto for a meeting with Jim Bradley, once more the Minister of the Environment. Mr. Bradley had quite a history and positive reputation from his first stint as Environment Minister in the 1990s also under the provincial Liberal government of the day. Mr. Bradley was widely viewed in those days as somewhat of a progressive Liberal within the party’s ranks and he shone in the environment portfolio. Among other triumphs he had a hands-on approach and was known to assist with local cleanup projects around Toronto in which he was photographed working alongside local environmental activists. There were rumbles at the time of his facing strong opposition, however, in cabinet from his colleagues who were not amenable to the Environment Ministry expanding its share of the financial pie at the expense of other ministries. Ahh, such is politics. The meeting was a waste of time for the long beleaguered citizens of Elmira as Mr. Bradley and the MOE did absolutely nothing helpful for us.<br /><br />Within three months, two other odd incidents occurred, one at a public CPAC meeting and another at the Conestoga Rovers offices in Waterloo. The November 29, 2012 CPAC meeting was a regular CPAC meeting with a number of different subjects on the agenda. Steve Quigley of CRA presented information on how CRA had developed a computer modelling tool to assist in understanding the complex hydrogeology beneath the Chemtura site in Elmira. After his presentation, there was a question and answer session in regards to the development of this computer program. Mr. Quigley at one point enlisted Susan Bryant from the gallery to acknowledge her time and efforts in assisting CRA in the development of this computerized groundwater modelling program. Ms. Bryant confirmed that she had indeed assisted in some way with the development of this program. At the time knowing Susan’s lack of technical and mathematical background, I assumed that perhaps she had written the text describing the program in some sort of reference manual for CRA employees. Obviously, this announcement and public confirmation was stunning. CPAC and SWAT were advised that CRA had been using this program for many years. That sort of begged the question as to why they were bringing it to CPAC now. The other issue was that apparently Ms. Bryant had still been a CPAC member (2000-early 2011) when she was working with CRA on this project. I was a member of CPAC from 2000 until February 2008 and I had heard nothing of her involvement nor of the program development. Dr. Regier had been a member of CPAC from the late 90s until about 2005 and he confirms that he’d heard nothing of the sort from Ms. Bryant either, privately or publicly. Finally, I recall asking Susan Bryant around 2006 when we were seriously going to take a run at CRA for their client-driven and generally hopeless technical reports. Ms. Bryant would not give me a straight answer and seemed to be hedging on both our long-time criticism of CRA. In hindsight, it is now clear to me that Ms. Bryant had a conflict of interest in regards to CRA and their long- time client, Chemtura.<br /><br />As shocked as the current CPAC and SWAT members were, we all expected that this revelation would never be brought up again as it was so revealing and damaging to Ms. Bryant’s credibility as a representative of the public trying to push and cajole Chemtura into doing the right thing, environmentally. After all, the expression “sleeping with the enemy” seemed somewhat appropriate to CPAC and SWAT. If I had been shocked about a senior Chemtura employee visiting Susan Bryant’s house to help her with a cranky lawnmower as stated earlier, you can imagine how I was feeling about this revelation. Well, we were wrong about this revelation being forever buried.<br /><br />At the November 2012 CPAC meeting, Steve Quigley asked whether CPAC and SWAT members had any interest in not only receiving a copy of this electronic data program (e:DAT) on a USB key but also in attending a tutorial on how to use the program. CPAC and SWAT members were all interested and a date of January 10, 2013 was set for us to appear at the CRA offices facing onto King St. in Waterloo. The tutorial included several CRA employees who proved helpful in explaining how this 3D groundwater model worked; they included Adam Loney, Kristen Todtz, and Ted Hutchinson. Surprising to me, Susan Bryant attended. I thought that odd as she was neither a CPAC nor a SWAT member and this tutorial was certainly not a public meeting. Furthermore we’d already been advised that she knew all about this program and had her own copy for some time. It just seemed bizarre yet again. At one point in the tutorial, Mr. Hutchinson or Mr. Loney, was stumped by a question and turned to Ms. Bryant to ask if she could provide clarification. Well! Susan Bryant’s reaction this time was significantly different than it had been at the November 29, 2012 CPAC meeting in which she had been almost defiant and proud of her role in working on this e:DAT. I imagine now that Steve Quigley calling on her at the CPAC meeting was done intentionally and with her prior knowledge. This calling was unexpected and the fact that it was a different, less senior CRA employee than Steve Quigley, almost gave the impression that she and her efforts were well known within CRA. Wow! One of the CPAC members present has since described “… the surprised look on her face, the stammering response as she caught her words initially, and the sheepish smile as she gave her answer to the effect that, yes, she had been involved in the development of E-DAT with CRA for a number of years and knew something of the data. The impression given was her desire for the relationship to have remained confidential.”<br /><br />This quote from a CPAC member was written on April 3, 2017. I had asked CPAC and SWAT members originally in 2015 to put their recollections in writing about these two meetings regarding e:DAT and Susan Bryant. These recollections were submitted to Woolwich Council in both 2015 and 2017 as evidence that Susan Bryant had been in a serious conflict of interest position for a long time dealing with Chemtura and CRA as she endeavoured to represent both the publics’ interests as well as her own personal ones simultaneously. Ms. Bryant later claimed, in writing, that she had not been paid for her extensive work with CRA, which to my mind raises even more questions. Putting it bluntly: CRA were Chemtura’s strong right arm in beating back technical criticisms made by Woolwich citizens for decades. Why would an honest broker allegedly representing the interests of Woolwich and Elmira citizens have any private dealings with Conestoga Rovers? Woolwich Township Council in its infinite wisdom and overall concern for appropriate public consultation seemed not at all concerned with these written statements from several CPAC and SWAT members detailing inappropriate actions and behaviour by an appointee of council to this public interest committee.<br /><br />The months from November 2012 to January 2013 had indeed been busy with Chemtura issues being front and centre. In Januray 2013 CPAC had been advised that Chemtura was once again facing its *Responsible Care verification that came around approximately every three years. As chair of CPAC, Dr. Dan Holt was a part of the verification team tasked with the duty of carefully examining whether or not Chemtura were living up to its responsibilities and duties in order to maintain its verification, which it had received many years earlier. Of course members of this current CPAC like many long before it had many reasons to be skeptical. Members felt confident that Dr. Dan would fairly examine the requirements for reverifying Chemtura and make the correct decision. Unfortunately, CPAC soon learned that a past CPAC and council member, Pat McLean, had also been appointed to the current verification team. Oh, yes, guess who made these appointments? Chemtura themselves primarily decided which local citizens would be added to the team designated by the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) to make the reverification decision.<br /><br />In regards to Pat McLean’s presence on the verification team, Richard Clausi, a SWAT team member and co-founder of the Elmira Enviromental Hazards Team (EH-Team), spoke out loudly and clearly against her appointment at the January 2013 CPAC meeting. He was not amused by Ms. McLean’s presence on the team. He, like me and the rest of CPAC, was now aware of Ms. McLean’s, extensive, long time and carefully hidden–from-CPAC association with the National Advisory Panel of the CIAC. The CIAC was formerly known as the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA). I had learned that Pat McLean was involved with the National Advisory Panel in 2009 after I was removed from CPAC. While on CPAC as a voting member and with Ms. McLean as chair, I and presumably the other members had never been advised of Ms. McLean’s CIAC role. I certainly know that Dr. Regier was unaware of Pat’s McLean’s role while he was a CPAC member until 2005. So what exactly was Ms. McLean’s CIAC role and how did she get appointed to the National Advisory Panel whose alleged purpose was to advise the CCPA/CIAC of chemical company issues affecting the public? First I speculate that she was appointed because she had been the chair of CPAC and most likely had the recommendation of Chemtura. Oh, my, that is not a good thing. After all Chemtura have always only done what’s good for themselves, not the public. Second, her role was to advise on issues facing citizens in communities hosting chemical companies. She certainly would have knowledge of the odour issues in Elmira from 1998 until 2001. She appeared to me to have little or no understanding of the groundwater issues and always seemed content to follow others on those matters.<br /><br />The real issue would be the perks involved. One of those perks for a former politician would, of course, be status and prestige. She had been off Woolwich Council since 2006. Another perk was travel. I believe that there should be exactly zero perks for any member of CPAC other than doing the right thing for the public. While chairing CPAC and allegedly working in the public interest, Pat McLean was flown around North America to meetings and conventions, all expenses paid for hotel accommodations, meals and travel expense. Possibly there would also have been per diem payments as well. This is an obvious and blatant conflict of interest. I have long been appalled at politicians and others hiding behind pecuniary conflicts of interest as if those conflicts of interest are the only kind that could cause a problem for them. In fact family or employment conflicts of interest are huge. This was unacceptable that Pat McLean played this game for years without disclosing it to all stakeholders and the public and it was even more unacceptable that when Woolwich Council were given the documented evidence of this behaviour that they did nothing but deny, hide and condone it. I believe this behaviour is corruption and the guilty parties will eventually pay for it.<br /><br />Dr. Dan Holt participated in all meetings of the verification team examining Chemtura’s compliance with the principles of *Responsible Care. This program was the cornerstone of the CIAC and they expected all members of the CIAC to diligently work to achieve the designation. Public outreach, public consultation, sharing of plans for worst case scenarios were all a part of this designation. Essentially, the CIAC espoused honest and regular communication between their chemical company members and the communities in which they operated. In the past when members of the EH-Team as well as some past CPAC members had questioned Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura ever achieving *Responsible Care verification; members had asked whether they should have the designation removed. The response we received from those two organizations was that it was better having Uniroyal and their later corporate entities as members trying to achieve verification, rather than to dismiss them.<br /><br />Dr. Dan Holt attended what he thought was the final meeting for the verification team. The verification team members expressed their concerns that Chemtura personnel had messed up again with their failure to warn either Woolwich Township or the public immediately after the September 27, 2010 BLE-25 release. This neglect to inform was but one more in a long history of failures either to communicate promptly or accurately during a crisis or an event. Hence, Dr. Dan publicly reported to Woolwich Council that Chemtura had failed their reverification. This loss of verification had been forseen by CPAC and, based on conversations from the rest of the verification team, they all had full knowledge of the uphill battle facing Chemtura. Then, at the apparent final meeting the majority spoke against Chemtura’s reverification. Dr. Dan understood it to mean that while a formal written decision would be forthcoming from the CIAC, the decision had been made by the team and it was negative. Chemtura went ballistic. They appeared as a delegation at the next Council meeting date and attacked. They accused Dr. Dan of pre-empting the process, of substituting his personal opinion for the rest of the team, and that essentially he had spoken out of turn. Personal insults and attacks were made at the Council meeting and the inexperienced councillors were taken by surprise as was all of CPAC. Interestingly, no one from Chemtura actually said that Dr. Dan was incorrect in any of his factual statements or recollections. Something was obviously afoot.<br /><br />Sure enough, the CIAC members and their vaunted verification team were finally exposed as being a sham. I had always known that Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura should never have been awarded the *Responsible Care verification. After all why should manipulators, deceivers, dissemblers, and dishonest purveyors of information ever be awarded a status which they did not deserve? *Responsible Care was all about honest communications. Citizens had never had that from Uniroyal or any of their following corporate iterations. Nevertheless, as I had never been on any of the verification teams, by corporate intent obviously, I didn’t have as much direct information about the process as we all had now. However stunningly the CIAC came back and awarded Chemtura their reverification. Chemtura clearly knew this decision when hurling their verbal assault and attack upon Dr. Dan Holt at the council meeting. CPAC members now realized the whole *Responsible Care designation was just a sham of pretend transparency and accountability. One more victory for protecting the corporate powerful and their attempts to shape public opinion to their self-serving ends.<br /><br />This chapter offers an insight into what a rat’s nest CPAC actually always was and very well may always be. Even with new Woolwich Councillors who are not automatically in bed with Chemtura, it seems to me large corporate polluters do not answer to anyone they don’t want to. Chemtura managers were prepared to continue with incredible cleanup fantasies and thus create their own version of reality. They have no problem co-opting citizens or backstabbing and undermining those who do not cooperate or roll over for them.<br /><br />Chapter Fifteen deals with the incredible disappearing and reappearing toxic waste gravel pits on the Chemtura site. I provide further evidence of mayoral lying and the ramifications of it, of a mayor who lies to citizens and to his own councillors in order to get his own way. A human being at his worst.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 14<br /><br />135 Jeff Outhit, “Chemtura fined $150,000”, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, May 15, 2012<br /><br />136 Gail Martin, “Elmira will need new wells, after groundwater restored”, Elmira Independent, October 11, 2012<br /><br />137 Letter To The Editor, “Speaking the truth”, Elmira Independent, October 11, 2012</div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-6542198777754171832023-12-19T10:22:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:22:31.642-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_4.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5901571204700378807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Fifteen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />126.......Chemtura and MOE: World Class Scammers<br /><br />128.......The Stroh Drain<br /><br />130.......CRA Topographical Map<br /><br />132.......Reinstatement or Not<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 15<br /><br />Chemtura and MOE: World Class Scammers<br /><br />I have to express my admiration for the persistence and the discipline of Chemtura and MOE staff to maintain their cover over decades. Both organizations have been caught in some extraordinary lies, deceptions, and brazen attempts in Elmira to deceive the public, and yet they continue with their public posturing. Once again I must constantly remind myself that there is almost no length to which these two parties will not go in order to promote themselves, save money, or even discredit legitimate opposition to their reign of terror in Elmira, Ontario. The persona for Chemtura is one of a responsible, concerned, corporate citizen with a conscience. The MOE’s persona is of dedicated officials who act in to the public’s interest, a provincial ministry doing its utmost to protect both the natural environment and all life in it. Their efforts have paid off with citizens who do not pay close attention to the issues. Those few of us who have paid serious attention for years, know the truth.<br /><br />The March 7, 2013 Elmira Independent reported on a discussion at CPAC regarding two former gravel pits on Chemtura’s south-east corner. In the Independent article, Sebastian, Richard, myself, and Susanna Meteer were all quoted.138 Ms. Meteer, somewhat to my consternation, had seemed to appear out of nowhere at a CPAC meeting in 2013 advising us that she had been appointed to CPAC by Woolwich Council. As I was only a SWAT sub-committee member I did not question this appointment but should have. I have long learned the hard way that rules and procedures involving Woolwich Township are at the whim of the winners of the most recent election. CPAC members had also had a person appointed to replace Corrine Shuh as the CPAC secretary. Ostensibly CPAC and SWAT members had input into the decision because we did interview Lisa Schaefer prior to her starting her duties as secretary. I was advised later, however, that Lisa was a done deal and our “interview” was merely a formality. The joys of being a committee member of a municipal council.<br /><br />CPAC and SWAT members found the discussions and debates around the former gravel pits known as GP-1 and GP-2 to be somewhat peculiar. First, members of past UPACs and CPACs had long been advised that these two gravel pits were the recipients of extensive overland flow of contaminated water originating from the five east-side buried pits known as retention pit east (RPE) one through five (1-5). For some of members including me who had been on the Chemtura property and land adjacent to it, it was obvious that the highest ground elevation on the site was in the north-east corner. Even from a few hundred metres or more away from the site, that elevated land was obvious. Citizens over the decades had also seen maps showing swampy areas and wetlands in the south-east corner of the Uniroyal/Chemtura property. Therefore,the confirmation from Uniroyal/Chemtura seemed logical to us when we were advised that overflowing east side pits flowed both west and downhill towards the creek and also due south and downhill into the two former, low lying gravel pits known as GP-1 and 2.<br /><br />Chemtura claimed to be voluntarily doing an on-site cleanup that was needed, requested and relatively expensive. Remember CPAC had submitted the July 2003 Request For Action to all parties attending CPAC. Among considerable other on-site remediation, CPAC had specifically requested the excavation and removal of these two pits. The reason was that CPAC members had Crompton’s sampling results for dioxins/furans and DDT from multiple sites within these two gravel pits. These results were part of the early 2000 efforts toward both a Human Health Risk Assessment of the Uniroyal/Crompton site as well as an Ecological Risk Assessment of the site. While GP-1 had more exceedances of soil criteria then GP-2 for these chemicals, nevertheless CPAC and SWAT members believed that any and all exceedances had to be removed. In addition to the July 2003 written request for on-site source removal of contaminants, these CPAC members had been pushing Chemtura and the MOE for on-site source removal since 2012 and CPAC’s resolution advised that hydraulic containment on its’ own was inadequate. This pressure was ongoing from 2012 throughout early 2013. Chemtura management were much less enthusiastic about doing that much excavation.<br /><br />Chemtura representatives initially stated that they were only going to cap the two gravel pits rather than do any excavation whatsoever. This intention drew ridicule and criticism from CPAC members and from the occasional appearance of either Pat McLean or Susan Bryant in the gallery. Dioxins simply were far too toxic to all forms of life simply to be buried beneath a foot or so of soil that would presumably limit surface soil erosion during flood events. Their second proposal was better although still inadequate to most CPAC members and SWAT. Once again it appeared as if Susanna Meteer was overly concerned with the impression she was giving the MOE. While her efforts on CPAC were appreciated, I could see early on that she was uncomfortable sometimes with strong disagreements of fact and opinion involving the MOE. I was not terribly surprised when she departed CPAC as suddenly as she had appeared. The second proposal was for partial excavation of some of the worst spots in GP-1, within the top foot, and then capping with soil and vegetation for both former gravel pits.<br /><br />CPAC and SWAT’s long-held belief that these two pits were the recipients of extensive overland flow of contaminated water initially was a result of the information having been presented from Uniroyal and its consultants, CRA. Members had reports such as the CRA 1991 Environmental Audit and others that suggested the east side pits often overflowed during the decades they had been in operation. Two pipelines crossed the Creek carrying toxic liquid wastes from the production processes on the west side to the pits on the east side. As per a report completed by the MOE and GRCA in 1985, titled, “A History of Uniroyal Waste Management at Elmira,” CPAC members learned that 165,000 Imperial gallons per day of these toxic wastewaters were sent across the creek in the 1960s. Using 165,000 gallons per day over a five and a half day work week (with overtime) one extrapolates that close to one million gallons of grossly contaminated water per week was pumped into these east side ponds. The ponds were neither covered nor did they have any kind of liner beneath them. The idea was that they would soak into the ground and that there would be a certain amount of evaporation into the air. Suggestions or excuses have been made to the effect that Uniroyal hoped that the clay in the soil would help neutralize the acids in some of the waste products. Uniroyal had indeed essentially dumped directly into the Creek via overflowing ponds on the west side situated immediately beside the Creek in the floodplain. On the east side, there seemed to be an attempt to use the earth as a filter prior to the contaminated waters and solvents eventually getting into the Creek via groundwater.<br /><br />Of course, however much might evaporate and or soak into the ground was pretty much irrelevant on rainy days. Think about it. That volume of 165,000 gallons per day was being pumped into a couple of these pits while it rained. It’s far more likely that the rain added to the depth of liquids in the pit rather than the levels decreasing by slowly draining out the bottom. Jeff Merriman, Chemtura environmental engineer, advised CPAC at this time that furrows had been ploughed in a north-south direction to assist with the drainage into the two gravel pits. Two events conspired to add to the overwhelming evidence to date of the willingness of Uniroyal and their corporate successors to gild the lily unmercifully. The one had to do with detailed information and data that the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) likely required Chemtura to provide prior to the remediation of the two gravel pits. Both GP-1 and GP-2 were located in the floodplain of the Canagagigue Creek, and hence, the GRCA had authority and its approval was required prior to any work being done. Therefore, detailed maps of all factors such as vegetation, elevation, and types and numbers of trees were all required by CRA to provide to the GRCA.<br /><br />The second event was even more unlikely. In early 2014 a private Documentary producer (Merit Motion Pictures) contacted me for both technical information as well as advice regarding possible locations around the property for film shooting. Hence, I was out and about with a private property owner’s permission, scouting possible locations when I made a totally unexpected and astounding discovery.<br /><br />Remember that I had lived in Woolwich Township since 1993 and in Elmira since 2002, and while I had a pretty good idea of the locale and terrain, Uniroyal was completely surrounded by private property except at their north end where Church Street was the northern border of their property. Furthermore I had been looking at photographs and maps of the Uniroyal/Chemtura site from 1991 until this scouting excursion in 2014. What I found in addition to these filming locations was shocking and stunning to me, the instant I saw it. We will come back to these two events shortly.<br /><br />The remediation of the two former gravel pits, GP-1 and GP-2, was completed in October 2013 or so we all thought. Surprisingly, Chemtura decided that there was significant contamination in GP-1 just a little deeper than the one- foot depth that they had proposed excavating. In fact, staff actually excavated near the north end of GP-1 to a depth of two metres! This area was approximately fifty metres in length and fifteen metres in width. Interestingly it ran in a north to south direction to an area that often had standing water. This standing water was groundwater exposed at the ground surface. As surprising as that was, it turned out come the following summer and fall that three supplementary excavations were required based on late lab results showing areas after remediation that were still above the MOE’s criteria for dioxins/furans and DDT. These three areas were much smaller and were arranged in a semi-circle around the deeper, two- metre excavated area. One supplementary area was on the west side, one on the east, and the final one was due south located in the area of very low elevation with standing water during high groundwater periods. All three of these supplementary areas were also excavated at greater depths than the original one foot- depth Chemtura wanted.<br /><br />It seems clear to me that while Chemtura representatives virtually refused to ever admit that dioxins/furans and DDT could possibly be transported deeper into the ground than six inches to a foot in depth, their actions spoke much louder than their words. Presumably, the MOE were on-site during this remediation and pointed out these deeper contaminated areas causing Chemtura to excavate them on some sort of “without prejudice” basis. Sure enough, a few more years down the road and now Lanxess, the new owners, were again piously and with extreme poo poo del toro advising the public consultation bodies and the public that dioxins/furans and DDT are hydrophobic and bind strongly with soils, thus they won’t ever be found deeper than fifteen centimetres (5.9 inches). Such rubbish!<br /><br />There were some logical inconsistencies going on with GP-1 and GP-2 above and beyond the much deeper excavations required near the north end of GP-1 that I hadn’t yet figured out. It made general sense to me that as the overland flow of toxic waste waters from the overflowing buried pits moved southwards, that the north end of GP-1, which was the closest to the incoming flow, would be affected most severely. This overland flow CPAC and SWAT members were advised was allegedly due to furrows being intentionally ploughed into the ground to assist the southwards flow to GP-1 and GP-2. However, based on the likely volumes of these wastewaters, something still didn’t add up for me.<br /><br />Meanwhile, about this time in the summer of 2013 at a CPAC meeting Susan Bryant raised a question she directed to MOE officials. Keep in mind that this Woolwich Council of November 2010 to November 2014 and this CPAC embraced both questions and delegations from the public during the regular, monthly CPAC meetings. Susan Bryant had looked at an old photograph of the south-east corner of Uniroyal, provided by CRA in one of its reports describing the proposed remediation of GP-1 and GP-2. Ms. Bryant stated there appeared to be some sort of open, flat area shaped like a curve from Chemtura’s south-east side over to the neighbour’s property. She asked if this area was some sort of pathway from Chemtura onto the neighbour’s property. MOE Assistant Director George Karlos stated that it was not. He went into some detail about how he himself had walked from the south-east side of Chemtura across this area and onto the neighbour’s property owned by Mr. Stroh. Mr. Karlos did not go into great detail as to his motivation or reason for doing so but he was very clear that he had walked this area and that absolutely there was no pathway of any kind that could transport contaminants from the Uniroyal/Chemtura property, south-east onto the Stroh farm. Well, that was certainly unequivocal and reassuring. Thank you Mr. George Karlos . Your emphatic assertion will soon be undermined quite well.<br /><br />You see, there was a tiny problem with Mr. Karlos’s public reassurances to CPAC, SWAT, the media, and the public. They were false. I return now to the two events of the drainage map within CRA reports for the GRCA regarding GP-1 and GP-2 and my discovery as I looked for filming locations for the CBC documentary. When on my location walkabout I had made a totally unexpected and astounding discovery, which I instantly recognized as significant.<br /><br />The Stroh Drain<br /><br />I had talked in early summer of 2014 to Mr. Stroh about his family property on the east side of Chemtura when looking for filming locations. His main concern was that any shots would be of the Chemtura property and not of his. Therefore, I drove my car into the laneway from Church Street (highway # 86) southward toward the turnoff westward heading toward the Chemtura site. I parked the car and walked a little. I saw what appeared to be a wet, low lying area on the north side of the gravel laneway where I had parked. Next, I noticed that the wetland area was in fact slowly draining southwards through a culvert under the road. Then I saw the rest of it. It wasn’t just groundwater from a spring. It was a stream flowing into the wetland area from further north, through the culvert under the road, and discharging into a well-defined creek bed that flowed southwards.<br /><br />“What, you may ask, is the big deal?” The big deal is that I’d spent the previous twenty-two years reading every single technical report, map, viewing photographs, legal documents, and affidavits that I could get my hands on. I’d studied, discussed, and debated both ground and surface water flowing into, out of, and in and around the Uniroyal Chemical site for over two decades and NOWHERE had a running stream of water ever been identified on the east side, right beside that grossly contaminated toxic waste site.<br /><br />I was stunned. I was shocked. I was apoplectic with anger.<br /><br />I and other Woolwich Township citizens had been given the run around for decades by multiple Uniroyal representatives, engineering consultants and MOE representatives. We’d been lied to blatantly. We’d been lied to both by commission and omission and we had been told that we should trust their information, that they were the experts implying that at best we had become informed well enough to discuss issues but lacked expertise to make sound decisions. We’d been sold junk science and self-serving opinions and wishful thinking as if they were pearls of wisdom from on high. For over two decades we had been told repeatedly and consistently that the contaminants in Uniroyal’s various on-site waste disposal areas had flowed towards the Canagagigue Creek that ran down the middle of the Uniroyal site or polluting chemicals had infiltrated much deeper into the ground where they had contaminated the municipal aquifer, which naturally flows south-west toward the south wellfield.<br /><br />Citizens had also been told in no uncertain terms that no ground or surface water flowed east from the Uniroyal site. Whether related to the surficial aquifer in their north-east corner or the Upper Aquifer just south of it, we had been told verbally and in writing that everything flowed either westwards or southwards from the eastern boundary.<br /><br />So where in heck was this stream coming from? Since 2013 I had been recuperating from having received an artificial hip. Although the new hip felt fine it had not done anything for my loudly protesting knees. Despite these physical challenges I went for a little further walk upstream. It shocked me how close that the stream was to the Uniroyal/Chemtura property. I would estimate that the stream was approximately sixty feet or twenty metres from its fenced property line and soon realized that it was likely man-made. It was narrow (ten to twenty feet wide), straight, and appeared to be several feet deeper than the stream discharging on the south side of the gravel laneway. Despite finding a large, dead beaver that later Councillor Mark Bauman suggested had died from “lead poisoning,” I had not yet figured out that the beaver had partially blocked the culvert under the road in order to expand its pond on the north side of the laneway. I named this so-called stream the “Stroh Drain.” I could tell that although man-made it had been there likely for decades based on the height of the trees growing on both sides of its banks. I followed the Stroh Drain northward until I saw an eight-inch galvanized pipe coming out of the ground at least a few feet below grade and discharging into the Stroh Drain. I continued further north, past the Stroh Drain, and shortly emerged from the woods and saw that I was at the south end of the Stroh field that ran from the cemetery on Church Street southward to where I was standing. Clearly, the water coming out the end of the pipe was groundwater; however, at that time I had less of an idea of exactly where it was coming from.<br /><br />Words from George Karlos kept ringing in my ears: “There is no pathway for contaminant travel from Chemtura’s south-east area over to the two neighbouring properties [Stroh & Martin].” I had enough knowledge and experience to know that both groundwater and surface water divides exist in nature. A divide exists where all surface water on one side of a mountain flows roughly in one direction while all surface water on the other side flows approximately in the opposite direction. At first I didn’t know what my next step was. I was still too shocked by the clear deception and obviously well-kept secret of this surface water drainage so close to the border between the Stroh and Chemtura properties.<br /><br />I went home and made a couple of phone calls. Dr. Dan Holt, the chair of CPAC, lives just north of and very close to the Chemtura property. Vivienne Delaney, also a CPAC member, lives very close to Chemtura, just west of the site. I advised them of what I had discovered and they both agreed to go out later that evening for a little environmental field trip with me. I didn’t know how keen they were about rough walking but was soon disabused of any worries as they both had no difficulty walking circles around me. Not only did they walk north up to the top of the Stroh Drain but they both followed it in the other direction as it actually became a natural spring-fed stream as it went southward. They saw how this drain/stream approached the Martin swimming pond before turning and going around the pond until it discharged into the Canagagigue Creek. This discharge location was several hundred metres downstream of the Chemtura property. Both Dr. Holt and Ms. Delaney, new to CPAC in 2011 were aware of the significance of this waterway so close to the Chemtura property. They had heard George Karlos of the MOE make his pronouncement of no possible contaminant pathway between Chemtura and the Martin swimming pond nor between Chemtura and the Stroh property. All three of us took photographs during our field trip as we had no doubts as to the significance of what we were seeing. Either Mr. Karlos had not walked through this area as he claimed or he was so incompetent he didn’t know a contaminant pathway when he stared right at one. The third option is much worse: that he knew fully the major implications of what he was looking at and chose to dissemble. Keep in mind but for the permission granted to me from Mr. Stroh I would not have found this waterway and contaminant pathway from the Chemtura property to the Stroh and further south, Martin property. There is absolutely no public road or pedestrian access to this side of the Uniroyal/Chemtura toxic waste site and until now no reason to suspect this waterway/drain existed.<br /><br />The three of us carefully examined the Stroh Drain along its path northward and parallel to the Chemtura property line. There was a fence along the property line with the occasional sign hanging on it clearly indicating the start of Chemtura’s property. It appeared to me that the original earth dug up for the Stroh Drain had been piled along the east side of it. Although both properties are well-treed, we could see how flat the ground surface was on the west side or Chemtura side. It was also obvious that the Stroh Drain was excavated well below the ground’s surface of both properties, and hence, would readily collect any surface flow of water whether from an elevated water table at the surface or from heavy precipitation or any other source.<br /><br />CRA Topographical Map<br /><br />Conestoga Rovers & Associates published and distributed a report titled “Scoped Environmental Impact Study” in May 2013. This report was but one written prior to the physical excavation and remediation of the two former gravel pits, GP-1 and GP-2 that occurred later that summer. This report revealed major evidence of long-term deception and deceit by the partners in pollution, Chemtura, the West Central MOE plus their local fellow travellers. At the back of the report there are a number of pockets for various maps of the site to be stored. I revisited this report and many others in the weeks and months after we made the discovery of the Stroh Drain. I understood that because CPAC and SWAT members were dealing with professional truth spinners and experts in junk science and sleight of hand and mouth that they needed to have facts nailed down solidly. Therefore, among other things, they and I were looking for hard evidence that would prove what seemed obvious to the eye. I wanted to find clear topographical information that would show where the overland flow of water would travel and whether or not flow from Uniroyal Chemical could cross over into the Stroh Drain. Peter Gray of MTE Consulting, hired by CPAC and paid by Woolwich Township actually advised CPAC many months later that this below surface drain, in a former wetland kindly marked by CRA on its map, had also changed the natural direction of groundwater flow. Groundwater just like surface water, flows from higher elevations to lower elevations due to gravity. Once a drain is opened below ground surface, you drain not only surface water but you induce groundwater to flow towards the now lower surface of the water table as well.<br /><br />In the back of this report in those provided pockets was a map titled “Existing Conditions,” produced by CRA and dated May 17, 2013. It is a topographical map indicating the ground surface elevations in metres above sea level. This map focuses on Chemtura’s south-east side where the two former gravel pits, GP-1 and 2, are located. Besides elevation contour lines, there are areas marked as wetlands, roadways, and treelines as well as fences and monitoring wells. GP-1 and GP-2 are of course also carefully marked. What is not marked is any suggestion whatsoever of the existence of the Stroh Drain despite the fact that this map was produced for the Grand River Conservation Authority for its approval (stated on the back of the map). The GRCA are entitled to insist that any construction work within so many metres of rivers, creeks, streams, and lakes must be examined by them so as to minimize adverse effects upon wetlands and surface and groundwater flowing into the Grand River as the Canagagigue Creek and its tributaries do. This map does not stop directly on either Chemtura’s south border or its eastern border. It extends approximately eighty metres southward and close to one hundred metres eastward showing elevation contours well past the Stroh Drain. Bizarrely, there are spots where there is a half an inch gap or less in the contour lines as they leave the Chemtura property and progress to the Stroh property. A skeptic such as I am might think that that was a pathetic attempt by CRA to discourage anyone from clearly interpreting exactly where the lowest surface elevations are. In fact, they are located on the Stroh property --unsurprisingly-- exactly where the Stroh Drain had been dug. Obviously, this man-made drain had been carefully surveyed beforehand in order to drain both the Stroh and Chemtura properties.<br /><br />To suggest that the topographical map produced by CRA substantiated what Dr. Holt, Ms. Delaney, and I saw with our own eyes is an understatement. It did so much more than that. It showed us where the lowest lying areas are as well as showing us where the high ground in the south-east corner is. A diagonal ridge runs north-west to south-east on the Chemtura site and just slightly into the Stroh property. Sometime during my investigations, I decided to outline on my own copy of the map the low- lying areas such as the Canagagigue Creek and the Stroh Drain in blue. I then outlined the highest elevations on the ridge in red.<br /><br />Something clicked.<br /><br />I looked even more carefully at the elevation contour lines. Was what I was thinking possible?<br /><br />From what I could see on the topographical map combined with what I had seen in person on the ground which was flowing water in the Stroh Drain, I jumped to a possible confusion. It seemed obvious to me that when the further north, east side pits were overflowing and the north to south swale was bringing the contaminated wastewater southwards that the bulk of the wastewater would flow in the direction of the Stroh Drain as it is the lowest elevation. Later on and with more thought I realized that timing was important. In other words, when was the Stroh Drain built? If it had been built in the 1950s or 1960s, then indeed the swale would have been delivering wastewater southward where it would primarily follow the lower lying land on its east side, especially as ahead of it was the diagonal ridge of high ground. If, however, the Stroh Drain was built say in the 1980s, then the two pipes that had delivered waste water from the west side across the Creek to the east side pits would no longer have been in operation because by 1970 these east side pits were mostly out of active use. That said, what was still obvious was that any overland flow of water from either Creek flooding or heavy rainfall would still flow toward the Stroh Drain as it was intended to do. Other discoveries were soon forthcoming which I will get to all of which continue to undermine the veracity of the parties with any responsibility toward implementing the cleanup of this site.<br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u4LogEECt28/XZdJL7Lw9VI/AAAAAAAAALQ/EDXR-QFz0VIPhsJq52bVhsWZVEo-BeODwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/aerialstrohdrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u4LogEECt28/XZdJL7Lw9VI/AAAAAAAAALQ/EDXR-QFz0VIPhsJq52bVhsWZVEo-BeODwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/aerialstrohdrain.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br />An incident with CPAC in late 2013 brought me considerable personal satisfaction and vindication. You may recall Councillor Bauman’s generally snotty attitude at Woolwich Council back in May 2011 when Mayor Todd Cowan lied to his councillors in order to get them to vote me off of CPAC. He told his councillors that I had agreed not to report any private meetings or confidential information in my daily postings into the Elmira Advocate Blog. I had categorically refused to agree to that, advising him that I was volunteering to do free work on behalf of the community and I did not feel that I had to make concessions or pay in any way for the right to voluntarily assist my community. He and David Brenneman had accepted that–at least to my understanding.<br /><br />I am confident CPAC members knew and understood the knowledge and strength I bring to the CPAC table. They had learned in their dealings with Chemtura and the MOE that those parties would cheerfully gild the lily at will. I was able to present data, dates, and facts that Chemtura and the MOE could not successfully dispute, over and over again. I produced previous old reports, CPAC minutes and so much more that I had in my possession, which none of the CPAC members seemed to have. I also did a tutorial or two for CPAC members on lnapls as well as on dnapls. In other words, I shared freely with them any and all relevant knowledge that I had. Over the years I was a significant asset to CPAC and so CPAC members attempted to get me formally back on CPAC. I had been sitting on my own, with Richard Clausi on occasion, as SWAT team members who were somewhat constrained by the rules laid down by council that gave CPAC members priority in speaking. Nevertheless, Chemtura and the MOE typically were very unhappy when they learned that I would always question their hot air, junk science, and historical revisionism. The relatively inexperienced members on CPAC were learning fast and the folks who had decades of environmental and technical experience (such as Ron Campbell and Graham Chevreau) also were not going to stand for any shenanigans by Chemtura and its consultants. Dr. Regier was a formal SWAT team member and he attended whenever possible, especially quieter meetings in the boardroom beside the council chambers, due to his hearing difficulties.<br /><br />Reinstatement or Not<br /><br />Four of the five CPAC members voted to have me rejoin CPAC as a full member. Except for Councillor Bauman, none of them had wanted me kicked off in the first place. Mark Bauman had only joined CPAC after Mayor Cowan departed. While I had a bit of a hand in getting Mr. Bauman on CPAC it was not a smart move. He continued to do what he does best which is to talk out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously. God save us all from politicians. Mayor Cowan meanwhile had let the power and prestige of the mayor’s chair go to his head and thought that he was the answer to all issues. He made the mistake of attempting to threaten and browbeat CPAC members when he was its chair and got his head handed back to him. Several CPAC members threw his threats right back in his face. You can understand right there why I was happy with these changes. So we all went to Council and, of course, the politicians did want they always do. They bafflegabbed and bullfrittered and Mayor Cowan didn’t want to lose the support of Dr. Holt, the new CPAC chair, so he claimed that he was supporting my move back onto CPAC. When crunch time came, only Councillor Al Poffenroth and the mayor voted for me with Bonnie Bryant (no relation to Susan Bryant) still thinking that I had broken my word due to Mayor Cowan’s earlier lying and hence she voted against me along with Mark Bauman. The tie was left to be broken by the evening’s chair who happened to be Todd’s good buddy and former co-worker in Toronto, Julie-Anne Herteis. This was the same Julie-Anne who stormed out of the CPAC spring 2011 meeting and resigned as CPAC chair. I never had bought into Todd Cowan really voting on my behalf. He was far too petty and far too arrogant to want me back on CPAC especially after CPAC members had seemed so happy to get rid of him as chair. Afterwards, I was interviewed by the local newspapers and they published my comments that this was a moral victory for me. While Council refused me membership, CPAC had publicly endorsed me to rejoin their committee and Mark Bauman who had lied in May 2011 by stating that I couldn’t work with CPAC was exposed for the double dealing prevaricator he was.139 This is also yet one more example why biased, muddled-headed councillors should not be in charge of a technical, volunteer committee: apparently each citizen member quickly knows more about the issues than the council members will ever know.<br /><br />In this chapter, I exposed the extent of deception and deceit to which the partners in pollution are willing to descend. Whether using decades-old man-made drainage ditches to collect toxic groundwater or keeping relevant topographical information hidden for twenty-four years. It seems it’s all in a day’s work for the guilty parties. In Chapter Sixteen I reveal some even more shocking facts that I learned later on in the summer of 2014, revealed as a result of these two discoveries. To this day we are only beginning to bring those facts to the forefront, due to the uninformed and biased meddling of Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 15<br /><br />138 Gail Martin, “Committee opposes partial excavation of waste pits”, Elmira Independent, March 7,2013<br /><br />139 Steve Kannon, “Council denies bid to return Marshall to CPAC”, Woolwich Observer, August 10, 2013</div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-48717641097476035712023-12-19T10:10:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:10:08.725-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-16-sad-weird-wonderful-in-2014.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4443118590514179840" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Sixteen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />134.......Sad, Weird, Wonderful in 2014<br /><br />135.......Back to the Stroh Drain and Local Topography<br /><br />138.......Interceptor Trenches<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 16<br /><br />Sad, Weird, Wonderful in 2014<br /><br />Woolwich Council for all its improvement over past councils in regards to Uniroyal/Chemtura still made some boneheaded moves. In February 2014, Councillors discussed a development application for a gas station with underground fuel storage tanks right beside the former south wellfield. The one well (E7) was still being used as a significant part of the off-site containment and treatment system [OSCTS]. These proposed underground storage tanks should have been an obvious non-starter but our Council geniuses thought otherwise. It took them until June 2014 to actually vote and their decision was in favour of allowing underground fuel tanks right beside the former two drinking wells E7 and E9. At that time, many Elmira citizens still had hopes that despite the Region’s having written off the south wellfield in 2012 it could yet be brought back into service after the remediation of the Elmira aquifers was completed, theoretically in 2028 but far more likely around 2040 or later. My opinion is that with this decision the Woolwich Councillors of 2010-2014 had just guaranteed that they would never be back in service. Interestingly, Susan Bryant spoke against Council’s proposed acceptance and, once again, we saw Mark Bauman align himself with Susan Bryant. This alliance was neither the first nor the last as Mr. Bauman had recently unsuccessfully lobbied CPAC to accept Susan Bryant as a member.<br /><br />In March of 2014 both CPAC and Mayor Cowan tried unsuccessfully to direct the Ontario MOE West Central Region to require that Chemtura offer financial assurance to the MOE or Woolwich Township in case of the company’s sudden closure and or departure from its local site. Uncharacteristically, CPAC’s chair, Dr. Dan Holt, sent a very critical Letter To The Editor at the Woolwich Observer in regards to the newspaper’s failure to report CPAC and Chemtura issues. Dr. Holt pointed out that editor Steve Kannon had recently written an interesting and informative article on groundwater preservation and restoration at a site in the U.S. but would not do the same for the Elmira situation. The next month, George Karlos of the MOE, while ignoring the growing sentiment and understanding that the 2028 cleanup wasn’t going to happen on time, again promised that it would. Four months later, he publicly promised that within six months he would get the cleanup criteria for the Elmira aquifers to CPAC members. As of this date in early 2019 the promise has yet to be fulfilled. I hope that my readers are beginning to understand my skepticism and overall contempt for the Ontario Ministry of Environment. It’s been nearly thirty years of nonsense, puffery, deception, and just plain horse manure out of them.<br /><br />A few months after Dr. Holt’s criticism, the Woolwich Observer In its June 6, 2014 edition published an article about Dr. Holt, as CPAC chair and his delegation to Woolwich Council in which he updated Council on ongoing matters at CPAC. Dr. Holt had emphasized the need for source removal on the Chemtura site both for short-term and long-term cleanup of the aquifers whether on or off site. In the delegation Dr. Holt also mentions two letters that had recently come to the attention of CPAC members. The first was a May 2, 2008 letter written by MOE hydrogeologist Jaimie Connelly. In it, he insists on more work be done on the Chemtura site including some sub-surface DNAPL removal. Two weeks later, Wilf Ruland, hydrogeologist, had penned a similar letter in which he supports Mr. Connelly’s opinions regarding source removal on the Chemtura site.140 Other CPAC members and I found it very strange that these 2008 letters had not surfaced until some six years later. In fact CPAC had received a document from CRA referencing these two 2008 letters and so CPAC had asked for copies. These letters had been written shortly after I’d been given the boot from CPAC and at a time that I’d been pushing for more DNAPL transparency and honesty. My efforts included a very strong multi-page letter dated August 2006 that I had sent out to all the parties to which I’ve never received a response. Recall too, that meeting on dnapls that Pat McLean, Wilf Ruland, Susan Bryant and I had had at the University of Waterloo in January 2007 with Drs. Beth Parker and John Cherry. Despite my attempts to raise the urgency of dnapls at CPAC during 2007, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant had avoided telling CPAC members about the change in direction by hydrogeologists that included a more aggressive source removal of dnapls wherever possible. Only a few months after my boot from CPAC in 2008, suddenly two letters highly supportive of my public and private comments are released. Released sort of, that is. Apparently, they were sent by the MOE to the CPAC chair at the time Pat Mclean, to Chemtura and to CRA but not much further. Susan Bryant made the silly comment at CPAC that I had probably not received a copy because I didn’t have an e-mail address in 2008. What? I had a fax number that had been used by all involved parties for nearly twenty years and of course I had a mailing address. Highly, highly suspect.<br /><br />Sad to report in this same month of June 2014, Pat Potter, senior environmental activist of high regard originally from Dunnville, Port Maitland Ontario died. Ms. Potter had been helpful to citizens in Elmira during the early days of the municipal well closures and had no qualms about telling Uniroyal Chemical straight up that they were criminals. She hoped some day to attend the Uniroyal trials. It may happen yet but unfortunately Ms. Potter will not see it. She had exposed PCBs in Smithville as well as terrorized the MOE and polluters with the truth for decades. In 1993 Ms. Potter exposed APT Environment vice-president Sylvia Berg’s surreptitious letter to the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA) praising Uniroyal Chemical at a crucial moment in the efforts to get Uniroyal kicked out of the CCPA. She is missed by her family, friends and environmental colleagues.<br /><br />Back to the Stroh Drain and Local Topography<br /><br />The documentary that I had been asked to scout filming locations for was produced by Merit Motion Pictures on behalf of the CBC. The CBC broadcast it on television in the spring of 2015 with the title “Canada’s Shadow War.” The documentary focused on Canada’s involvement as a supplier of war materials to the United States in their “American War on Vietnam.” ( I have borrowed that turn of phrase from friend and colleague, Dr. Henry Regier.)<br /><br />CPAC members were intrigued with this new and potentially damaging information to both Chemtura’s and the MOE’s credibility. Later in the year, they began looking into just exactly how much information might be available regarding the off-site property on Chemtura’s east side. I assured them that I had old reports that had some pretty interesting statements, facts, and opinions in regards to that east side of the company’s site. Information that flew in the face of what CRA and Chemtura had been telling both old and new CPACs for a very long time.<br /><br />One last item went public in the Elmira Independent on June 2014. It did so without comment and without fanfare. In fact, it was barely mentioned again except occasionally by me at CPAC meetings that summer and fall of 2014. No other news media picked it up and it went nowhere. Editor Gail Martin wrote that possibly gravel pits GP-1 and GP-2 were red herrings. Red herrings are my words not Ms. Martin’s. She reported the possibility that, according to what had been presented at a recent CPAC meeting, somehow the location of the old gravel pits on the Chemtura site may have been misplaced and that contaminated liquids most likely flowed eastward onto the Stroh property rather than southward into the alleged locations of GP-1 and GP-2.141 The details will be forthcoming.<br /><br />I was on a roll. CPAC rightly asked how on earth it was possible that a citizen whom our Woolwich Council had kicked off CPAC on two different occasions was the one independently making significant discoveries decades later, about contamination migrating off the Uniroyal Chemical site that was blatantly denied, verbally and in writing, for decades. More revelations were almost immediately forthcoming. I was studying everything I either already had or could get my hands on looking with new eyes at maps, contours, and self-serving statements from Uniroyal, Conestoga Rovers, and the MOE. It is simply amazing how one can automatically accept opinions as statements of fact from persons and groups with a long history of gilding the lily. Therefore, I, just like everyone else, assumed that claims from CRA, Chemtura, and the MOE were accurate until proven otherwise. In fact all of us, after the first fifty deceptive, inaccurate, or highly unlikely statements, should have begun to realize that assuming we were being lied to constantly was the safest route to go in understanding a pretty complicated situation here in Elmira.<br /><br />I looked at a couple of earlier maps in two different reports. The one report from 1985 was titled, “A History of Uniroyal Waste Disposal,” written by Anthony Smith (GRCA), Allan Ralston, and Wayne Jackman (MOE). The second was the February 1991 CH2M HILL report titled. “Elmira-St. Jacobs Water Supply Project Volume 2: Contaminant Plume Mapping and Source Investigation.” The second report by CH2M HILL uses the map from the first one written in 1985. GP-1 and GP-2 were shown on the maps in both reports. Then I noticed something. Both these allegedly identical maps had topographical contour lines showing the elevation above sea level. The numbers seemed off until I realized that the earlier maps were likely done if not pre-metric then at least before metric numbers were commonly used on topographical maps. Therefore, the 1985 and 1991 version maps had the elevations of the contour lines in feet above sea level whereas Conestoga Rovers report, “Scoped Environmental Impact Study” of May 2013 that I had most recently looked at and mentioned in the previous chapter had its maps in metres above sea level.<br /><br />What continued to bother me even after I had done a couple of quick calculations to reassure myself that the two earlier maps were in feet above sea level and the newer one was in metres above sea level?<br /><br />I had noticed over the years that various maps produced by CRA occasionally had slightly different shapes to GP-1 and GP-2. CRA had also verbally assured CPAC members n 2013 that its investigations had determined that GP-1 and GP-2 were slightly different in size. GP-1 in particular was larger and when examining earlier maps versus the 2013 map, I could readily see that the bottom right-hand corner of GP-1 was significantly closer to GP-2 than it was in either the 1985 and 1991 versions. Again, that seemed not to be of any consequence. I looked even more carefully. Some of the numbers on the elevation contours on the two earlier maps were very legible and others less so. I got out my magnifying glass.<br /><br />Now there was one other difference that should have been insignificant between these two earlier maps. In the 1985 report, the map was actually labelled dated as September 1983 and all the names on the “Waste Location Sites” (i.e. waste pits and ponds) were written so as to be read looking at the map from the north end looking south. In other words, the bottom of the map was at Church Street, which was the north end of the Uniroyal site. The February 1991 map, however, had the names written on the waste pits and ponds such that one had the south end of the site at the bottom and the names and orientation of the map is as if First Street is at the south end, looking northward toward Church Street. The 1991 map orientation is actually the usual way that maps of Uniroyal Chemical since are presented.<br /><br />So I had turned the 1985 map upside down and placed it beside the 1991 version in order to have all the pits and ponds line up for easy comparison on the two maps. I also noticed that while the map from the first report (1985) had the pits and ponds labelled to be read with the north end of the site at the bottom, strangely the elevations in feet were written the same way on the 1991 map with the bottom of the map now being the south end of the site. Well, that helped me when comparing the two maps and, sure enough, I found the exact same elevations in feet and decimals in the same place on both maps. Something, however, seemed a little off to me with GP-1. It appeared as if GP-2 was identical in both maps in its location and relative to the various elevation contour lines.<br /><br />The relative orientation of GP-1 seemed identical on both maps in that GP-1 ran from the north-west heading south-east as a sort of long, thinner-in-width, diagonal shape. So, out with the magnifying glass again. That’s when I found something peculiar. The elevation contour marked 1140 feet on the 1985 report was perfectly clear but I couldn’t find it on the 1991 report and map. What the heck! On the 1985 map, it was located immediately underneath GP-1. Using the magnifying glass I went looking on the 1991 map and immediately found it. I could even see it without the magnifying glass now that I knew where it was. Instead of being located beneath GP-1 on the 1991 map it was right in the middle of GP-1. It wasn’t as immediately clear as the 1985 map because the 1991 map had parallel lines across GP-1 in order to make the pit stand out. I looked for and found a few more corresponding contour lines on both the maps. On the older 1985 report and map, contour line 1134-7 is a significant distance away from GP-1 on the west side. On the newer 1991 map contour line 1134-7 is.…closer to the west side of GP-1. What? Contour line 1135-5 is immediately beside GP-1 on its east side in the 1985 map and on the 1991 map is …further away from GP-1 on the east side. Again, what the heck?<br /><br />Then it hit me. Contour line 1140 feet was the highest elevation in the entire south-east corner of the site. It is the top of the diagonal ridge that I had seen with my own eyes when exploring the Stroh Drain area. The 1985 map had the highest elevation of the ridge on the left or west side of GP-1 thus indicating that GP-1 is located on the east side of the ridge. Wow! The 1991 map created by (CH2M HILL) had 1140 feet located right in the middle of GP-1 indicating that that map had GP-1 located right on the top of the diagonal ridge! How could this be? Especially how could this be when for decades CPAC were told that GP-1 was located such that surface water gravity flowed into it. Nothing was going to gravity flow into a former gravel pit located on high ground.<br /><br />I wondered if CH2M HILL had made a mistake in transcribing the location of GP-1. It simply made zero sense for it to be located on the high ground on top of the ridge. This mistake, was likely caused by the fact that the 1985 report had the map upside down in comparison to CH2M HILL’s version. At this point in my thinking I had another realization.<br /><br />CRA in its May 2013 report (“Scoped Environmental Impact Study”) along with the map titled, “Existing Conditions,” had GP-1 located in the lower elevation on the west side of the high, diagonal ridge running from the north-west to the south-east. CRA staff too had changed the location of GP-1. Smith, Ralston, and Jackman in their 1985 report had it in the low-lying ground on the east side of the ridge and CH2M HILL in its 1991 report and map had it right on top of the ridge at its highest elevation. CRA in May 2013 changed the location of GP-1 yet again and put it in the low lying area to the west of the diagonal ridge of high ground. What were the ramifications of these multiple relocations?<br /><br />The ramifications take the form of questions. First, how could these various professionals have confused these placements and no one even down the road found the errors? GP-1 is actually placed in three different locations on three different maps. Assuming that the first map is correct, there is no way that GP-1 could be located at the top of the ridge because water doesn’t flow uphill. Therefore, why or how had CRA moved it a third time to the west side of the ridge? One answer is that Uniroyal’s property was fenced and who would want to trespass on it anyway? Therefore, who would ever know which side of the high ridge GP-1 was located on?<br /><br />Second is there an advantage to intentionally relocate GP-1? In fact there is. The 1985 report indicates GP-1 on the east side of the ridge where, once the pit fills with liquids, any one would expect the bulk of the liquids to drain toward the lower elevation south and east, heading towards the Stroh property. That is not good for either Uniroyal or the MOE’s interests. However, if GP-1 could be slipped over to the west side of the high ridge--as CRA did-- then when it allegedly collects all the gravity flowing southward wastewaters, those liquids would then continue draining mostly southward towards GP-2, which conveniently is still on Uniroyal/Chemtura’s property. Remember that for the MOE, it’s all about contamination migrating off the site. It’s a “no off-site migration, no harm and no foul” sort of attitude. If this misdirection and misrepresentation and deception was an intentional scam, then it was a good one with likely many millions of cleanup dollars at stake.<br /><br />Words like fraud, deceit and misrepresentation have strict legal definitions. I am not a lawyer but I do have an ability to pick up on inconsistencies in both text, maps, and tables of numbers. I also understand that major cover ups demand collusion among the involved parties. Everybody needs to be given something to go along, otherwise the unsatisfied party will blow the whistle on the cover up. I personally believe that misrepresentation has occurred either through fraud or negligence. If it’s either one then several parties are involved. Possibly some have intentionally misrepresented the facts and others were negligent at the time only to learn the truth later and attempt to keep it quiet. For example publicly disparaging an entire committee of council (CPAC), in order to remove them, as two members of Woolwich Council did in 2015 might be an example.<br /><br />CPAC became focused on the east side of the site in mid 2014. The ramifications were immense when credibility and integrity are factored in. While CPAC and SWAT members already figured that those integrity ships had sailed long ago, nevertheless no one was going to ignore a smoking gun that seemed to suggest that the MOE, Chemtura, and CRA had been involved in a very long-term self-serving deception.<br /><br />CPAC members asked themselves in the late summer of 2014 as to what direction they should spend the last of their term and mandate. They asked my opinion as a SWAT team member and I suggested they focus on either the DNAPL coverup or the east side coverup of off-site migration of contamination. CPAC chose the latter and asked me if I could put a report together and bring Ron Campbell and Graham Chevreau up to speed. Of course I could and then scheduled a day for the two CPAC members to review the material with me. Afterward, we went back to CPAC to present the facts to them. From that point, CPAC decided that it was time to get an independent consultant on board for an objective study albeit with data, reports, and maps available from past MOE, CRA, and Uniroyal technical documentation.<br /><br />The presence of the clearly man-made Stroh Drain and the more than likely intentional relocating at least on paper, of GP-1 were both incredible discoveries. I believe that these discoveries affected the level of disappointment in and respect for the MOE, Chemtura, and CRA by all CPAC and SWAT members. These two discoveries also should have brought forth howls of outrage by former UPAC and CPAC members who had been lied to and deceived, literally for decades. It did not appear to do so to their discredit. At this point the only regular media attending CPAC meetings was the Elmira Independent. While they reported briefly on these discoveries neither the Woolwich Observer nor the Waterloo Region Record seemed all that interested.<br /><br />Were there to be yet more discoveries? Yes. I was totally involved and focused on all things involving Uniroyal, CRA, MOE, and CPAC / SWAT at least partially because I was now officially retired and had more time. Ron Campbell of CPAC and the SWAT chair had on more than one occasion both congratulated me and philosophized as to how my situation had changed. After several years of being either ignored or, worse yet, bypassed and intentionally kept out of the loop by parties including the old CPAC, now there was a group of honest and dedicated citizens who were paying attention and determined to know the full truth about all environmental matters and parties in and around Elmira and they were not accepting of partial or doctored truths.<br /><br />My efforts had for years included searching on- line for old reports, for maps, or anything relevant to Uniroyal Chemical that I had never seen, possibly or likely intentionally so. After finding the Stroh Drain in person and then looking at nearly thirty-year-old maps and finding the incredible “moving” GP-1, I was a man on a mission. I decided that aerial photographs would be helpful. I knew that many existed but Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura were less than forthcoming with them to those citizens still searching for the truth and unwilling to go along with secrecy and self-serving confidentiality. I found satellite photos using Google, Waterloo Region geographical information services, and Maplandia.<br /><br />All three sources were astounding to my eyes. The level of detail was far better than I could have imagined. At first I focused on Chemtura’s south-east corner looking at GP-1, the diagonal ridge of high ground, and the Stroh Drain. I spent hours looking and even memorizing landmarks on these satellite photos. I saw landmarks that I had heard existed but had never seen. Swales, not furrows, appeared on these satellite photos. A major swale that started at the bottom of retention pit east one (RPE-1) and ran down the west side of the east side pits dumped its liquid contents into the wetlands on the former Uniroyal property. These wetlands had allegedly drained due south into GP-1 and then to GP-2. That flow direction was now in serious doubt based on the 2013 CRA topographical map as well as previous ones now studied more diligently.<br /><br />I started looking further upgradient on the east side. There are actually a couple of dirt or gravel roads on the east side and they showed up quite clearly as did what I first thought were additional roads that I had been unaware of. A closer look at them changed my mind. These “roads” were much too small and narrow. Amazingly they were also, perfectly straight. They were far straighter than the existing roads plus they would suddenly jog at a sharp angle in a different direction. What!<br /><br />Approximately halfway between the west side of the former east side pits and the Creek are two lines running north to south approximately fourty metres apart at the north end close to Church Street, coming together into a long narrow V-shape a few hundred metres further south. Once joined together, this line turns toward the south-east direction where it heads toward the northern end of former pit, RPE-5. Prior to hitting the surface swale on the west side of RPE-5, the line turns almost due south and runs the length of RPE-5 before turning in the south-east direction again. It appears as if the line then runs right to the property line between Chemtura and the neighbouring Stroh farm.<br /><br />Interceptor Trenches<br /><br />In addition to these lines, there is yet another unexplained line still on the east side of the Creek but near the on-site dam -- quite close to it in fact. The research I did combined with a lot of years of listening to and reading many remediation schemes attempted at various sites in North America helped narrow down the possible explanations for me. The most likely is that the line is some form of an interceptor trench used for the purpose of intercepting contaminated groundwater migrating from the east side pits on its way to being discharged into the Canagagigue Creek located in the middle of Chemtura’s property. The second possibility involves what is known as the Waterloo Barrier, named after a remediation method discovered at the University of Waterloo. This Barrier is filled with reactive iron filings that act as catalysts to help breakdown hydrocarbon compounds such as fuels and solvents. This remediation barrier is also sometimes referred to as a permeable reactive barrier (PRV).<br /><br />So what exactly is an interceptor trench? In its simplest form it is a below ground surface narrow excavation designed to intercept and collect migrating contaminated groundwater. It is my understanding both from on-line technical reading and from a Lanxess hydrogeologist, Ramin Ansari, that the first self-propelled machines built specifically for the purpose of excavating and burying the perforated plastic piping for the interception of groundwater occurred in the very early 1990s. Care must be taken to bury the pipe at the proper depth, which would be at the bottom of a shallow aquifer. Hence, the bottom of a sand and gravel formation located between the known source of contamination and the down gradient receptors such as a stream or creek would be the norm. A filter cloth may be put over top of the pipe and then the hole filled with permeable sand and gravel to the thickness of the aquifer. There are numerous variations including gravity flow to a low point combined with a pump used to pump the contaminated groundwater into some form of container where it eventually is transported to a treatment facility for decontamination.<br /><br />There are a number of serious considerations in regards to the possibility of an interceptor trench on the Uniroyal/Chemtura property. First, inherently it is a physical method of stopping the spread of contaminated groundwater, which is a positive. Uniroyal representatives and their corporate successors have all bragged long and hard about their hydraulic containment or pump and treat systems, which, after all, are simply another physical method of extracting contaminated groundwater, treating it, and then discharging it back into a receiving body of water, such as the Canagagigue Creek. Therefore, when one recalls the extent of and hostility towards the earliest proposals in 1994 to the implementation in 1997 because of the extremely limited pump and treat system installed only on the west side of the Uniroyal site, one has to wonder why this alleged interceptor trench containment system was not used as the rationale for not hydraulically containing the east side. If the contaminated groundwater was being collected in this alleged trench and treated, then why weren’t CRA, Uniroyal, and the MOE bragging about it? Second, it is also of concern that the apparent underground piping system runs all the way to the east side neighbour’s property (Stroh farm). Further concerns arise when one realizes that an underground pipe emerges from the extreme north end of the Stroh Drain only fifty or sixty metres away from what appears to be the underground end of this interceptor trench. Could the interceptor trench be connected to that pipe discharging groundwater into the beginning of the Stroh Drain? In other words, instead of collecting the contaminated groundwater between the east side pits and the Creek for treatment, could the groundwater be gravity-flowing from the west side of the pits all the way south-east over to the Stroh Drain without ever being treated?<br /><br />Chemtura’s responses to these public questions from CPAC were pathetic. The company did not deny the obvious visual appearance of these lines on the various satellite photos including on recent ones. At first they suggested that the lines were simply a fence for the purpose of keeping livestock from wandering. Well, that seemed bizarre for two reasons. First, the property had been used for industrial purposes for seventy-five to ninety years. Second, the company made no effort to explain the two nearly parallel lines running southward and finally joining up into a long narrow V- shape. Nor did they explain the third line further west beside the on-site dam. When CPAC members including Vivienne Delaney and Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach expressed disbelief, Chemtura folks changed tack slightly. The explanation was that yes, it was a fence, albeit for wildlife. I found that to be a bit much. I asked Jeff Merriman, Manager of Environmental Remediation at Chemtura, if he was referring to deer, coyotes, groundhogs, raccoons, foxes, opossums … or what exactly. Jeff correctly surmised that I was mocking his latest explanation and did not respond.<br /><br />Let me be very clear here. If managers at Uniroyal Chemical in concert with the West Central office of the Ontario Ministry of Environment ran a surreptitious underground pipe from the company’s grossly contaminated east side over and onto their neighbour’s property, then that almost makes the intentional toxic dumping of Severin Argenton and Varnicolor Chemical look like kindergarten stuff. Keep in mind that Severin Argenton earned the longest jail sentence (eight months) for environmental crimes in Canadian history. This kind of misrepresentation and deception would be illegal in the extreme and might just possibly be the smoking gun demanding jail time for any culpable corporate staff. I can think of two reasons for Uniroyal to consider taking the risk. One by building the trench they likely would hope that the MOE wouldn’t insist on the complete excavation of the consolidation pits, RPE-4 and RPE-5. If this were the case, then the MOE would, of course, have to be told about this interceptor trench. The second reason, again requiring MOE knowledge of either an interceptor trench or a PRV, would be the likely agreement by the MOE that any pump and treat technology was no longer needed on the east side of the Creek. Therefore it’s all about cost versus benefits.<br /><br />I believe that an interceptor trench, readily installed in just a few days with the proper machinery would be much cheaper to build than removing of the contents of RPE-4 and RPE-5. These pits were initially estimated to be holding 32,000 tonnes of toxic waste although when excavated in the fall of 1993, 46,000 tonnes were placed into the Envirodome/Mausoleum, which is situated to this day at the top of the hill next to Church Street. The initial, short- term expense of the interceptor trench/PRV would be better than paying for costly pumping likely forever along the east side of the Creek.<br /><br />In August or September 2014, I decided to put all the information that I and other CPAC members had gathered in regards to the south-east corner of the Chemtura site into a single format. I decided to plot the data on a portable, somewhat large map (2 feet by 4 feet) of that south-east area. I used the map titled (Existing Conditions) from the May 2013 CRA report “Scoped Environmental Impact Study” and placed it on the bottom half of a large, stiff background made of presentation board. Then using maps from Conestoga Rovers, I drew to scale the top half of the site including all the east side pits and many but not all of the west side ponds. On my map I added the Stroh Drain in blue and outlined in red the high ground that included both the diagonal ridge as well as the gravel road constructed into the south-east corner which presumably was built to access monitoring wells, etc.<br /><br />This map included CRA’s topographical information and ground surface elevation contour lines as well as CRA’s latest interpretation of the size and locations of GP-1 and GP-2. I added new information as it became available. These additions included the interceptor trenches, new wells along the eastern property line, locations of where upper aquifer 1 [UA1] and upper aquifer 3 [UA3] ended on the east side as well as details regarding the 2013 and 2014 excavations in the alleged and moving location of GP-1. I also added swales, natural drains, and springs. Eventually, I even added satellite photos of the interceptor trenches on to the back of the presentation board along with both the 1985 MOE map and the 1991 CH2M Hill map showing the two different locations for GP-1. Two colour pictures of the corrugated steel pipe emerging from the ground and discharging into the start of the Stroh Drain further adorned this presentation map.<br /><br />It was an incredible year of learning and discovery. It also exposed the extent and willingness of the partners in pollution (Chemtura and the MOE) to generously flavour the truth. In the next chapter we will learn the political consequences CPAC and SWAT paid for their honest efforts.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 16<br /><br />140 Steve Kannon, “Change of tactics needed to clean Elmira aquifers, CPAC argues”, Woolwich Observer, June 6, 2014<br /><br />141 Gail Martin, “CPAC expresses frustration over DDT study”, Elmira Independent, June 6, 2014<br /><div style="clear: both;"></div></div><div class="post-footer" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 20px -2px 0px; padding: 5px 10px;"><div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 1em;">Posted by <span class="fn" itemprop="author" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><a class="g-profile" href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516" rel="author" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;" title="author profile"><span itemprop="name">Alan Marshall</span> </a></span></span><span class="post-timestamp" style="margin-left: -1em; margin-right: 1em;">at <a class="timestamp-link" href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-16-sad-weird-wonderful-in-2014.html" rel="bookmark" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" itemprop="datePublished" style="border: none;" title="2019-10-05T05:15:00-07:00">5:15 AM</abbr></a> </span><span class="post-comment-link" style="margin-right: 1em;"><a class="comment-link" href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-16-sad-weird-wonderful-in-2014.html#comment-form" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none; text-wrap: nowrap;">No comments: </a></span></div></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-14140164970017362652023-12-19T10:03:00.000-08:002023-12-19T10:03:39.734-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-17-recriminations-no-good-deeds.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2502935570126480133" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Seventeen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />140.......Recriminations<br /><br />141.......Calm Before the Storm<br /><br />142.......The Manufactured Crisis<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER 17<br /><br />Recriminations<br /><br />No good deeds go unpunished, so they say, and truer words were never spoken. As soon as the powers to be, the politicians, the two former CPAC members, Chemtura, and the MOE smelled blood in the water from our tiny, perfect mayor self-imploding they went for the kill. From about late August on, it became obvious that Mayor Cowan was not going to politically survive the expense scandal of his own making. That said, there had been some prior planning taken against CPAC and SWAT by Susan Bryant. She used her long relationship with former Record reporter Bob Burtt to attempt to undermine CPAC and to bolster and burnish her own environmental credentials. I and others have renamed Mr. Burtt’s book “Ode to Susan”. It really is that biased. I believe that Mr. Burtt’s book was rushed in order to get it out before the October 2014 municipal election. In fact his mediocre efforts did little to sway the election. Just like the previous election in 2010 all incumbents were swept away with the exception of Mark Bauman in Ward Two.<br /><br />Mr. Burtt’s book was highly critical of CPAC members precisely because Susan Bryant was not on CPAC and she was a major contributor to Mr. Burtt’s efforts. Bob Burtt overall had done good work as a news reporter for the Record and the years he covered environmental troubles at Uniroyal and Crompton issues but at the time of his writing his book he had not attended CPAC meetings in a decade and in my opinion it showed. He relied upon Susan Bryant’s imperfect and biased memory and she too had barely attended a third of the 2011 to 2015 CPAC meetings with her colleague Pat McLean also attending perhaps a third of the meetings at best. Mr. Burtt’s book was not a complete loss as there are some interesting and accurate Elmira incidents described including ones dealing with myself and Varnicolor Chemical.<br /><br />The Elmira Independent carried the September 2014 public CPAC meeting in some detail. Officials for the Ontario Ministry of Environment West Central Region decided to give CPAC all of four hours notice that they would not be attending. The MOE officials also advised that George Karlos was now on temporary assignment and would no longer represent West Central Region at CPAC meetings. Well! In the back of my mind, I had to wonder if that actually meant he had been “consolidated” the same way that David Ash had suggested that Brian Beatty had been “consolidated” so many years before. Dr. Dan Holt, CPAC Chair, was not amused by the MOE’s last minute bailing on this meeting, which, like all public CPAC meetings, was scheduled in conjunction with both Chemtura and the MOE. Dr. Holt referred to the MOE’s efforts as generally inadequate and suggested that environmentally speaking there had been “wilful negligence” on their part in Elmira. Dr. Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach of CPAC also was not amused by the MOE’s either disrespectful or incompetent behaviour and suggested that CPAC should formally censure their behaviour.142 This response by CPAC to MOE and Chemtura lying, disrespect, and incompetence shook those two parties to the core. Uniroyal/Chemtura had trained local citizens over the decades to be deferential and unerringly courteous in public meetings otherwise they would take their marbles and go home. They would also use their political clout not only with the province and the MOE but also with local Woolwich councillors. They simply could not tolerate citizens demanding that they behave professionally, courteously, and most shocking, honestly.<br /><br />I’m going to include efforts and dates by Uniroyal/Chemtura, the MOE, Woolwich Council, Pat McLean and Susan Bryant to remove, neutralize, and minimize my influence on all matters relating to clean-up of the Uniroyal site. (The dates include one we haven’t gotten to yet in the winter and spring of 2015). A CPAC member suggested to me in 2015 that all the guilty parties clearly wanted my influence totally removed from the equation. They were also very unhappy with Dr. Dan Holt because as chair of CPAC, the new council, or at least Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman, could not bring Dr. Holt to heel. He was proud of CPAC’s efforts and results and was not prepared to throw either CPAC or me under the bus just to save his own reputation with the newly elected in October 2014, Woolwich Council.<br /><br />APT co-ordinators’ decision to support Sylvia Berg in January 1994 versus Richard Clausi and I was based much less upon their understanding of the DNAPL issues and much more on Sylvia Berg’s acting abilities. Call it the cult of the personality but Sylvia had been there publicly hammering at Uniroyal from 1989. Privately, she was a co-opted sellout looking at a political future in Woolwich Township. In other words, she was prepared to ride her APT involvement into the mayor’s chair if she could. I believe she manipulated the DNAPL issue hoping that I would object after she refused to even comment negatively on the MOE’s December 10, 1993 letter accepting CRA’s DNAPL position.<br /><br />The fall of 2007 was right back again to DNAPL issues. A year earlier I had sent a very strong DNAPL critique to all parties followed by the breakthrough January 2007 meeting with Drs. Cherry and Parker that Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant refused to bring to the rest of CPAC. Then, out of the blue, I caught Pat and Susan negotiating privately with the MOE about the Ammonia Treatment System Certificate of Approval. Once again, Pat and Susan refused to formally take the matter to the CPAC membership. This gross failure of proper process was followed by Woolwich Council also playing games in February 2008. It was a foregone conclusion that they would support former Councillor Pat McLean, still Mayor Straus’s buddy, against me, and the facts all be damned. I had a right to appeal the Certificate of Approval to the Environmental Review Tribunal and Pat and Susan did not have the right to negotiate privately with the MOE behind voting CPAC members’ backs and refuse to allow a full discussion of all sides at CPAC.<br /><br />Calm Before the Storm<br /><br />On October 14, 2014, Dr. Dan Holt presented a delegation to Woolwich Council in regards to the findings of Peter Gray of MTE Consulting. Mr. Gray had presented a draft to CPAC and SWAT members regarding probable leakage of Uniroyal contaminants eastward and it was fascinating reading. It was very clear that all the evidence strongly pointed towards ground and surface water contamination likely having left the Uniroyal Chemical site during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s and migrating onto the Stroh farm next door. Woolwich Council under Mayor Todd Cowan from 2010 to 2014 supported a resolution asking the MOE to investigate the east side Stroh property for Uniroyal contamination. This Woolwich Council resolution was sent to both our local M.P.P. Michael Harris as well as M.P. Harold Albrecht. Councillor Mark Bauman also supported the resolution and suggested that CPAC send it to the new Council. This was not done, possibly due to CPAC’s lack of trust in Mr. Bauman. Both the Elmira Independent and the Woolwich Observer reported on the October 14, 2014 council meeting dealing with CPAC’s draft report from Peter Gray of MTE Consulting in great detail. Woolwich Council in its resolution asked that the east side cleanup on the Stroh property be completed by December 2015.143 144 Of course with the incoming council in November 2014 headed by Sandy Shantz, that deadline fell off the rails. On October 30, 2014, Peter Gray formally presented his final report to CPAC and the public.<br /><br />The results of the municipal election in October 2014 weren’t particularly surprising. Unfortunately, Todd Cowan’s stupidity negatively affected the election of the rest of Council with the exception of Mark Bauman over in St. Jacobs. Todd Cowan was soundly trounced by Sandy Shantz, who, by the way, spent approximately three times as much on her campaign as her three opponents combined. Truth be told, she may have won anyway but her spending just made it that much easier. (Mr. Cowan was charged criminally a few months later by the Ontario Provincial Police with both fraud and breach of trust). A little over a week later, several newly elected councillors magically showed up at the October 30, 2014 public CPAC meeting. Larry Shantz, Sandy Shantz, Mark Bauman, and Scot Hahn were there. Their presence was bizarre and sent off warning bells for me. Was this just like Pat McLean and Susan Bryant ignoring the new CPAC for the first year and a half after the October 2010 election only then to attend so as to be able to later claim that they knew what they were talking about when they later criticized CPAC ? The answer is yes. Without any firsthand experience this new council had been lobbied beforehand by Chemtura, the MOE, and Ms. Mclean and Ms. Bryant, all whining for self-serving purposes that CPAC members were inexperienced, aggressive, and mean to them. Those parties behaved like five year olds and the already biased, incompetent and less than honest new council were ready to jump to their defence based on less concern for the environment and more for their own interests down the road. The Township Councillors felt that their long term interests were best served by not upsetting Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of Environment, so they played ball and were prepared to throw out the best CPAC members there ever had been.<br /><br />The Manufactured Crisis<br /><br />The old saying that you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time may be true but unfortunately is mostly irrelevant in a democracy. All you have to do in a democracy is fool a majority of the people at least half the time and you basically write history as you want it. This is what the incoming council effectively did. I believe that Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman conspired with the MOE and Chemtura and then lied to their fellow councillors to get the support of the majority of them. It appeared as if Patrick Merlihan was the only skeptic on Council in regards to the story that Sandy and Mark, on behalf of Chemtura and the MOE, were selling. Councillor Scott Hahn was a slam dunk. He was an inexperienced, uneducated young man in his late twentys who basically voted with Sandy on almost everything. Repeat council offender, Murray Martin, literally never attended a UPAC or CPAC meeting in thirty years, but, just like every other issue before him, somehow without research or effort managed to form his own strong opinion on the matter. I have over the decades attended the vast majority of CPAC meetings and many, many Council meetings. Councillor Martin has never failed to impress with his behaviour and attitudes. Larry Shantz was a newcomer to council just as was Scot Hahn and, to this day, I am not convinced that Mr. Shantz is necessarily corrupt but merely going along for the ride. Yes, he is related distantly to Sandy Shantz although both denied it during most of the election campaign. He is a distant cousin.<br /><br />The “manufactured crisis” was remarkably simple and yet deadly. Chemtura and the MOE behaved like spoiled, entitled brats and simply failed to attend public CPAC meetings after the new council took over in November 2014. They didn’t “boycott” the meetings per se, they simply didn’t show up and no explanations were offered to CPAC or SWAT members. Allegedly, they told council that they were unhappy with CPAC and weren’t attending. Oddly, they didn’t communicate with CPAC members directly yet CPAC members were the problem according to Sandy and Mark. Hence, this alleged crisis was simply no more than Chemtura and the MOE taking their marbles and going home until the new council made them a better offer. The better offer, of course, was new citizen volunteers preferably with extremely limited experience who wouldn’t insist on both the MOE and Chemtura and its consultants telling the truth more often than not. Telling the truth really was simply demanding too much for a multinational, multibillion dollar, world class polluter to have to accept. Of course, strenuous misinformation and lies were bandied about such as Mark Bauman using the word “dysfunction” as if it were a magic wand. An example from Mr. Bauman was that “CPAC was dysfunctional.”<br /><br />To clarify Woolwich Councillors weren’t so much bluffed by Chemtura and the MOE as they were willingly persuaded that unpaid citizens donating their own time had come to the awkward and embarrassing conclusion to certain council members that the carefully constructed fantasy surrounding the clean-up of the Elmira aquifers was and always had been a sham. It certainly would have been embarrassing as councillors Martin, Bauman, and Sandy Shantz had all been on council before and gone along with the game. This, folks, is what I have learned politics is all about. Uninformed and biased politicians support not the truth or the honest parties but instead support those whose version of the truth is less damaging to the status quo and the concept that everything is under control. It’s almost like our judicial system sometimes being more concerned with the appearance of justice, and hence, keeping public confidence than the reality of justice. In other words, it is better to convict an acceptable scapegoat for particularly nasty crimes than to admit that you can’t actually find the guilty party. Of course, all through this scapegoating and backstabbing of honest and dedicated Woolwich volunteers by Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman; they both maintained a false front of fairness to the local news media. They talked about the importance of maintaining CPAC and communication among all the parties. They suggested that the MOE and Chemtura were willing to be flexible which is a bald-faced lie. Chemtura and the MOE issued a private ultimatum to Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman and didn’t even have the courage to send it to CPAC or the public. They chose to deal with volunteer citizens who had lost all tolerance of their dishonest communications by going to a party who had ample experience and no problems misleading the public. In other words, they went for help to their kind of people, local politicians.<br /><br />The Elmira Independent, on February 15, 2015 published a story titled “Shantz meets with CPAC to resolve impasse.”145 Unfortunately that title was not accurate. That is no fault of the Independent, however. Undoubtedly, Ms. Shantz, newly elected mayor of Woolwich Township, told the newspaper staff just as she had told CPAC members that her purpose was to resolve the alleged impasse (i.e. the manufactured crisis). The impasse that, quite frankly, at that point in time consisted of Chemtura and their partners in pollution, the MOE, having missed the sum total of two CPAC meetings. Wow! Lest we forget, in a fit of pique, Uniroyal Chemical also bailed on the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC) back in 1999. They were gone for a total of sixteen months and believe me I certainly didn’t miss the procrastinating sods for one second. How odd that it was also Woolwich Township Councillors who got excited and then had Councillor Pat McLean negotiate privately with Uniroyal for their return to UPAC. I objected to that at the time and demanded to know if some form of concessions were being offered to entice Uniroyal back to the table. I was misled and was told no, there would be no concessions. How odd that this time around, once again, it seemed to be the newly minted councillors who were all excited and upset over Chemtura’s absence. What exactly was motivating this push by the 2014 Woolwich Council to get the company back to the table? It certainly wasn’t anything to do with speeding up the cleanup of the Elmira aquifers nor did it have anything to do with cleaning up the still heavily polluted Canagagigue Creek. No, this proposed public meeting with CPAC was all about setting the table and giving the public impression that Sandy and Mark wanted to resolve the very short term absence from CPAC of the two guilty parties. In fact, Sandy and Mark already knew that Chemtura and MOE officials had laid down their ultimatum. Apparently, that ultimatum to council was to replace all current CPAC and SWAT members with more company-friendly and presumably less knowledgeable citizens or else the game was over as Chemtura and the MOE would not go back and be publicly accosted by knowledgeable, informed, and fed up citizens any longer. This game -- that all the guilty parties had been playing for the previous twenty-five years -- was to bafflegab, obfuscate, and delay the citizens and meaningful remediation while hiding behind bought and paid for credentialed experts. Oddly enough, Sandy and friends never did invite CPAC as a whole to sit down with her, Mark, or other council members privately. Private meetings with Chemtura and the MOE were just fine, it would seem, but not with volunteer citizens who were doing the job they were appointed to do. Hell no. That was the last thing she wanted. Other council members might have learned the truth and been upset with Chemtura and the MOE rather than with CPAC as Sandy, Mark, Chemtura and the MOE wanted.<br /><br />After playing some of the news media and lots of the public, it was still necessary to have a document that could be distributed in private to any persons or bodies expressing doubt that CPAC members were the instigators of the Chemtura/MOE boycott. Therefore, Sandy Shantz called a private meeting of the so-called “stakeholders”. What a joke. Most of the “stakeholders” were no such thing. They had all abandoned any pretences years to decades earlier. Others had even less connection to UPAC or CPAC at any time in their lives. Inge Rinne, a local resident never involved with Chemtura, was invited to the “stakeholders” meeting. What the hell was that about? Susan Bryant and Pat McLean were also invited. What the hell? If you’re going to invite two former CPAC members and current APT members then you’d better invite most if not all the still current CPAC members. Sandy and her councillors did not. They invited Dr. Dan Holt, CPAC Chair, on his own with exactly zero backup or assistance. Dr. Dan’s strengths as a chair of CPAC had been proven for the previous several years but by his own admission he was not a technical expert nor did he have a fraction of the technical experience and background as, say, Ron Campbell or Graham Chevreau, both CPAC members. Nor did Dr. Holt have the technical expertise and knowledge of myself, Dr. Henry Regier, or Rich Clausi, all SWAT members. CPAC and SWAT all smelled a huge rat. This meeting was also private with no news media or even other CPAC or SWAT members to attend and listen. Likely Sandy Shantz, Mark Bauman, and the other truth-modifying individuals knew that they would be harangued from the gallery once they started their self-serving and unabashed, dishonest character assassinations.<br /><br />The “stakeholders” meeting was a setup of seventeen individuals, most of whom knew little or nothing about CPAC over the previous four years. Bizarrely, of the two Chemtura folks present, only one, Dwight Este, had CPAC experience. Helder Botelho (General Manager) had little to none. The three GRCA members consisted of Nancy Davy, Joe Farwell, and Jane Mitchell. All three had not attended a single CPAC meeting in likely a decade or two and certainly zero with the current CPAC. Eric Hodgins of the Region of Waterloo is a very knowledgeable hydrogeologist, but again he has attended perhaps one CPAC meeting in the previous six or seven years. Similarly, the Ministry of Environment West Central Region did not send Steve Martindale who had attended CPAC meetings for perhaps a couple of decades. Instead, they sent Milli New, Terri Bulman, and Rich Vickers. What the hell? None of these three had ever regularly attended CPAC. In fact, Rich Vickers as I recall was a surface water specialist who might have attended three or four UPAC/CPAC meetings over twenty-five years and Milli New perhaps attended once. Terri Bulman didn’t start to attend these public meetings until CPAC was replaced with RAC and TAG in September 2015 and, believe me, she only distinguished herself by her blatant nonsense and defence of the status quo. Dr. Richard Jackson, the first TAG chair, ate her alive.<br /><br />The other three present were Dave Brenneman, CAO of Woolwich Township, and chief water carrier for Sandy, the former Mayor Todd Cowan, and likely former, former Mayor Bill Strauss. David has always known exactly where his Ontario Sunshine List bread is buttered and, in my opinion, is next to useless in supporting anything other than the interests not of Woolwich Township as much as the interests of Woolwich Council, especially the mayor. The last two of the attendees were Devin Petteplace and Lisa Schaefer who combined knew even less about CPAC, Chemtura, groundwater contamination, etc., than ninety-five percent of the readers of this book. Devin was hired by his buddy Todd Cowan for public relations and news media contacts. Lisa was and is the RAC and TAG secretary although she prefers to be known as a Support Specialist. Fine. Lisa and Devin, both Woolwich Township employees, were told to produce the minutes from this meeting for approval prior to distribution.<br /><br />So this group of seventeen “stakeholders” (Sandy’s term) had a grand total of two members with fairly regular CPAC attendance over the previous four years: Dwight, who earns and has earned his daily bread for at least a couple of decades from Uniroyal/Crompton and Chemtura and Councillor Mark Bauman. Mark didn’t start to attend CPAC meetings until Todd Cowan stepped down as CPAC Chair and was replaced by Dr. Dan Holt in 2012. So Mark had perhaps two and half years of CPAC experience and exactly zero experience of the former CPACs or UPACs. Pat McLean and Susan Bryant boycotted the current CPAC for nearly the first two years and then took turns attending after that. Don’t forget why they boycotted it in the first place. Their noses were hugely out of joint when the Todd Cowan council of 2010 to 2014 didn’t appoint them to CPAC in early 2011. Additionally, don’t forget the despicable behaviour at the Elmira Library demonstrated by Pat, Susan, and their friend, Sandra Baer, that summer towards Dr. Holt and Ms. Delaney. Finally, guess who was front and centre in Sandy Shantz’s 2014 campaign for the mayor’s chair? Pat McLean, the old political hand, was Sandy’s wingman at several public events during the campaign. Including Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant in a discussion of CPAC problems or failures is akin to including Saudi Arabia in a discussion of the proper treatment of critics and activists of the Saudi regime. Not including at least three or four of the current CPAC members made this meeting worse than a sham. Excluding, even from the attached public gallery, the rest of CPAC and SWAT, made this meeting nothing more than a bitch session for Dwight, Susan, Pat, Sandy, and Mark probably supported by a couple of the MOE staff who with zero hands-on knowledge of CPAC had to rely upon the second-hand complaints of Steve Martindale, George Karlos , Bill Bardswick, and other discredited MOE staff. I doubt very much that the three GRCA staff, Inge Rinne, Eric Hodgins, or Devin Petteplace, had any input or contributions whatsoever.<br /><br />So exactly how dishonest was this Mark and Sandy production? Keep in mind Sandy had already admitted to private meetings with both Chemtura and the MOE, and yet, despite assurances that she would meet privately with CPAC and SWAT, she never did. Her and other councillors’ occasional attendance at CPAC after the 2014 election seemed to be all about public appearances. Keep clearly in mind at these occasional CPAC meetings that councillors and mayor attended that there was little or no hostility displayed towards Chemtura or the MOE for the obvious reason that they were not present. Hence we were not reacting to their deflections and obfuscations. Chemtura and the MOE were too busy lobbying Sandy and Mark privately to be attending to their commitments to public discussion regarding the cleanup of the Elmira aquifers and the Canagagigue Creek. So how exactly did the minutes of the April 9, 2015 meeting manage under “Roadblocks to Progress” to describe behaviour like “the bullying and aggressive nature of meetings” and “lack of control in meetings (not following the Code of Conduct) by the CPAC Chair” and further, “Alan Marshall in general, including his blog and his conduct in meetings.” The answer is obvious. Simple and outright lying by the various parties with either personal axes to grind or millions of dollars in clean-up costs that they wished to avoid. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment’s credibility was also on the line. This 2010-to 2015 CPAC had publicly outed them for their lying and deception in regards to the 2028 remediation of the Elmira aquifers and the cover-up of the east side Stroh lands. Whether it was George Karlos and his walkabout where he claimed thast he found no contaminant pathway off the south-east corner of the Chemtura site or it was the MOE’s acceptance of decades of falsehoods by Chemtura and its predecessors regarding eastwards migration of contaminants, the MOE’s collaboration and pro-polluter attitudes were in fact exposed by CPAC members. Other issues included the phony clean-up of the GP-1 location as well as the likely interceptor trenches on the east side of the Uniroyal/Chemtura property.<br /><br />The mention of my blog was telling. Clearly, telling disagreeable truths or untruths is reserved only for those with power and authority. My reporting dishonest words and behaviours about Chemtura and the MOE in a blog over the previous eight years had not endeared me to them. Newsflash Sandy and assorted other idiots: my blog is entirely separate from both CPAC and SWAT. Only I alone am responsible for the content. Similarly, my behaviour in CPAC meetings was more restrained than my words in a blog, which the guilty parties easily and appropriately could boycott or avoid if they so wished. The chair of CPAC, Dr. Holt, was very careful about following the Code of Conduct contrary to those liars who claimed otherwise at this private meeting.<br /><br />It is interesting to me now in 2019 to realize that this April 9, 2015 meeting organized by Sandy Shantz really wasn’t legal or appropriate in any sense. As mayor of Woolwich Township, Sandy invited her favourite buddies and fellow bureaucrats from the MOE, Chemtura, GRCA, Region of Waterloo. Turns out as of the end of March 2015 she really was not the mayor. Sandy would be stripped of that title and position by the Municipal Clerk after Sandy missed the deadline to submit her complete financial statements. As it happened her financial statements did not add up and she had failed to include an audit with them. Then of course we also have the second alleged Woolwich politician present at this meeting namely Mark Bauman. He too was bounced from his councillor’s position at the same time as Sandy because he failed to submit any financial statement whatsoever.<br /><br />So let’s look at this meeting in the light of the two booted from office politicians and hosting a bitchfest of whining and complaining polluters, regulators, and previously booted from CPAC women who had both exhibited animosity towards me and CPAC members. These other two parties had also exhibited extreme animosity towards myself and CPAC in Mr. Burtt’s book. Any normal, rational human being understanding all the factors would be less likely to be shocked by the alleged behaviour of CPAC and more likely shocked realizing how intentionally slanted and biased this whole meeting was intended to be. This was not a meeting to determine roadblocks to environmental progress in Elmira or the causes thereof. That had already been decided privately between the MOE, Chemtura, Ms. Shantz and Mr. Bauman. CPAC members were to be scapegoated in order to restore the status quo whereby everybody accepted that the name of the game was delay and puffery.<br /><br />The incoming 2014 to 2018 Woolwich Council paid dearly for going along with Sandy and Mark’s deceit and manipulation. I think it fortunate that Sandy and Mark specifically paid a high price. For all their criticism and manufactured CPAC “crisis,” that pair along with Councillor Scott Hahn were extremely vulnerable in their own dealings. Something like the adage about removing the log from your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. All three of them managed to totally make a mess of their provincially mandated financial statements regarding their election campaigns. The extent of their misdeeds, whether intentional or unintentional, was shocking. Both Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman, at least temporarily were removed from office although Township staff improperly and illegally tried to pretend otherwise with Mr. Bauman. For the next three years, the public and the news media had a field day with half of this council being in front of the Municipal Elections Compliance Audit Committee (MECAC) as well as the courts for Sandy and Mark. So sad, but oh, so appropriate. There is a saying that every dog has his day and this dog while not initially getting the ball rolling, certainly seized upon the opportunity and momentum to both protect democratic transparency and to teach a pair of manipulators a public and hard lesson. Certainly two of the three, namely Mark Bauman and Scott Hahn chose not to continue after this term of council ended. Mr. Hahn didn’t even finish out his term.<br /><br />The simple but incomplete moral of this chapter is what comes around, goes around. In fact it is more about catching Woolwich Township politicians, yet again, breaking the laws of the land. They like to pretend that they are somehow morally superior to the rest of us yet they routinely bend and break laws which apply to them. In the next chapter we will see how the Woolwich Observer stepped up and criticized the new Woolwich Council for their deceit in discrediting the old CPAC in order to bring in more “company friendly” citizens acceptable to Chemtura and the MOE.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 17<br /><br />142 Gail Martin, “Ministry censured by CPAC”, Elmira Independent, October 3, 2014<br /><br />143 Gail Martin, “Council pushes for action on Chemtura cleanup”, Elmira Independent, October17, 2014<br /><br /><br />144 Steve Kannon, “Woolwich backs call for action on Chemtura contaminants”, Woolwich Observer, October 18, 2014<br /><br /><br />145 Gail Martin, “Shantz meets with CPAC to resolve impasse”, Elmira Independent, February 6, 2015<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-72215822628279396372023-12-19T09:57:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:57:53.587-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-18-municipal-election.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES:THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6955884210276939086" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Eighteen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />146.....Municipal Election Compliance Audit Committee<br /><br />146.....Scott Hahn<br /><br />148.....Mark Bauman<br /><br />149.....Sandy Shantz<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 18<br /><br />Municipal Election Compliance Audit Committee<br /><br />It is debateable as to how exactly relevant the Municipal Election Compliance Audit Committee (MECAC) and the assorted embarrassment, anger, and humiliation of half of the newly elected Woolwich councillors is to the primarily political and environmental story of this book. The key, of course, is to the politics of this story. Yes, it took me far too long to come to grips with the inherently conservative, pro status quo, anti-environment sentiments of local, regional, and provincial politicians. Whether these sentiments explained the refusal of health departments at the regional , provincial or federal levels to conduct health studies of Elmira and downstream residents or not is open to debate. There are lots of excuses and few substantive reasons for the decision never to conduct health surveys or studies.<br /><br />Some readers might enjoy reading about ordinary citizens taking it to the local council members who either participated directly in the 2015 apparent smearing, slandering, and libel of volunteers on the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) or who simply went along for the ride and voted in favour of Sandy Shantz’s and Mark Bauman’s “leadership” in doing Chemtura Canada’s dirty work for them. Councillors may have justified their vote in their own minds by the corrupt Ministry of Environment’s (MOE) support for Chemtura‘s position against the honest and committed citizens on CPAC.<br /><br />To the contrary there may very well be citizens who would be appalled by any attempt to abuse the process for examining improperly filed election financial statements (EFS). In other words, regardless of the motivations, environmental or otherwise, they would not support and in fact be upset if they felt that citizens’ appeals to the Municipal Clerk, MECAC, or the courts were solely for the purposes of political payback.<br /><br />Scott Hahn<br /><br />While I certainly was front and centre in the overall efforts to bring half our local politicians to account, I cannot take credit (or discredit) for starting the ball rolling. That honour goes to Dr. Dan Holt and, yes, I do believe the word, “honour,” is appropriate. Both Dr. Dan Holt and Dr. Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach ran unsuccessfully for Woolwich Council in October 2014. They were two excellent and experienced candidates; however, they were beaten by Patrick Merlihan, half-owner of the Woolwich Observer newspaper and one other. In fact, Dr. Holt came in third out of multiple candidates including very experienced Ruby Weber as well as the incumbent, Al Poffenroth. The other winner was twenty-six year old, Scott Hahn, with virtually zero political or community experience. His claim to fame may have been his last name and the support of the local Royal Canadian Legion because he had spent nine months in Afghanistan. Frankly, in a community founded by non-violent, non-militant Mennonites that may seem a little surprising.<br /><br />While I was surprised by Mr. Hahn’s win, I had talked to him at a candidates’ meeting prior to the election and been reasonably impressed by him. He actually promised to attempt to get me appointed to CPAC by the new council if he won. Well, he won despite my not voting for his community inexperience. Dr. Holt had been also surprised by the apparent bottomless funding displayed by Mr. Hahn during the election campaign. Mr. Hahn’s election signs were everywhere plus, according to Dr. Holt, they were larger and hence more expensive than everybody else’s and as well larger than the rules allowed. Interesting. After Mr. Hahn won, Dr. Holt did on a couple of later occasions suggest that he was interested in seeing Mr. Hahn’s election financial statements because he wondered how much he had actually spent and who had donated to his campaign. After March 21, 2011, the election financial statements were published on the Woolwich Township website. Dr. Holt was disappointed however as there appeared to be little or no information on Mr. Hahn’s Financial Statements. No donors were listed and few expenses—certainly nothing for signs, which normally is the single largest expense in a councillor’s campaign. What the hell was going on? Dr. Holt telephoned both me and Richard Clausi. It was Mr. Clausi and Mr. Holt who then took the steps necessary to assure that the public could see the true picture in regards to Mr. Hahn’s election contributions and spending. Furthermore, I now believe it likely that Mr. Hahn got some bad advice from either the Municipal Clerk or from one of his colleagues on Woolwich Council. That advice may well have been in response to Mr. Hahn’s question as to how serious these financial statements are and does anyone ever really look at them? In fact, Mr. Hahn’s efforts turned out to be far less than even ridiculous. If he wanted to deceive he should have taken a page from Sandy Shantz who really cooked up some clever and self-serving calculations. Instead, Mr. Hahn, who obviously had spent close to a thousand dollars or more on signs, claimed a grand total of approximately $250 expenses above his $100 nomination fee. That was ridiculous and obviously, blatantly, wrong. It would appear that Mr. Hahn failed to advise whomever he talked to ahead of filing his financial statement that he wasn’t even going to make the remotest attempt to get his election financial affairs in order. He didn’t have an election bank account. He hadn’t listed his sign costs and so much more that was required. By the time the smoke cleared he had closer to $3,000 worth of expenses and contributions, not the $250 as originally reported.<br /><br />After being advised by Municipal Clerk Val Hummel, about the complaint, MECAC set a date for a hearing into the matter. Mr. Hahn was reasonably straightforward and clear in that he had received the signs as a gift from his family and as well also received election brochures from his in-laws, none of which he had included in his expenses. Mr. Hahn played the youth and inexperience card as well as his military service card claiming that he was simply again trying to serve his country and community through public service by being a municipal councillor. He also indicated that he had approximate values for his signs and brochures because he was still trying to obtain the receipts for them as some of his family were currently out of the country. A new date was set for these documents to be available to both MECAC and the complainant, Dr. Holt. Richard Clausi made the comment after the hearing to Dr. Holt and I that this proposed, months- after- the- fact, production of invoices and receipts could certainly inspire some creativity on Mr. Hahn’s part. In fact that is exactly what it did.<br /><br />While Dr. Holt and Mr. Clausi led the charge against Councillor Scott Hahn, I was an apt student of the process. Very early on there were signs of a “live and let live” attitude by the MECAC members. Discrepancies, which certainly became more and more obvious over time, were not pounced upon by MECAC. When Mr. Hahn produced a number of invoices for his signs and his brochures, the extent of his failure to follow the Municipal Elections Act (MEA) became even more glaring. More issues arose as to the size of the individual donations to Mr. Hahn. Frankly, based on his months late submission of a financial statement it appeared that a lot of creative bookkeeping may have been indulged in. In fact after MECAC properly and appropriately followed the MEA by ordering a forensic audit, the author of the forensic audit made some suggestions that all was not yet right with Mr. Hahn’s financial statement and certain claims and statements by Mr. Hahn and his donors could not be fully backed up by the documentation to date.<br /><br />MECAC had made the obvious and appropriate decision to order a forensic audit of Mr. Hahn’s late and somewhat odd financial statement. This decision was to be the only appropriate and correct one that MECAC made in regards to either Mr. Hahn or the later pathetic decisions they made regarding Sandy Shantz’s various financial statements. MECAC was convened again after allegedly having read and understood the forensic audit provided by Froese Forensic Partners Ltd.. While Mr. Froese had indeed written his audit and remarks carefully so as not to out and out accuse Mr. Hahn of either fraud or other illegalities, he, Mr. Froese, had made clear his lack of satisfaction with the situation and the results. He did state that Mr. Hahn had cooperated fully in regards to verbally answering questions but his concerns had not been fully clarified by the written documents produced. There was ambiguity in a number of issues that were relevant to specific clauses in the MEA and whether or not they had been violated. Dr. Holt, Mr. Clausi, and I all believed that these concerns raised by Mr. Froese required further examination and as Mr. Hahn had admittedly broken the MEA in numerous areas it was obvious that MECAC should follow both the spirit and the words of the MEA and send Mr. Hahn’s case on to a prosecutor, who could determine if charges should be pursued. MECAC refused to do so with a litany of nonsense and assorted mostly irrelevant drivel.<br /><br />Mark Bauman<br /><br />Long before Mr. Hahn’s case was ended, I was looking at the other Woolwich Councillors’ financial statements. Three of them appeared satisfactory upon a quick examination. Sandy Shantz’s caused me pause, however, and I needed to do some simple mathematical calculations as well as check some references in the MEA. Councillor Mark Bauman’s lack of financial statement was immediately riveting. Keep in mind this inquiry was all in the context of Sandy and Mark taking a holier than thou attitude, manufacturing a crisis, and then pointing fingers at CPAC and subjectively and dishonestly proclaiming CPAC’s sin. Well! As I was just beginning to smell blood in the water by legitimately looking at the public, on-line financial statements, why on earth wouldn’t I continue to follow up some apparent strange behaviour?<br /><br />Where was Councillor Bauman’s financial statement? I looked repeatedly on the Woolwich Township website. Everyone else’s was there. All the other financial statements for councillors as well as trustee candidates and regional council candidates were there. I checked the on-line financial statements for Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge. Everyone’s was there except for Mark Bauman. I knew that Mr. Bauman had been acclaimed but there had been other acclamations throughout the Region of Waterloo and yet all had submitted financial statements as required. I double-checked the MEA to ensure that acclaimed candidates were required to submit financial statements. They were. Also there was possibly in one of the candidates’ guides or elsewhere the rationalization for this requirement. A candidate who formally submitted his nomination papers and early on started erecting thousands of dollars of election signs could discourage other potential candidates from entering the race. I did not know at the time whether or not this situation pertained to Mark Bauman or not in Ward Two of Woolwich Township.<br /><br />My next step was a visit to the Municipal Clerk Val Hummel. According to the MEA, it sounded as if Municipal Clerks were almost independent of the township for which they worked. I found that odd as the MEA appeared to be suggesting that Municipal Clerks had independent oversight of all matters relating to municipal elections and certainly did not take directions from either councillors or the Chief Administrative Officers (CAO). As Municipal Clerks were appointed often from within the municipality and paid for by the municipality, I foresaw some conflicts of interest here. Regardless, I went to see Ms.Hummel and asked her why Mark Bauman’s Elections Financial Statement was not on the Woolwich website along with everyone else’s. Councillor Patrick Merlihan, my Ward One councillor, accompanied me. Ms. Hummel smiled, looked me in the eye, and stated that “Yes, Mr. Bauman’s financial statement was on the Woolwich website.” The last time I had looked was likely within the last thirty minutes of my arrival to her office plus by now we were literally many weeks past the deadline for these to be publicly posted. I did not blink. I did not get angry and I did not call her a liar or any other insult. I said nothing for several seconds while staring at her. She did not blink, she did not falter, she did not vacillate. Clearly, she felt that the conversation was over although she was too polite to turn her back and walk away without an acknowledgement from me that I was finished. I was not. I advised Ms. Hummel in front of Mr. Merlihan that she was incorrect, that Mr. Bauman’s financial statement absolutely was not on the Woolwich Township website, along with all the other candidates Elections Financial Statements. Val appeared a little non-plussed by my certainty and confidence. She hesitated, confirmed that I was positive that it was not on-line and then cheerfully told me that “Oh you are right. It actually is sitting on my desk and I have not gotten it put on-line yet.” She was very sorry and the fault was hers. Wow, I didn’t see that coming.<br /><br />I rebounded quickly from that claim and advised Ms. Hummel that as an elector and a citizen I had a right to see that Elections Financial Statement and that it was weeks overdue, and therefore, please get it immediately and let me see it. Not a word out of Patrick Merlihan. He had stood there politely and respectfully, but I did sense there was now some discomfort on his part. Ms. Hummel while much tenser nevertheless politely and respectfully told me to wait right there that she would go and get it.<br /><br />Patrick and I waited right there. For five minutes we waited right there. Nothing. For ten minutes we waited right there. Nothing. I began to wonder if Ms. Hummel had moved her desk somewhere off-site. Approximately fifteen minutes later she reappeared. By then I had a pretty good idea as to what had been going on. I would be willing to bet that she had gone to CAO, David Brenneman and told him that a particular you know what-disturber, one Alan Marshall, was at it again. Or more succinctly she might simply have said to David, “Help!”<br /><br />Ms. Hummel informed Mr. Merlihan and I that she was mistaken and that Mark Bauman had not submitted a financial statement as he had been acclaimed and that was okay. I assured Ms. Hummel that according to the MEA it was not okay. Not remotely. She countered with” Yes, it is okay” because Mr. Bauman had been acclaimed before and that it was Woolwich tradition not to require him to submit Election Financial Statements after he’d been acclaimed. I asked her if she thought that Woolwich tradition trumped provincial legislation. She wilted. She asked me if I wasn’t famous enough already. I was shocked. I didn’t think that that comment was intentionally meant to be rude but I could be mistaken. Frankly, in that moment, I didn’t understand the inference she was making. I maybe was famous due to the Varnicolor Chemical scandal of twenty plus years before and I was well known for my environmental activism in regards to Uniroyal Chemical but her reference to my “fame” seemed odd. In hindsight, I have to wonder if Ms. Hummel knew full well how much trouble she, Woolwich Township, and Mark Bauman were now in. She essentially asked me to look the other way, to let it go. And I essentially said no.<br /><br />I was shocked and dumbfounded not so much by Mark Bauman’s failure to file a financial statement nor by the fact that he was a repeat offender. What shocked me was the Municipal Clerk’s attitude. She knew right from the start that this behaviour was wrong and contrary to the Municipal Elections Act. She blatantly lied to me both about Mr. Bauman’s statement being on-line and then about it being on her desk. The comment about a “Woolwich tradition” really blew my mind. Who the hell did either she or Woolwich Council members think they were? What Val Hummel was admitting to was that this municipality picked and chose which provincial legislation they would comply with. This attitude made my decision to proceed further very easy.<br /><br />At the time I was not aware that Mr. Bauman had by law, immediately forfeited his council seat when he failed to file any financial statement by the deadline. Ms. Hummel certainly did not so advise me and in fact she and Council actually had the brass to later suggest that Council had voluntarily suspended Mr. Bauman until he was reinstated to his council seat. They were mincing words desperately trying not to admit the severity of their non-compliance with the MEA. Their repeated non-compliance in regards to Mr. Bauman’s financial statements over previous elections was incredibly disturbing. These failures meant not only Ms. Hummel but the previous Municipal Clerk had allowed the same behaviour. This knowledge more than confirmed my suspicions regarding a conflict of interest for these Clerks to be the “police” of municipal governments during elections.<br /><br />It actually got worse, yet Woolwich Township were able to sell the whole affair to the public as some sort of a victory. Mark Bauman and his lawyers quickly determined exactly how pathetic and weak the MEA really is. They booked an emergency hearing before a judge of the Superior Court in Kitchener. The Motion as written described the two parties as being Woolwich Township and Councillor Mark Bauman. Excuse me, but why on earth would I and the voting public not be parties? Well, it was, after all, politicians who drafted this legislation in the first place. The legislation reserved the worst and most immediate penalties for the most egregious and blatant failures. This especially included a total disregard for the law by simply not filing an Elections Financial Statement. Hence, there was the mandated by law, immediate forfeiture of one’s council seat if one failed to file one of these financial statements on time as Mark Bauman failed to do.<br /><br />Do you think the judicial system is more concerned with justice or more concerned with preserving the status quo? Well, Woolwich Township staff and council certainly didn’t want to lose Mr. Bauman. Therefore, he and they kept things very quiet. They kept it so quiet that the five to ten minute court hearing in Kitchener did not have an opposing party. I and the public were intentionally, totally kept in the dark about this hearing. I could have entered evidence that both Mr. Bauman and the Municipal Clerk had a history of violating the MEA and only one inquiring citizen had discovered these infractions and exposed them. I could have also advised the judge that the Woolwich Township Clerk lied and tried to deceive me when I lodged my complaint and inquiry. All was to no avail as the hearing restored Mr. Bauman to his council seat without the judge ever finding out all the facts. What a disgrace and what a joke of enforcement in the MEA when essentially a one party hearing can reinstate a candidate who fails to make the slightest effort to comply with the law.<br /><br />Sandy Shantz<br /><br />All three cases clearly indicated, for those willing to watch, listen, and learn, the basic contradictions within our judicial and political systems. To say that they are in bed with each other is simply too large of an understatement. Our judicial system moans about the importance of the appearance of justice when they should be far more concerned about the reality of justice. MECAC was miles beyond pathetic in its handling of the Sandy Shantz case. Long after MECAC’s sham, our courts followed suit albeit perhaps with a little better show being put on. Perhaps.<br /><br />Part of the reason I am sharing just a small part of the public disgrace that occurred after the 2014 election is in order to provide a better understanding of how a truly committed and dedicated group of citizens can be totally stymied by the joining of forces of polluter, regulator, and government. Notice that while I focus in this book on our municipal government and on one provincial ministry, the reality is that both provincial and federal environmental legislation are riddled with loopholes as well as legislation is simply not enforced to the extent that it should. This non-enforcement, in my opinion, intentionally allows corporations to ignore their environmental responsibilities with impunity. They know that when caught there are endless opportunities for their lawyers to deflect, delay, and obfuscate their way out of any serious trouble. Also please note that the public disgrace I am referring to is not Todd Cowan’s penny ante expense double-dipping, or breach of trust. It is the long-term stickhandling around rules, regulations, and laws by some municipalities whose apparent standard operating procedure when caught having misspoken, misbehaving, or being incompetent is simply to lie their way through it.<br /><br />After further detailed examination of Sandy Shantz’s Elections Financial Statement it was clear that she had messed up rather seriously. These errors, of course, were minimized by both Ms. Shantz and her cheerleaders on council, on MECAC, and even in the news media. Quite frankly, I never had anyone actually ask to sit down with me and go through each and every error, whether intentional or unintentional. Amazingly to this day the public still do not know the plethora of errors in her original financial statement much less the omissions even in her final financial statement that was ordered by Justice David Broad. News flash Woolwich residents: If anyone has enough money and the willingness to be vilified by our fine, upstanding mayor, I believe that you could, through the courts, actually have her removed from office, even now despite having been reinstated to the mayor’s chair, conditionally, by Justice David Broad. He insisted that she submit another Election Financial Statement in addition to the first two she had previously submitted to MECAC. He stipulated that she must include all expenses as well as all contributions. Ms. Shantz resubmitted her financial statements but unfortunately she again missed listing all her legitimate expenses and contributions. One of the larger unreported expenses was delivered to, out of town prosecutor, Fraser Kelly, on a platter with names, dates, and a photo, yet he and the judicial system determined that it was not in the public interest to proceed with charges against her. In our judicial system how many chances do you get to avoid criminal charges for stealing a loaf of bread versus how many do some politicians get for refusing to comply with the law?<br /><br />In my opinion MECAC members were suffering from both bias and incompetence. I say that and in doing so am giving them the benefit of the doubt. The doubt refers to the other possibility which is that MECAC members and everyone involved in its inception were blatantly corrupt. MECAC had Thomas Jutzi, lawyer, as one of its members and who had also worked for many years for the local Mercedes Corporation. Meanwhile, Mayor Shantz had financial ties to Mercedes as she regularly declared a conflict of interest when Mercedes came to Woolwich council with an issue. For some peculiar reason, neither Ms. Shantz, Mr. Jutzi, nor any MECAC member felt that this conflict of interest should be declared. There were other potential biases noticeable on MECAC. Former politicians were on this committee allegedly neutrally judging their peers and or colleagues including Grace Sudden and Carl Zehr. Grace Sudden was a former Woolwich councillor as well as a regional councillor. Carl Zehr was the former mayor of Kitchener as well as a regional councillor for many years. To say that they both knew Sandy personally as well as shared a history on Waterloo Regional Council would appear obvious. What a joke having them sit in judgement of their political colleague.<br /><br />So, Ms. Shantz appeared at the first hearing date of MECAC and promptly handed out a pile of paperwork to MECAC members and me at ten minutes to the hour. It included both a new financial statement as well as an Auditor’s Report. How interesting especially as one of the major errors in her financial statement of March 2011 was the failure to include an Auditor’s Report that was mandatory for any financial statement showing in excess of $10,000 for either expenses or contributions. This distribution of documents, of course, was trial by ambush as Ms. Shantz had not properly graced myself, the complainant, with these documents ahead of time in order to read them prior to the hearing. What the hell kind of Mickey Mouse hearing was this? To add insult to injury, the chair of MECAC, Mr. Carl Zehr, was five minutes late due to traffic, and therefore, clearly he had no time to read these just delivered documents prior to the hearing. This was the appearance at least. Months later, under oath, Ms. Shantz advised the judge in Kitchener Superior Court that she had delivered these documents to MECAC on the Friday before the Monday morning hearing. So which was it? Clearly delivering documents to either me or MECAC minutes before the start of the hearing is bush league, trial by ambush. Or at least it is, unless of course, the fix is in with a crooked MECAC. The alternative is that Sandy Shantz committed perjury in court and in fact Richard Clausi confronted her on that at a public council meeting later on.<br /><br />MECAC did not have the authority to simply accept a now months late financial statement and Audit Report and pretend that no harm no foul. The Municipal Elections Act was violated in late March 2011 with Ms. Shantz’s multiple violations in her financial statement as well as with her failure to include the Audit Report as mandated by the MEA as her expenses and contributions both well exceeded $10,000. Again hindsight is truly wonderful. Any legitimate, intelligent, and honest body would have blasted the mayor on the spot and immediately ordered a formal forensic audit of her election finances. MECAC was not and did not. Shame on the pack of them, although their short-term comeuppance was on the horizon.<br /><br />Rich Clausi and I were unimpressed and disgusted. Keep in mind at this early point in time we did not know about the Thomas Jutzi potential conflict of interest although the other conflicts of interest seemed evident. Then after Ms. Shantz’s “victory” at MECAC, the bombshell hit. I believe that it was Richard Clausi who made the discovery. The MEA clearly stated that there were a couple of serious breaches of the Act which demanded immediate removal from office of the elected individual. These serious breaches in Sandy Shantz’s case were essentially the same as Mark Bauman’s breach. As Mr. Bauman had failed to file an absolutely mandatory financial statement so Ms. Shantz failed to file an absolutely mandatory Auditor’s Report. How in the name of everything judicial and political did the Municipal Clerk fail to see this omission when Ms. Shantz filed her financial statement in March 2011? How did the Clerk fail to see and understand this requirement after I filed my complaint through the Clerk to MECAC? My complaint clearly indicated that Ms. Shantz had understated her expenses and contributions by thousands of dollars and had thusly avoided hiring and paying for an Auditor’s Report. It was the Clerk’s duty to remove Ms. Shantz as mayor then and there. How had MECAC who included former politicians, political scientists, accountants, and other professionals also fail to immediately understand and act upon this information? How after Ms. Shantz admitted her failures at the first MECAC meeting, including her failure to file an Audit Report, did she not get stripped of her office, on the spot, as the MEA demanded? I believe that there are but two possible answers. The first is gross neglect and the second is corruption. If the gross neglect includes allegedly intelligent, professional MECAC members making zero attempt to inform themselves, could not that be construed as a form of corruption as well? It’s as if they felt little or no need to work to inform themselves ahead of time because, perhaps, the outcome was already determined.<br /><br />For at least the first decade of the Elmira Water Crisis I assumed that our council were inherently honest and straightforward. Only after council incidents and decisions detrimental to the cleanup became obvious did I start to look and listen more carefully to Woolwich Council. The more I observed carefully the more disappointed in council I became.<br /><br />Richard Clausi and I sent e-mails to the Clerk, to council members, to MECAC, and to the media. It was pretty hard for everybody not to gasp and ask what the hell was going on in Woolwich. Somewhere around this time, Richard began occasionally to refer to Woolwich Township as Dogpatch. The name just seemed to fit so well under the circumstances. Ms. Shantz attempted the same route as Mr. Bauman with a zero opposing party to her application to Superior Court in Kitchener for reinstatement to the mayor’s chair. We, of course, had a leg up after being fooled by Mark Bauman’s legal subterfuge and got legal advice of our own. Basically, I was allowed to be considered a “friend of the court” or amicus curiae. This status did not make me a party or allow me to question witnesses but it did allow me to address the Judge. Of course, this legal advice occurred after Ms. Shantz’s lawyer, James Bennet, attempted to intimidate me into not attending court. I found his e-mails to me rude and threatening but unsuccessful.<br /><br />At court, I focused on an unusual fact in Sandy’s second financial statement. The date that this statement was filed was earlier than her first one and yet the second one was allegedly written months later. How could this be? My belief was that the office of her accountant had been contacted by her before the late March filing deadline and given a copy of her completed financial statement at that time. Then, I expect, that she found some “efficiencies” in her expenses and was able to reduce them below the magic $10,000 mark that required an Auditor’s Report. Unfortunately, when she was forced to go to her personal accountant after I blew the whistle on her multiple errors, he audited her financial statement and printed off both his Audit Report and her original financial statement that she had sent him. Oops! Now this discrepancy should have been carefully examined by the Judge but was not. Justice David Broad simply reinstated her conditionally to the mayor’s chair and she was to produce yet another financial statement, although this one was to include all expenses and contributions. It did not but she was already reinstated.<br /><br />The Municipal Elections Compliance Audit Committee demonstrated their pro-politician bias demonstrably in Woolwich Township. They failed to send Scott Hahn on to the provincial courts and they didn’t even order a Forensic Auditor’s Report of Sandy Shantz’s financial statements. Both precedent and the MEA make it clear that an ordered forensic Auditor’s Report of a candidate’s financial statement is the norm when either obvious glaring errors or admissions of them are presented to MECAC. These circumstances occurred in the Sandy Shantz case yet they gave her a free pass. Scott Hahn’s forensic Auditor’s Report was damning yet MECAC failed to send him to a prosecutor. Democracy and the rule of law have taken a big hit with these two cases.<br /><br />Many months later, I took one more kick at the can as I decided on my own to see what, if anything, the judicial system would do about these flagrant election accountability abuses. I found the judicial system to be slow, awkward, biased, and absolutely not user-friendly for citizens unless on the inside such as a lawyer, judge, or other authority figure. I may elaborate further on my personal odyssey through the courts in an attempt to make Ms. Shantz and Mr. Hahn honestly accountable for their political, self-serving sins of omission and commission. It is my belief that the behaviours of Councillors Bauman, Hahn and Mayor Shantz regarding their election Financial Statements are relevant to the failures of local political leadership in standing up for the public interest in Elmira and other Woolwich Township environmental matters. Mr. Hahn however, it is necessary to say, did not have multiple terms on Council as did Ms. Shantz and Mr. Bauman.<br /><br />To say that my confidence in the “system” and in its credibility and veracity has been terribly eroded over the decades is an understatement. In the next chapter we will see how humour in the form of newspaper cartoons can get the message across.</div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-29991645180377641982023-12-19T09:47:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:47:54.012-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-19-back-to-chemtura-soon-to-be.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-1859511431450626475" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br /><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Nineteen:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />152.....Back to Chemtura Soon to be Lanxess Canada<br /><br />152.....CPAC Getting Axed<br /><br />161.....Woolwich Council Frustrated<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 19<br /><br />Back To Chemtura Soon To Be Lanxess Canada<br /><br />In Chapter Eighteen I discussed the efforts to bring half the 2014-2018 Woolwich Council to account for what I saw as their incompetence, arrogance, and sense of self-entitlement. Yes, I admit that my indignation and sense of outrage may have been exacerbated by Woolwich Councillors’ biased, ill- informed and malicious attacks on the honesty and credibility of citizen volunteers appointed by the new council’s predecessors. I was as upset by the lying to the public and the closing ranks around Councillor Bauman by Woolwich staff as I was with his original offence. Mr. Bauman along with other Woolwich politicians ably demonstrated their do as I say, not as I do, attitude.<br /><br />Another fine example of the Township’s ongoing ignoring of rules, regulations, and laws was uncovered by me in the spring of 2015 although not exposed to the public until mid-August 2015. This council just like many of its predecessors had a penchant for holding illegal, private meetings. While the Ontario Municipal Act does allow certain subjects to be discussed behind closed doors such as personnel, legal matters, and possibly potential land acquisitions, there are way too many times when Woolwich Council wanted to discuss, merely embarrassing to themselves, items behind closed doors (i.e. in camera). All I had to do was go through the past minutes of council meetings and find the pathetic and vague excuses they used when they described council returning from a closed session and returning to the open session. The provincial rules also insist that the public must be given clear and specific reasons for these closed sessions, which councillors had not been doing. Therefore, I filed a formal complaint to the Ontario Ombudsman who investigated a number of specific dates and examples of closed meetings that I provided. Woolwich Councillors were found by the Ombudsman to have indeed been in violation with the examples of closed meetings which I provided. Woolwich Councillors were found by the Ombudsman to have indeed been in violation of the Municipal Act. While there are highly paid staff, such as the Chief Administrative Officer and the Municipal Clerk, whose responsibilities include assuring that their municipality comply with provincial and federal laws, apparently they had been asleep at the switch, again. This problem and resulting solution was raised and discussed in an open council session later in 2015. To date, Woolwich Township are at least trying harder not to violate these laws which are there to protect the public interest.<br /><br />CPAC Getting Axed<br /><br />In an incredible act of hypocrisy and incompetence in early-June 2015, after months of disparaging CPAC both privately and publicly, Woolwich Council humbly asked Dr. Dan Holt, chair of CPAC, if CPAC members would please carry on over the summer with their volunteer work. This request was reported in the Elmira Independent in its June 5, 2015 edition.146 As of that date the new CPAC had not yet been appointed. As bad as Mayor Todd Cowan’s council had been for procrastination, the Sandy Shantz council exceeded it. As you may recall, CPAC had in the previous Council term been extended for six months after the election to give slow, inexperienced councillors time to get up to speed with either new terms of reference or new members. Recall too that the incoming council in the previous November had authorized advertisements in both the Elmira Independent and in the Woolwich Observer for applications to CPAC for this 2014 to 2018 term of council. This action of course was just one more example of Woolwich Council ignoring its own rules and written procedures. The CPAC terms of reference clearly state that CPAC are to have direct input into the naming of new and replacement members. Both Todd Cowan’s councillors as well as Sandy Shantz’s ignored that and made unilateral changes as they deemed fit. All CPAC and SWAT members along with Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant had filed their applications with the new council in November 2014 as requested. Months later after the “manufactured crisis” and other despicable behaviour, Ms. Shantz pulled another one. She suddenly announced that the Township was going to reopen its applications for CPAC. At the same time she announced that she was throwing out all the earlier ones from CPAC, SWAT as well as the applications from Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant. In essence Ms. Shantz demanded new applications or confirmations simply to be able to appoint her preferred applicants to the new CPAC or whatever name she wanted to call the committee. Yes, the replacement to CPAC would include Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean, however, it also included some of her curling buddies when she couldn’t find anyone qualified and willing of whom Chemtura and the MOE West Central Region approved of. What a farce!<br /><br />CPAC and SWAT members of 2010 to 2014 had agreed to stay on through the summer of 2015 although do remember that Chemtura and the MOE still were not attending CPAC meetings. Obviously, Sandy Shantz and her councillors rolled over and gave those two parties that spring and summer everything they wanted to induce them to come back to some form of public consultation. Woolwich Council members generally lacked backbone combined with self imposed ignorance and bias in favour of big business and pleasing the higher tier of government, the province (MOE). Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman totally sold the farm to the partners in pollution, Chemtura Canada, and the Ontario Ministry of Environment. On June 16, 2015 the plan for two new committees (RAC/TAG) went to Woolwich Council as was reported in the June 20, 2015 Woolwich Observer and the June 19, 2015 Elmira Independent.147<br /><br />The Observer had two articles to address CPAC concerns, both published June 20, 2015 titled “Woolwich to axe CPAC for new review format” with a sub-title of “Goal is to bring Chemtura, Ministry of the Environment back to the table, as both groups no longer take part in meetings.” The second is titled “Woolwich scraps CPAC, approves new format with less public involvement.” Getting these two parties back to CPAC was indeed the primary goal of Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman. As far as I could tell it was all about optics and appearances. It looked very bad that the two guilty parties wouldn’t attend public meetings and that they had not provided any reason to CPAC members.<br /><br />In the Observer’s first article written by Steve Kannon, he stated “ Looking to woo Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment back into the fold, Woolwich is scrapping the citizen watchdog that monitors the Elmira chemical company in favour of a new, less adversarial format."148 Furthermore, Mr. Kannon stated, “In another concession to Chemtura, TAG will be led by an “independent, third party chairperson."149 In the same article, David Brenneman, CAO of Woolwich Township indicated that this new chairperson was likely to be paid by Chemtura. Mr. Brenneman misled the public by inferring that the old chairman, Dr. Dan Holt, had not stuck to the agenda or proper procedure or focused on running the meetings. Finally in this article, Mr. Kannon is quoted as saying “A plan to move away from CPAC’s historical role as a citizens’ group raised some concerns for Coun. Patrick Merlihan, however. “I wonder with the third party chair if were turning a citizens’ committee…if we’re professionalizing it by hiring someone from outside to come in,"150 he said, noting to date the committee has largely involved citizens who have been looking out for the community’s interests.”<br /><br />In the Observer’s second article, Mr. Kannon states that the two new committees, RAC and TAG, “will provide much less public input and oversight of Chemtura’s remediation of polluted groundwater and ongoing concerns of continued contamination. There’s a different priority, however, as the move spearheaded by Mayor Sandy Shantz aims to bring back to the table the Ministry of the Environment and Chemtura, both of which have been skipping CPAC meetings since last fall."151 The following CPAC members all spoke against the replacement of CPAC with more company-friendly groups, namely Dr. Dan Holt, Vivienne Delaney, Graham Chevreau, and Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach. Mr. Achenbach correctly stated that “Much of the driving motivation for the coming change appears to us to be about personalities. Specifically, CPAC’s association with Mr. Alan Marshall has raised hackles. The hostilities go back over a decade and have festered,” he explained. “We understand the urge to retaliate, but want this council to consider that this is ancillary to the true purpose of monitoring and compelling Chemtura to abide by its commitments. “In short, Alan’s transgressions, are a red herring which allows the real culprits to escape closer scrutiny."152 Lastly Councillor Patrick Merlihan stated that while he was voting for the format change it was “…despite reservations about a lack of public representation….” “I would still like the feel of this being a citizens’ committee, “ said Merlihan, calling the lack of public representation “cringeworthy."153<br /><br />Following the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m about to present the readers with four thousand words worth of pictures and an excellent one- page Editorial from the June 20, 2015 Woolwich Observer. All the cartoons are produced by Scott Arnold on behalf of the Woolwich Observer.<br /><br />The first one referencing open season on Woolwich politicians could be interpreted as being sympathetic to them. By May 2015, Todd Cowan was not only no longer mayor of Woolwich but he was facing criminal charges for his expense problems. A week later, the attitude towards Woolwich politicians in the cartoon has hardened. By this time frame Mayor Shantz is as yet clear of election expense allegations. The three men are again Scott Hahn, Mark Bauman, and Todd Cowan. The woman is Woolwich Clerk Val Hummel.The next two cartoons are in regards to the replacement of former CPAC members with a more “company friendly” membership. Hence, the cartoon dated June 27, 2015 indicates to me the lack of genuine substantive reasons for removing CPAC. The last cartoon dated August 1, 2015 also reflects the Observer’s opinion that these changes are all smoke and mirrors.<br /><br />I had decided to wait about taking action regarding Sandy Shantz’s hopeless financial statement until I had a good idea as to what MECAC was all about. In the first meeting, Dr. Holt, Rich Clausi and I had some hope and by the second MECAC meeting, when committee members ordered a Forensic Audit Report for Councillor Hahn, it looked as if they might be the real deal. Unfortunately, MECAC were all downhill after that. Please note in the June 20 Editorial comments such as re-arranging-the-deckchairs as well as the word appeasement used twice. Note the comments about removal of both the citizen and watchdog from the citizens’ watchdog group. Lastly please note the references to the polluter actually demanding which citizens can and cannot attend public meetings. And Sandy gave in to them. Clearly our local newspaper were appropriately unhappy with the superficial moves made by Sandy Shantz . Superficial that is as far as assisting to clean up either the Elmira aquifers or the Canagagigue Creek. The Woolwich Observer were correct in laying both the blame and the responsibility at the feet of the Ontario Ministry of Environment for their failures to fulfill their mandate.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PqkKw0_ZeUI/XZshcbypQEI/AAAAAAAAALc/yBTJAki7n4ISvQD449gRojEQ8S32x1GKQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/wascallywabbits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PqkKw0_ZeUI/XZshcbypQEI/AAAAAAAAALc/yBTJAki7n4ISvQD449gRojEQ8S32x1GKQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/wascallywabbits.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Or-E7YuPY-E/XZsiv_CL1AI/AAAAAAAAALo/PVcqzkvsi2AYtJ87hJLEqUJX_YINKK-TQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/woolwichsaloonshoot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Or-E7YuPY-E/XZsiv_CL1AI/AAAAAAAAALo/PVcqzkvsi2AYtJ87hJLEqUJX_YINKK-TQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/woolwichsaloonshoot.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uodoEZSAVBI/XZsjuuv_MTI/AAAAAAAAALw/4DZbJcb0ktA3P-ENRRvt_-tBFfRL9fxxACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/sandyscolourscheme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uodoEZSAVBI/XZsjuuv_MTI/AAAAAAAAALw/4DZbJcb0ktA3P-ENRRvt_-tBFfRL9fxxACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/sandyscolourscheme.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3Hg-OdloBjM/XZslKYtpaTI/AAAAAAAAAL8/pOQez692lmotsbSdJhAFh3zodIOL9ib8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/sandssolution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3Hg-OdloBjM/XZslKYtpaTI/AAAAAAAAAL8/pOQez692lmotsbSdJhAFh3zodIOL9ib8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/sandssolution.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M3-gufjqYX8/XZsyzHuWA9I/AAAAAAAAAMI/CTzBVW6jDWkUdEVF2fasKM9FtdNWP8BVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/cpacshuffleedit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M3-gufjqYX8/XZsyzHuWA9I/AAAAAAAAAMI/CTzBVW6jDWkUdEVF2fasKM9FtdNWP8BVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/cpacshuffleedit.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />This removal of CPAC was the most blatant abandonment of municipal responsibility to the public in a very long time and other than the Woolwich Observer and CPAC members there was no significant criticism including from the Elmira Independent. Relations between the Independent and Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean had been very good for many years and I suspect that Gail Martin may have had an inherent tendency to favour the always calm and cool public approach those two presented. Only those closer to that pair knew what they were about outside the public view. Also I have no doubt that if the Elmira Independent had continued in business that Ms. Martin would have realized how council had sold out to Chemtura and to the MOE, eventually. The Independent closed suddenly on August 1, 2015, which was a huge loss to Woolwich Township citizens particularly in regards to the complete loss of coverage by the media of public meetings held in council chambers. To this day in late 2018 none of the RAC or TAG meetings have been reported to the public by any news reporters-- a huge loss in the fight to obtain public awareness and support for a better cleanup of Elmira. In particular, coverage of Dr. Richard Jackson, the upcoming new TAG chair, and his strong criticisms of both Chemtura and the MOE could have made a huge difference in the public’s understanding of both past and current self-serving misstatements by those bodies and their penchant for gilding the lily.<br /><br />After CPAC members had reluctantly agreed to carry on for the summer of 2015, councillors promptly produced both new terms of reference as well as the two new committees to replace CPAC starting in September 2015. CPAC proceeded in early July 2015 with a study of part of the Stroh Drain and of an area along the Creek known as Site #20. Graham Chevreau of CPAC had friends in a local company, MBN Engineering Inc. These friends were willing to take soil and sediment samples in these areas and test for pesticides. Their turnaround time to obtain lab analyses put the Ontario MOE to shame. Graham did the organizing and Sebastian of CPAC and I went along in early July 2015 simply as guides. We knew the terrain and the shortest and most convenient routes to get to where we needed to go. The overall goal of the testing was to determine quickly and independently any additional issues in these areas above and beyond what we had learned in the MOE 2012, 2013, and 2014 testing along the Canagagigue Creek.<br /><br />The Elmira Independent published an article titled “DDT found in creek sediment” on July 31, 2015, which was their last publication although it was done so suddenly by the owners that none of the citizens in Woolwich Township knew even the day before. This article reported the results of the samples taken earlier that month by MBN Environmental Inc. staff whom Sebastian and I accompanied. One sample was taken a few hundred metres downstream from the Chemtura site and contained DDT at 20,000 parts per billion. This amount is the highest concentration of DDT found to date in the Creek. Endosulfan, an insecticide formerly produced by Uniroyal, was found at 410 parts per billion (ppb) and as well, carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). This is simply an indication that the focused upon dioxins/furans and DDT were not in the creek sediments and soils in isolation.154<br /><br />Gail Martin sent CPAC a beautiful letter on August 6 thanking CPAC and SWAT for our efforts and the memories and assistance given to her regarding technical issues over the years. The shutting down of this newspaper continues to be an incredible loss to the community and to the efforts to hold both Chemtura and the Ontario MOE accountable.<br /><br />The Woolwich Observer had the final say about what Woolwich Council was doing to CPAC in the summer of 2015 and the public. In its August 29, 2015 edition, a story appeared titled, “As CPAC winds down, longstanding concerns remain.” The sub-heading was “More studies needed to find scope of new contaminants, confirm that 2028 deadline will be missed, group tells council.” Steve Kannon, editor of the Observer, didn’t pull many punches in this article. He stated that “While the company has for years maintained it could meet the timeline (2028), it has recently acknowledged current remediation efforts – pumping water from the aquifer underneath Elmira and treating it for contaminants - aren’t likely to succeed on their own. That’s long been the position of the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee, the environmental watchdog group whose term expires at the end of the month, to be replaced by a more company-friendly arrangement cooked up by Mayor Sandy Shantz."155 Wow! Thank you, Steve Kannon. While I have repeatedly criticized the Observer for its failure to report CPAC then RAC and TAG public meetings, credit does need to be given for the Observer’s strong stance against council’s sham, charade, and my term “manufactured crisis” in order to get rid of CPAC thereby taking the pressure off Chemtura and the MOE. Credit should also go to the only council member, Patrick Merlihan, who showed any commonsense and backbone when he expressed repeated concerns about Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman’s replacements for CPAC, i.e. the RAC and TAG committees.<br /><br />In the same edition, however, under another story titled, “New evidence demands further cleanup orders be directed at Chemtura, says watchdog group,” Mr. Kannon also adds that “While expressing support for the idea, council opted to refer the matter to the new environmental committee the township formed when it opted to disband CPAC to entice the MOE and Chemtura back to the meeting table."156 Again, wow.<br /><br />Woolwich Council Frustrated<br /><br /><br />Woolwich Councillors were stinging! By mid-August they suddenly realized that as much fun as they were having watching former mayor, Todd Cowan, go through the legal gears, they too were no longer smelling like roses. Throw enough manure on roses and even they begin to smell like … manure. By the August 15, 2015 Woolwich Council meeting, Sandy Shantz had ignominiously been removed as mayor, attended court, and had been reinstated as mayor. The bloom sure was off the rose. Councillors were angry and not used to being on the defense. I booked as a delegation at the council meeting to talk about current issues at Chemtura and on the 15th councillors seemed to be itching for a fight. They were rude, combative, and generally petty as hell. I was repeatedly interrupted by the chair as I read my delegation comments. Eventually the pack of idiots walked out on me. I really don’t think they had actually thought this exit out carefully ahead of time. Likely they were simply trying to provoke me into some bad behaviour with their interruptions and petty complaints that I was not focusing well enough on one part of my delegation versus another part. It was just nonsense and drivel by them and no citizen is obligated to give a professional speech to Council anyway.<br /><br />Council’s behaviour backfired as I simply quit talking to them as they exited council chambers and turned myself around the lecturn and addressed my comments to the gallery. After a few minutes staff looked uncomfortable as they and the gallery listened to my information. Eventually, staff determined that as employees of the township and whose jobs depend on the good will of council they probably should walk out in support. Talk about the blind leading the blind in Woolwich Township.<br /><br />The Woolwich Observer wisely decided to support its part-owner, Councillor Pat Merlhan, in their August 15, 2015 edition of the paper; Councillor Merlihan had walked out with the rest of the Councillors. Bad move, Patrick but, hey, he was trying to get along with the turkeys on council whom he called his colleagues. The Observer criticized me and I returned the compliment in my blog, the Elmira Advocate. I referred to the Merlihan boys as the Merlihan sisters. Tacky I admit. This incident was probably a low point in our relationship but I sure wasn’t going to be put on the defense by a pack of ill- educated, ill- informed morons posing as councillors while behaving like spoiled ten year olds. I was following my democratic rights both in holding councillors accountable under the Municipal Election Act and as a delegate to council. Council, of course, went to the well once too often with these tactics and ended up being publicly humiliated in 2016 on another matter, which I will describe shortly. News media throughout Waterloo Region jumped all over Woolwich Council including the Woolwich Observer on this different issue the following year. The Observer did mention at least that regarding this incident the acrimony was personal as it was more about my taking aim at councillors through the MEA than anything to do with my delegation about Chemtura. In fact the Observer referenced Chemtura and the new committees, RAC and TAG, in this same article. The Observer said that the changes were “… prompted largely to reduce public input by Marshall and others deemed disruptive, a bid to get the chemical company and Ontario Ministry of the Environment to rejoin the public meetings.” The reality, of course, was that “Marshall and others” were disrupting to the status quo, a status quo of lying and deceit.<br /><br />On August 25, 2015 Richard Clausi presented himself as a delegation to the Woolwich Council meeting. Richard had a well- deserved reputation as a factual, accurate, calm individual but in fact he blew them out of the water. It was a sight to behold and one they badly deserved. Nor was it to be the last such defeat for them. The Woolwich Observer in its August 29, 2015 edition reported on Richard’s comments to council under the title of “Woolwich resident urges reform in wake of council election expense woes.” Following is the Observer article:<br /><br />“An Elmira resident who’s been following the election expense woes that have landed half of Woolwich council in hot water has a few suggestions for local officials. Well, 10 of them, in fact, applicable to ongoing provincial discussions about reform of the Municipal Elections Act (MEA).<br /><br />Richard Clausi has sat through the Municipal Election Compliance Audit Committee (MECAC) hearings for Coun. Scott Hahn and Mayor Sandy Shantz, and followed the court bids for the reinstatement of both Shantz and Coun. Mark Bauman, both removed from office for failing to file proper expense reports.<br /><br />“As we know, half of this council have had encounters of the worse kind with the MEA. As we move forward into the future, it is a good thing to examine the problems and try to understand what went wrong so we do not repeat past mistakes,” he said in addressing councillors August 25.<br /><br />“As often happens, people defensively blame the MEA for being “grey” and “confusing”. And vague. I respectfully suggest that the requirements of the MEA are clear and understandable for almost all candidates in Ontario. Any “grey is an optical illusion, and in the eyes of the beholder.”<br /><br />Clausi pointed to Shantz’s case as proof the system needs more transparency and accountability. He argued the audit committee should not have accepted revised, after-the-fact paperwork from the mayor, who missed the filing deadline. The Township, he added, should have taken some action when Shantz went to court to seek reinstatement instead of having just one side represented before the judge.<br /><br />“Imagine a courtroom with a prosecutor and a defence lawyer with this wrinkle - the prosecutor is told “do not present factum or testimony from the complainant and, by the way, be totally neutral and say nothing.” Unbelievable, yet that is what this council instructed their lawyers to do when two offending councillors applied for reinstatement. With no counterpoint, there was no due process, and the judge ruled the only way he could: reinstatement. For sports fans , this is called throwing the game,” he said. Taking an active role in such cases was among the recommendations he submitted.<br /><br />Reviewing the court document, Clausi noted Shantz claimed she submitted an audited statement to MECAC on June 29 even though committee members seemed to be getting the document just prior to a July 2 hearing.<br /><br />“Are you telling me that you perjured yourself?” he asked Shantz.<br /><br />Clearly taken aback, Shantz said the date given to the court was an error, one she raised with her lawyer who was to talk to the judge about it.<br /><br />Among Clausi’s other recommendations are that staff in the Clerk’s office receive more training prior to each election and that instruction sessions for prospective councillors, especially first-time candidates, be made mandatory."157<br /><br />Richard’s multi-page recommendations went to both council as well as to a committee involved with Bill 201, the amendments to the Election Finances Act and the Taxation Act. Richard’s question to Sandy Shantz as to whether or not she perjured herself to Superior Court in Kitchener in 2015 has never been followed up until possibly today. While Sandy answered Richard’s question by claiming that her lawyer had spoken to Justice David Broad about the error she made to his court, that has never been confirmed to the public or to me, the complainant. Today, November 6, 2018, I did post an article to my blog, the Elmira Advocate, and sent the posting to Woolwich councillors, CPAC members and two news media outlets. If in fact Sandy and her lawyer did not advise the judge after the fact of the significant error in her submissions in the summer of 2015, then I believe that this omission is one more piece of evidence casting grave doubt on the legitimacy of her reinstatement as mayor of Woolwich Township.<br /><br />I also believe the legality of her mayoralty casts doubt upon any Motions, by-laws, or initiatives that she took part in over the last four years including the “manufactured crisis” on behalf of Chemtura and the MOE. This would also include all meetings of RAC and TAG, including those she chaired at RAC and the TAG meetings run by the township’s two appointed chairs, Dr. Jackson and Tiffany Svensson. I do not view this possibility either lightly or maliciously. TAG has done good things and no offence is intended to Ms. Svensson and Dr. Richard Jackson who absolutely put both Chemtura and the MOE in their places repeatedly for their sins of both omission and commission.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 19<br /><br />146 Gail Martin, `Chemtura advisory committee term to end in September``, Elmira Independent, June 5, 2015, p.6.<br /><br />147 Gail Martin, ``Chemtura committee to undergo changes``, Elmira Independent, June 19, 2015, p.1.<br /><br />148 Steve Kannon, ``Woolwich to axe CPAC for new review format``, Woolwich Observer, June 20, 2015, p.27.<br /><br />149 Ibid.<br /><br />150 Ibid.<br /><br />151 Steve Kannon, ``Woolwich scraps CPAC, approves new format with less public involvement``, Woolwich Observer, June 20, 2015, p.6<br /><br />152 Ibid.<br /><br />153 Ibid.<br /><br />154 Gail Martin, ``DDT found in creek sediment``, Elmira Independent, July 31, 2015, p.6.<br /><br />155 Steve Kannon, ``As CPAC winds down, longstanding concerns remain``, Woolwich Observer, August 29, 2015, p.2.<br /><br />156 Ibid.<br /><br />157 Steve Kannon, ``Woolwich resident urges reform in wake of council election expense woes``,<br />Woolwich Observer, August 29, 2015<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-4057356258874978822023-12-19T09:34:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:34:28.944-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/chapter-20-rac-and-tag-begin-dr.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-9048402661365324875" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Twenty:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />163.....RAC and TAG Begin<br /><br />164.....Conestoga Rovers Eviscerated<br /><br />165.....MOE Takes a Hit<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 20<br /><br />RAC and TAG Begin<br /><br />Dr. Richard Jackson as chair of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) was a godsend. I consider him a godsend to the public, a godsend to the environment, a godsend to CPAC, and a godsend to honest and courageous citizens everywhere. I had felt that since his departure nearly two years ago (December 31, 2016) that he was simply heads and shoulders technically above everyone else. Now I’m rethinking that. I believe that his education, his research, his experience did put him in a league of his own. I don’t believe that anybody we have met here in Elmira, Ontario was on his level in regards to expertise in contaminant hydrogeology, remediation, engineering or hydrology. But there was something else. Dr. Jackson (Dick) is a mature individual, likely nearing the end of a glorious and long career.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson was appointed TAG chair in September 2015 by Woolwich Council. It was a paid position contrary to all the past chairs Woolwich citizens have had. I always found him to be pleasant, polite, and respectful. He did not look down his nose at local citizens the way a few of the Conestoga Rovers folks had over the decades. He did not make the arrogant suggestion that only qualified persons (QP) should be invited to technical meetings. That crap was thrown out by Elmira citizens literally decades ago. It wasn’t just QPs who were breathing the air and drinking the water 24/7 -- it was the local citizens.<br /><br />On the other hand Dr. Jackson clearly could not abide persons with either a personal agenda or a vested interest that would interfere and muddy the waters or pass off as science, self-serving nonsense gussied up as science. Dr. Jackson also clearly was not afraid of any of the local players, corporate, political, or otherwise. He was not infected with what I refer to as the Elmira disease. What is the Elmira disease? It is the serious, highly contagious disease that strikes many “professionals” immediately upon entering either Woolwich Township or certainly Elmira. I have seen some of these so called “professionals” reduced to simpering, stuttering, nervous wrecks afraid of their own shadows. Others, fortunately, while infected, have been able to maintain the façade of not being terrified, intimidated, or concerned for their careers and livelihoods. And yet, they have been deferential, oh so deferential to Uniroyal Chemical and their successors and as well to Uniroyal’s client-driven consultants who it turns out really did not deserve to be deferred to by anyone. My God, but Dr. Jackson was one of the very few people I’ve seen in Elmira who stood up to the various self-appointed emperors and purveyors of expertise and knowledge, looked them in the eye as if to say to their faces, “Excuse me, but you aren’t wearing any clothes.” Figuratively speaking of course.<br /><br />Informed citizens before him have long known that Uniroyal/ Chemtura gild the lily on an ongoing basis. They have been caught and they have backed down but they have never admitted to deceit, manipulation, or blatant prevarication. Dr. Jackson was having none of it. Facts, ideas, and procedures that had been accepted and proven reliable absolutely were not going to be ignored or thrown out just because either Chemtura, their consultants, or the wholly inadequate West Central Region of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment said so. Any and all parties toTAG or to the Remediation Advisory Committee (RAC) were going to have to back up their “facts,” their opinions, and their recommendations with real evidence and real science. Psudeo science and junk science and all those with vested interests peddling it were in for a very rough ride.<br /><br />I do my best not to pre-judge and frankly, based on my experience with the two Woolwich councillors, who set up RAC and TAG, it was difficult for me to believe in the fall of 2015 what my ears were hearing. How could a mayor, pretend or otherwise, whose goal was to create harmony and joy among Chemtura and the MOE possibly have hired a chairman for TAG who was the real deal and a whole lot more? It was shocking and indeed both Chemtura and especially the first-hand recipients from the MOE who were on the receiving end of Dr. Jackson’s criticism must have felt that they were trapped in a nightmare. Even prior to his first meeting Dr. Jackson advised that the pump and treat system was not sufficient.158<br /><br />These following facts have two sources. One is the minutes of RAC and TAG meetings taken by Lisa Schaefer, a Woolwich Township employee. The second source was my attendance at each and every RAC and TAG meeting to date in addition to the detailed notes that I took at each and every meeting. With those notes and my memory I posted summaries on my Elmira Advocate blog the day after the meetings. Those postings have been and still are publicly available. Unfortunately, with the closing of the Elmira Independent on August 1, 2015, not a single RAC or TAG meeting has been covered by the news media since the first meeting held in September 2015. The Woolwich Observer to date (Feb. 2019) have not stepped up and that lack of coverage has proven to be a major blow to the public’s interest.<br /><br />Conestoga Rovers Eviscerated<br /><br />On Thursday November 26, 2015, Dr. Jackson dismantled the Chemtura /Uniroyal cleanup of the Elmira aquifers and more. The tutorial from Dr. Jackson concerned both the on-site and the off-site cleanup and was provided to five TAG members, four CPAC/SWAT members and among others in the audience was Eric Hodgins, hydrogeologist for the Region of Waterloo. In his comments Dr. Jackson described the multiple technical failures over the last twenty-five years without mentioning by name, Conestoga Rovers. Much of it was music to my ears as it included criticisms that CPAC and I had stated. Dick described trends whereby groundwater contaminant concentrations decrease in a linear fashion only until the lower contaminant concentrations in the groundwater start drawing out contaminants that have diffused into aquitards or other lower permeability zones. These diffused contaminants will then back diffuse into the groundwater, thus greatly slowing the contaminant concentration decreases due to pumping and treating. This is the huge problem facing Chemtura/MOE/CRA at the present.<br /><br />Regarding the field testing done by CRA over a year ago for In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO), Dr. Jackson suggested that the “strategy was good,” but “the tactics poor”. He further stated that the parties responsible “poorly understood” and “poorly controlled” the testing held near pumping well W3. He further stated that it was “unforgiveable” that they did not seek professional help for the field test.159 Ouch!<br /><br />Dr. Jackson was particularly upset with a sentence in CRA’s report to the effect that Chemtura must wait for new and emerging groundwater remediation technologies to improve its clean-up time. Dr. Jackson suggested that he would be ashamed to write something like that on a report. It simply isn’t accurate. Burn!<br /><br />Regarding the November 2012 turnaround by Chemtura and its hired help regarding off-site pumping, Dr. Jackson commented on the lengthy time from its proposal then to now in November 2015. He stated that it took “three and a half years to implement after the lights went on."160 This implementation refers only to expanded treatment facilities and a few new pumping wells. In fact, to this date now of February 2019, Lanxess have still not remotely achieved the volume of pumping they and their consultants (CRA) determined was necessary in November. Dr. Jackson also clearly indicated his skepticism and concerns that the 2028 clean-up would happen. He said that Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment “underestimated” the extent of the contamination held in the aquitards (clay and silt low permeability zones).<br /><br />Apparently Chemtura representatives had recently suggested that they were prepared to present a new proposal for ISCO testing. This proposal for the upcoming 2016 year is peculiar to me right now in early 2019. Likely, this proposal is a direct effect of the various private so called “technical” meetings which Sandy Shantz has promoted at the expense of public consultation. Dr. Jackson again referred in his November 26, 2015 comments to the last field trial as “not my idea of engineering."161 One more shot at Conestoga Rovers by a qualified, competent professional in this field. More criticism followed, such as references to multi- level sampling (MLS). This method of sampling groundwater has been the norm in North America and Europe for decades but not at the Chemtura site in Elmira. That said, remember that yours truly provided a submission to the former CPAC back in 2009 regarding MLS but my comments had been ignored by the old CPAC and Chemtura and the MOE.<br /><br />TAG members also presented a number of specific recommendations to RAC members. An important one is that RAC advise Chemtura to “get some help.” In other words, outside independent experts should be required for a number of technical initiatives. Dr. Jackson -- while generally avoiding a head- to-head confrontation with CRA made it abundantly clear that clean-up of the Elmira aquifers and of the Canagagigue Creek would not occur through business as usual. Clearly, business as usual among Chemtura, CRA, and the MOE had failed both the environment and the citizens.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson was not yet finished on November 26th with comments about the failures of the past. He pointed out failures by Chemtura to have DNAPL samples analysed to determine their constituent components.162 Most of the 2010-2015 CPAC and I had argued with Chemtura and CRA over this. Mark Bauman and Susanna Meteer however had both sided; it now seems incorrectly, with CRA and Chemtura. Dr. Jackson criticized the failure by all the responsible parties for not having monitored the contaminants in suspended sediments in the Creek.163 This failure to examine the contaminants in suspended sediments was to be a common reference throughout Dr. Jackson’s tenure as TAG chair. Indeed, at one point he actually stated that CRA had been removing the suspended sediments from Creek water and then actually testing the wrong component, namely the water rather than the suspended sediments in the water column that contained the hydrophobic compounds such as dioxins/furans and DDT, which were attached to the sediments. Dr. Jackson made it abundantly clear to all present that Woolwich residents and its environment had been ill-served by those in charge of the clean-up to date.<br /><br />MOE Takes A Hit<br /><br />Dr. Jackson continued in his November 26th remarks about the issue of warning signs posted at the Creek. Signs are there in 2018 despite the best efforts of the Ontario Ministry of Expanded Corporate Pollution (MECP) not to support the plan. Terri Buhlman of the MOE, who was on the receiving end of Dr. Jackson’s criticisms, was adamant that signage was not needed in the Creek. Despite years of results of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) being found in the Creek sediments, soils, and fish tissues, Ms. Buhlman argued that warning signs not to eat the fish were unnecessary. She further claimed that the criteria exceedances of POPs in and around the Creek were merely generic criteria and that site specific criteria would be more relevant. Be that as it may, was she suggesting that she had the inside track on the future results of these site specific criteria and that therefore warning signs were unnecessary? Credit must go to Mayor Shantz and the Township because they actually paid for and installed signs at three crossroads along the Creek advising fishermen not to consume their catches.<br /><br />Difficult to believe that there could be any further intense criticism by Dr. Jackson, it seemed, but he was on a roll. In regards to the ISCO failures by Chemtura and CRA, Dr. Jackson used the term “bought off."164 Teri Buhlman jumped on Dr. Jackson’s suggestion that the MOE had been bought off easily by CRA’s report on the inability of ISCO to be used in Elmira. I really don’t think that Dr. Jackson was suggesting corruption but more likely simple incompetence. Some credit may also go to Pat McLean and Susan Bryant as they assured Ms. Buhlman that the MOE’s decade’s long involvement with contamination downstream in the Creek had been inadequate.<br /><br />Two more criticisms remained. Dr. Jackson felt that injection of treated groundwater into the Elmira aquifers could have sped up the clean-up. Of course, this suggestion had been strongly condemned and rejected by CRA decades previously. Turned out they were wrong according to Dr. Jackson, yet again. What really wound up Dr. Jackson was a recent discovery by CRA of a specific gravel unit at the bottom of the municipal aquifer in parts of Elmira. This unit was coarse, highly permeable gravel at the bottom of the aquifer and hence, it was called a basal unit. This basal unit was a preferential pathway both for groundwater as well as for contaminant migration. The suggestion may have been that CRA should have discovered this pathway decades earlier and then focus on it with the pumping wells.<br /><br />It is my opinion that Dr. Jackson in one incredible meeting condemned a couple of decades of effort and work done by Conestoga Rovers & Associates on and around the Uniroyal/Chemtura site. He took pains not to throw stones at CRA by name, but for anyone present with any knowledge of the history of remediation, it was obvious. One last gasp by Dr. Jackson was his request for a study to determine the implications of discharging much greater quantities of warmer, treated effluent into the Canagagigue Creek. This was I believe in the expectation that Chemtura’s enhanced treatment system would actually be treating and discharging significantly larger quantities of contaminated groundwater.165 As stated previously those larger pumping rates still haven’t happened by late in 2018. Dr. Jackson possibly did not know but this was another serious concern of the 2011 to August 2015 CPAC after the November 2012 turnaround by Chemtura. How could the Creek actually assimilate the greater quantities of contaminants discharged to them? CPAC and SWAT also were concerned about dewatering of the municipal aquifer and possible ground subsidence in Elmira. None of these issues have ever been discussed or resolved with either CPAC or the public.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson returned to offer additional comments at the January 14, 2016 public TAG meeting. He advised that the greatest lesson from the 2005 removal of known, contaminated creek bank areas on the south-west quadrant of the Chemtura site was that source removal works.166 The concentrations of dioxins/furans and DDT all significantly decreased over time in clams used in bio-monitoring testing along the Creek. He also indicated that the MOE’s plans to test young of the year (YOY) fish in the Creek likely were not worthwhile. He pointed out that YOY fish won’t have the extra fat required to store DDT and dioxins.167 Of course these probable lower concentrations likely would have been used by the partners in pollution as evidence to minimize the extent of environmental damage in the Creek.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson commented on the 2015 CRA “East Side Soil and Groundwater Report”. As expected, this report indicates that there is contamination on the neighbouring Stroh property. He also stated at this TAG meeting that one particular monitoring well was highly contaminated with various solvents including chlorinated ones as well as with components of Agent Orange. Whether from those specific results or others, Dr. Jackson also waded into the DNAPL debate. He unequivocally stated that there is long-term DNAPL on site.168 He further stated that he was not aware of any off-site DNAPL so at the end of the meeting I disabused him of that notion. I pointed out both the former Nutrite (Yara) site having multiple high concentrations of DNAPL chemicals as well as the OW 57-32 monitoring well discovery years earlier of probable DNAPLs one hundred feet below ground surface. Keep in mind that neither I, CPAC nor the public were permitted to either offer questions or make comments at TAG meetings courtesy of Sandy Shantz and Woolwich Council.<br /><br />Regarding the topic once again of the failure of the responsible parties to measure contaminants in suspended sediments versus in the Creek water on its own, Dr. Jackson stated “How it could go on for so long I don’t know.” He also stated “which interpretation is worse 1) the ignorance of the situation or 2) knowing and not acting on it."169 Oh my God! Finally, Dr. Jackson said that the clean-up needs a company that is truly independent of the MOE to peer review it. At later meetings, Dr. Jackson often advised that Hatfield Consultants were an excellent company to do work regarding dioxins as they had an appropriate world renowned reputation in the field.<br /><br />I think you, the readers, can begin to understand my joy and relief to hear an expert of the calibre of Dr. Jackson condemning decades of misinformation and failures here in Elmira. His position is along the lines of what members of the final CPAC (2011-2015), SWAT and I had been telling Woolwich Council to no avail after 2014. I had also been telling earlier CPAC members as well as earlier Woolwich Councils for decades that the client-driven consultants of Uniroyal and its successors were not remotely working in the public interest.<br /><br />Comments from Dr. Jackson at the TAG meeting of Thursday February 11, 2016 were more of the same as well as discussion regarding the East Side Surficial Soil & Groundwater Investigation report. Dr. Jackson expressed concern regarding the Ontario MOE West Central Region doing their jobs when he said at this meeting that “presumably exceedances on the eastern border will cause remediation to be ordered.” Based on the timing, I would expect that while Dr. Jackson was referring to exceedances across the border actually on the Stroh property, in fact at this time sampling had only been done on the Chemtura property up to the property line with the Stroh farm. Now in November 2018, shallow excavations have been promised this fall on the Stroh property near to the Chemtura property line. Of course, promises are wind and at the end of November 2018 there have been absolutely zero excavations. Of interest is that there have been no excavations planned on the still contaminated soils on the eastern side of the Chemtura property. This is the old MOE chestnut pretending that a contaminated site doesn’t have to be remediated. It’s okay in Ontario to crap on your own property but not on your neighbour’s. Even when caught red -handed with your on-site contamination having migrated off-site you still don’t need to clean up your own on-site mess. This is despicable and a clear indication of the hypocrisy and double standard of environmental legislation in this province. As I’ve indicated earlier, Dr. Gail Krantzberg believes that anything that ends up in the natural environment on your own property will eventually migrate to the neighbour’s property by various methods. Regarding the likely dioxin/furans to be found on the Stroh property, Dr. Jackson suggests that any found above the 36.6 parts per trillion (ppt) concentration and criteria for Chemtura’s own property should be removed from the Stroh property. A couple of TAG members, Joe Kelly and Linda Dickson, suggested that an even lower criteria such as the generic 13 ppt would be justified. While expressing agreement in principle, Dr. Jackson felt that it would be much more difficult for Chemtura to refuse if they used Chemtura’s own site specific dioxin criteria.<br /><br />Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach of Tag (and CPAC) observed that the 160 metre distance along the eastern border, known as the “Gap,” was not tested via groundwater, surficial soils, or sub-surface soils. Sebastian felt that the nearby Stroh Drain could pick up contaminants from both the west side of the border (Chemtura site) and the east side (Stroh farm) via groundwater. Dr. Jackson had also indicated that “The Stroh Drain may be pulling groundwater eastwards and directing it southwards."170 These comments are all in line with those made by Peter Gray of MTE Consulting in 2014 in his report to CPAC.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson in his own inimitable style also indirectly accused the MOE of being less than perfectly above board. He referenced situations in the United States where he had seen instances of the relationships between the polluter and the regulator that appeared to be far too cozy and close. These instances included the polluter required to pay money directly to the regulator. Avoiding a direct accusation nevertheless, Dr. Jackson made it clear that the regulator needed to maintain distance from the alleged polluter, and hence, maintain the credibility of the regulating body.<br /><br />Already it was clear that TAG members were trying to get up to speed and learn as much as they could about all these issues. These members were Joe Kelly, Linda Dickson, Bill Barr, David Hofbauer with of course Sebastian and then Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean. While the first three were new to most of these issues, the last three were not. Unlike the sneak assault at the Elmira Library on the new CPAC members in June 2011, CPAC members did not feel threatened by or hold any animosity to these new members appointed by Sandy Shantz. CPAC simply had far too much class to blame third parties for others bad behaviour. Once again there was no sign of either Chemtura or the MOE at this TAG meeting as clearly, to entice them back, Ms. Shantz had made their attendance discretionary.<br /><br />One final example of the intentional going around in circles that Sandy Shantz had orchestrated occurred when Richard Clausi in the gallery spoke up-- contrary to the rules-- and advised TAG and Dr. Jackson that an on-line international symbol was already in use as a fish advisory/warning sign. Mr. Clausi provided this information when TAG debated what kind of an icon or symbol they could use on signs along the Creek. CPAC member, Ron Campbell, had gone on-line with his cell phone and found it. There were many other instances of issues being debated at TAG that the CPAC members in the gallery if they had been allowed would happily have shared with TAG and saved them time. Mr. Clausi indicated how wasteful of expertise this stilted process was having CPAC members in the gallery, knowing the answers to questions that TAG members were asking, but being muzzled by the procedure refusing them the right to offer the answers.<br /><br />On Thursday April 14, 2016, TAG was back on the job. Dr. Jackson, once more, made it clear that DNAPLs existed on the Chemtura site.171 Was that so hard for you, Jeff Merriman and other gild-the-lily aficionados to have to admit to? Keep in mind this is twenty-two years after Rich Clausi, Esther Thur and myself all resigned from APT Environment because they refused to hold Uniroyal Chemical and the MOE accountable for their DNAPL coverup and flip flop. I believe that some polluters and friends must have an ever growing list of facts and truths that they simply must never admit. Like a playbook, if you will.<br /><br />At the April 14, 2016 TAG meeting, Sebastian, Susan Bryant and Dr. Jackson all expressed opposition to the Ontario MOE doing another site specific risk assessment (SSRA) in Elmira and area. David Hofbauer also had concerns based on the higher dioxin criteria previously determined on the Chemtura site of 36.6 ppt. Overwhelming evidence exists of areas of the Creek currently in excess of those criteria. Pat Mclean stated that a discussion with the MOE should occur now for them to justify their rationale for doing another SSRA. It became obvious that much of the work being done was behind the scenes without TAG’s or the public’s input. One way around public input included items like by invitation only Qualified Persons (QP) private meetings being held in various locations such as the Guelph office of the MOE. Public consultation has taken incredible hits over the last couple of years. Despite that Dr. Jackson did suggest that a risk assessment done by Hatfield Consultants would be much more likely to find support than one done by CRA now merged with GHD. In fact, Dr. Jackson went so far as to suggest that he would believe a report done by Hatfield Consultants regarding dioxin/furan risks and he implied not so much anything coming from the MOE.172 My word, but where were our local news media when these expert opinions were being expressed publicly?<br /><br />Interestingly Pat McLean advised that the MOE had been holding private meetings with downstream Canagagigue Creek residents without the courtesy or respect of advising either Woolwich Council or TAG members. On the one hand, I agree with her in that it is much too easy for the MOE to soften any verbal criticism from landowners and to outright prevaricate regarding feedback they have received from these residents. On the other hand, it is also difficult to feel sorry for Pat McLean, Susan Bryant, and Sandy. All three of them know what Chemtura and the MOE are made of and now they are whining that they aren’t being respectful or nice to you. Keep in mind this is after Sandy and Council gave Chemtura and the MOE everything they wanted with the new RAC and TAG.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson continued on April 14, 2016 with his straightforward and blunt tactics at this TAG meeting. He suggested that there would be “a confrontation with the MOE in the next few months regarding the downstream Canagagigue Creek."173 I expect that may have happened, albeit privately because I’ve seen no such thing at TAG or RAC meetings. I doubt very much that half of what is going on remediation-wise is reported back to either RAC or TAG by the MOE and Chemtura. Again, so much for honest public consultation.<br /><br />Of course, many different fronts were underway over the decades as citizens battled Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura. Much too late I began to understand exactly how tight all our politicians are and were with Uniroyal and their successors. The gloves certainly came off after the Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman “manufactured crisis “ that they sold to the rest of Council in early and mid-2015. That is, it was an easier sell for some councillors versus others. Then in August 2015 Woolwich Council really showed their character in attempting to intimidate and browbeat me from presenting a delegation to them simply because I was currently involved in bringing some MEA accountability to Mayor Shantz. In the next chapter, I illustrate how emboldened councillors got their butts publicly handed to them by an outraged citizenry and news media when councillors went too far a second time. Graham Chevreau of CPAC, Vivienne Delaney too and other CPAC and SWAT members stayed involved both in Chemtura issues but also in the Municipal Election Act hearings and later court dates. When appropriate, I sent Dr. Jackson various relevant environmental photos and documents although I usually ignored the TAG protocol for so doing. It was bad enough that the public and I couldn’t ask questions or deliver delegations, but having a specific protocol whereby everything going to Dr. Jackson had to be filtered through the RAC/TAG support person was a little too much. Dr. Holt and I continued with public outreach via presentations and speaking engagements at schools in Kitchener and Waterloo which were interested in water issues. Sebastian, of course, continued on with his presence at TAG and usually asked the sharpest most pertinent questions on the few occasions when Chemtura or the MOE would show up at TAG. Truth be told, I think Terri Buhlman had been offered a smooth ride without myself and the rest of the CPAC and SWAT group allowed to speak. Dr. Jackson certainly spoiled that for her although if she’d simply been more direct and honest she wouldn’t have gotten crowned so often by him.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 20<br /><br />158 Scott Barber, “Bringing an experienced eye to Elmira’s water woes”, Woolwich Observer,<br />September 5, 2015<br /><br />159 Alan Marshall, “Dick Jackson Dismantles Chemtura Cleanup”, www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com,November 27, 2015<br /><br />160 Ibid.<br /><br />161 Ibid.<br /><br />162 Ibid.<br /><br />163 Ibid.<br /><br />164 Ibid.<br /><br />165 Ibid.<br /><br />166 Alan Marshall, “Wednesday Evening’s TAG Meeting”, www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com ,<br />January 15, 2016<br /><br />167 Ibid.<br /><br />168 Ibid.<br /><br />169 Ibid.<br /><br />170 Alan Marshall, “Last Night’s TAG Meeting Was Illuminating”, www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com ,<br />February 12, 2016<br /><br />171 Alan Marshall, “Council & TAG Hypocrites Crying Foul-M.O.E. Repeatedly Portrayed As Liars”,www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com , April 15, 2016<br /><br />172 Ibid.<br /><br />173 Ibid.<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-27634775461184849362023-12-19T09:29:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:29:01.219-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_8.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3111128652630978667" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Twenty-One:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />169.....Woolwich Council are Publicly Humiliated Again<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 21<br /><br />Woolwich Council are Publicly Humiliated Again<br /><br />There are times when I actually feel sorry for those misfits on Woolwich Council. One of the cartoons (from Chapter Nineteen) published on June 20, 2015 in the Woolwich Observer was so on the money. It shows several Woolwich councillors and a Municipal Clerk in a saloon, shooting themselves in the foot. “Dang”, “That’s gonna leave a mark.” Priceless. A word of advice to activists taking on the power structure. Really enjoy moments like the one in the cartoon. They will get you through the difficult times.<br /><br />As mentioned at the end of Chapter Twenty, Woolwich Council once again made some boneheaded moves. Yes, most councillors actually think that they are competent to govern this Township. I beg to differ. On March 22, 2016, Dr. Dan Holt presented himself at Woolwich Council to speak about some Chemtura Canada issues affecting the public interest. He had registered days in advance of the council meeting, including providing the topic of his delegation to council. CPAC members and I were present to give Dr. Holt support. Councillors waited until Dr. Holt had stood, taken his papers with him and was in front of the lectern before the Chair interrupted him. Various news media responses pinpoint Woolwich Council’s attempt to prevent the former CPAC chair from addressing Woolwich Council in regards to a Chemtura and Canagagigue Creek matter.<br /><br />The Woolwich Observer published its editorial comment two days later. Entitled, “Councilllors fail democracy with embarrassing act” and opened with these two paragraphs: “Things went from awkward to really embarrassing in Woolwich Council chambers Tuesday night as councillors first refused to hear from a registered delegate, then couldn’t really explain their decision before finally relenting and letting the speaker go ahead.<br /><br />While some of the councillors fished around for explanations involving technical issues and subcommittees, it would be hard for Dan Holt and assembled members of the Citizens Public Advisory Committee to see the goings on as anything more than a hastily–arranged , and obviously not thought-through attempt to prevent him from speaking."174<br /><br />The Observer then discussed the history of the current CPAC (known since late 2015 as the Citizens Public Advisory Committee) with the former Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC). The Observer also suggested that the purpose of the two new environmental committees (RAC and TAG) was “…aimed at bringing disgruntled Chemtura and Ministry of the Environment representatives back into the fold."175<br /><br />The Observer then made comments in the March 24th article regarding me: “ As a not unintended by-product, the changes also sidelined vocal critic Alan Marshall, a member of CPAC in its current form and one of those in the gallery Tuesday night."176<br /><br />The editorial also reported some events regarding Dr. Holt, myself, and Richard Clausi’s attempts to bring accountability to three Woolwich councillors in regards to the Municipal Elections Act. The Observer’s editorial reported, “While councillors may have been able to separate all of those issues when coming up with a reason to prevent Holt from speaking, the poor handling of the situation certainly raised suspicions to the contrary.<br /><br />Perhaps not an outright attempt at censorship - a word bandied about in the audience - but clearly a bid to avoid dealing with certain people and topics. It was not a proud moment for Woolwich officialdom."177<br /><br />The editorial continued with a discussion of a “Shantz-led motion” asking staff to develop a policy for directing would-be delegates to the township’s various committees as appropriate rather than hearing the issues directly. The editorial ended with “Better still, councillors who supported the ill-considered move should quietly let the matter drop, hoping that no one ever mentions the cringe-worthy spectacle from Tuesday night ever again."178<br /><br />It was not to be. Not by a long shot. I am hoping that readers can understand how the entire Uniroyal/Chemtura remediation failures over the previous twenty-seven years, as described by Dr. Jackson, are so closely tied to local politics. It was outrageous enough that Elmira and Woolwich citizens were thrown to the wolves by the province (MOE) but it was made that much worse by having multiple municipal councils so sympathetic to the polluter while promoting what they knew and intended as lip service public consultation. One last point needs to be made clear. While Woolwich Councillors attempted to put a brave face on their censorship attempt by passing a mayor-led, asinine motion, the petty character of councillors shone through as Dr. Holt gave his delegation to council. His delegation was actually a sincere thank you to council and the mayor for their earlier but recent decision to go it alone and erect warning signs in three locations along the Canagagigue Creek advising anglers not to eat their catches. This action stood in stark contrast to Terri Buhlman and the MOE’s refusal to take this action and Dr. Holt felt it appropriate, despite past conflict with these councillors, to give credit where credit was due. Unfortunately, by attempting to censor Dr. Holt, councillors made him and his words look very impressive and they and their actions look incredibly petty, vindictive, and frankly stupid.<br /><br />On March 29, 2016, the Waterloo Region Record entered the reporting fray. Paige Desmond, Record reporter, wrote an article titled, “Woolwich moves to curb speakers."179 Desmond’s article also included a photograph of Dr. Holt standing beside the Canagagigue Creek and the sub-title below the photograph was “Township councillor says past conflicts played into decision, but mayor says motion is about efficiency."180 Good one there, Sandy Shantz. Nobody bought into that crap.<br /><br />In this Record article, Councillor Patrick Merlihan suggested that emotion and past conflicts were involved in council’s behaviour and is quoted as saying “I’m not going to say that yes there’s a link, but I am going to say it is extremely difficult to not make that connection because the optics is just terrible and I was really disappointed in my council Tuesday night."181 Wow.<br /><br />Ms. Desmond also went through the history between CPAC and council in regards to Chemtura Canada, RAC, and TAG as well as in regards to half of council’s run-in with the Municipal Elections Act. While Councillor Mark Bauman did not reference these items in the article he did say there was a power struggle between council and some members of the public. I would suggest that Mr. Bauman’s choice of expression “power struggle” was not an accurate one. Frankly, I think it makes him look bad because what remote sort of power struggle is possible among the duly elected councillors and citizens anyway? What might have played a little better with the public is if he had suggested that councillors were learning the hard way that what comes around goes around. I’m sure that some citizens had long figured out that council’s treatment of duly appointed citizen volunteers to a committee of council should not subject those citizens to the incoming council’s anger, hostility, and vindictiveness. Mayor Shantz then stuck her foot in her mouth yet again with her description of council’s motion: ”We’re not saying don’t come to council, it’s saying, let’s not use council as a soapbox."182 That last comment about a soapbox came back to appropriately bite Sandy.<br /><br />Before that happened back at Woolwich Council chambers, Luisa D’Amato of the Record got into the act. On March 30, 2016, she wrote an opinion piece titled, “Woolwich council should be listening to its citizens, not censoring them."183 Well done Ms. D’Amato. She stated right at the start that the proposed Woolwich motion would stop citizens from coming before council on certain matters. She then clarified that by saying “No, let me be clear: It censors Woolwich Township residents from speaking to council."184 Ms. D’Amato repeated the gist of Dr. Holt’s delegation to council thanking them for the signs they put up and as well as urging them to warn residents not to swim, wade, or play in the creek. Ms. D’Amato also pointed out the possibly embarrassing fact that Mayor Shantz actually was a co-chair for one of the two environmental committees that she produced after dismantling CPAC. It would appear that Ms. Shantz is simply drumming up business for her pet committee.<br /><br />On the other hand, there may be a more nefarious reason for making citizens jump through hoops and loops before getting a chance to present at Woolwich Council. Ms. Shantz and Mr. Bauman had manufactured a CPAC crisis likely in conjunction with Chemtura Canada and the MOE. Then, Sandy handpicked the TAG committee members as well as those for the RAC committee although the latter consisted mostly of government bureaucrats. If it seems likely that most of Woolwich Councillors were kept intentionally in the dark by Ms. Shantz and Mr. Bauman, then these two committees could certainly serve as insulation between two groups: knowledgeable citizens and councillors. What a great way to prevent informed citizens, such as CPAC members, from also bringing the rest of council up to speed. The last thing Sandy Shantz wanted was for CPAC members to publicly spill the latest Dr. Jackson revelations about Chemtura Canada and the MOE to the rest of council.<br /><br />Luisa quoted comments made by the lone dissenting Councillor Patrick Merlihan. He described his colleagues’ behaviour as “an embarrassment."185 He also stated that “It’s not good for the township. We need as many perspectives as we can get."186 Finally, Luisa D’Amato suggested “… that listening to citizens, especially on the compelling subject of polluted waterways, is absolutely the business of an elected council. If that isn’t its business, what is?"187<br /><br />Both on April 5 and 6, 2016, the Waterloo Region Record weighed in again. The April 5 Record published an editorial titled, “Council shouldn’t gag the public” and on April 6, an article was published written by Anam Latiff entitled “Woolwich council won’t block speakers.” The April 5 editorial asks, “So what’s it going to be in Woolwich Township after tonight, when council debates a foolish, unnecessary motion?"188 This statement was followed by “The reason for this new rule seems petty, and entirely to benefit the politicians. The proposal came forward after local resident and environmental activist Dan Holt asked council to react more strongly to chemical concentrations that “far exceed any acceptable threshold for human exposure” at a “hot spot” on Canagagigue Creek."189<br /><br />The Record’s editorial continued, “While the politicians who already voted for the new curbs on public speakers didn’t say so, it looks like they’re trying to stifle a handful of the most outspoken environmental activists."190 This, of course, is one hundred percent accurate as the council actions were taken against Dr. Holt, CPAC Chair and me the author, a current CPAC member as well as a past UPAC, CPAC, and SWAT member. Furthermore, the Record even stepped in with comments about council’s favourite red herring: delegates’ behaviour. The Record stated, “If politicians don’t want to listen to citizens who get worked up about a public issue, who get excited, maybe even lose their tempers - tough. Being willing to listen to the people is part of the municipal politician’s job description."191<br /><br />The last paragraph of this editorial states: ”For politicians to say citizens have to jump through hoops like trained poodles before addressing council is insulting, undemocratic and plain wrong. Let’s hope council comes to its senses tonight, digs a deep hole and buries this ugly, dangerous motion."192<br /><br />The April 6, 2016 Record article was written after Woolwich Council backed down while also attempting to save face. Council pretended that oh, they’d been misunderstood. They weren’t really trying to censor or stifle delegates from appearing before them. It was all a big mistake. They had independently decided on their own with no pressure from or response based upon the stories and editorials in the Record, the Observer, or local CTV television to amend their motion to merely a suggestion that citizens present to committees of council first, rather than directly to council.<br /><br />Both Sandy Shantz and Councillor Mark Bauman attempted to rewrite history as they suggested at the Tuesday April 5, 2016 council meeting that their intent had simply been misunderstood. Far from either banning citizens from speaking to council or making them jump through unnecessary hoops and loops, they were simply trying to make council “efficient.” I was one of a few Woolwich citizens who spoke to council that night. I asked, “Since when does efficiency trump democracy?"193 I followed that with “No council should ever ban delegates from speaking on important concerns."194 The Record article also stated “Marshall argued the subcommittees meet too infrequently, four times a year to be able to address issues in a timely manner. He called council’s attempts to silence him and Holt “ill-advised."195<br /><br />Woolwich resident and very brief CPAC member, Lynne Hare, addressed Woolwich Council telling them that they should listen to the people who voted them into office. She then took a nifty shot at Mayor Shantz when she replied to the mayor’s earlier metaphor: “Yes, this is a soapbox, and the right to use it is protected."196<br /><br />Councillor Patrick Merlihan was the only councillor who voted against the revised and much less offensive motion just as he had voted against the original, far worse motion two weeks earlier. He stated, “When I look at our jobs as politicians, having a motion like this is not going to help us."197 The revised motion simply added that staff could suggest that delegates speak to council committees first but if the delegates wished to speak to council first then that would be accepted. Frankly, to the time of publication of this book I have never been asked by staff to go through a committee first such as RAC or TAG. Staff knows better.<br /><br />The Woolwich Observer was next to take a round out of a richly deserving Woolwich Council. Its article was published on April 7, 2016 and titled, “Woolwich backs away, but not all the way down, from divisive delegate policy.” Steve Kannon of the Observer jumped right into the Woolwich Township inspired mess by stating that Woolwich Council was backpedalling and that in the process they offered “ a revised version of recent history."198 That sounds to me as if Mr. Kannon is suggesting that Woolwich Councillors are fibbers. Mr. Kannon in his April 7 article also draws attention to councillors’ behaviour from two weeks before when they responded to Dr. Dan Holt’s request for an explanation. Mr. Kannon observes their response was “… with embarrassed silence, mumbled explanations and clutched straws."199 He continues that Mayor Shantz “attempted to deflect criticism with a pre-emptive statement that took a revisionist slant on what happened in council chambers two weeks prior."200 Councillor Bauman introduced his amended motion, which essentially was for staff not to screen would-be delegates but simply advise them of options.<br /><br />Dr. Holt spoke to Woolwich Councillors and made it clear that their actions and behaviours from two weeks previously had been roundly condemned and in fact council had attempted to prevent him from speaking before backing down. I spoke to council and criticized Sandy Shantz’s attempt to rework what happened the last time around. I also blasted councillors for their attempted censorship. Resident Lynne Hare stressed that she believed it was council’s role to listen to the people of the township rather than “closing doors and censoring citizens."201 Councillor Merlihan condemned both motions as a solution to a problem that didn’t exist and a poor solution at that. Lastly, even Councillor Martin got into the act. The Observer unlike the Record felt that Councillor Martin also voted against the motion but for an entirely different reason to Councillor Merlihan’s. Councillor Martin felt that the motion didn’t go far enough and “doesn’t have any teeth."202 Councillor Martin also made rude references to “those kinds of people."203 apparently referencing local and committed environmentalists and democracy advocates—of which I am clearly one.<br /><br />The hits just kept on coming for Woolwich Council and their anti-democratic attempts. The next one was a cartoon by Arnold published in this same edition of the Observer as Steve Kannon’s article of April 7, 2016. It shows Woolwich Councillors around a table with Mayor Shantz petting a skunk that’s on the table with “Censorship Policy” written on it. In the next frame, the skunk has let loose with a cloud that seeps through the entire council chambers. One of the councillors jumps up and says, “I’ll open a window!” Presumably, it is Councillor Merlihan who says “Like we couldn’t see that one coming …” In my opinion, this cartoon is worth more than a thousand words.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2f3jVFHFLe4/XZyMnvHLTDI/AAAAAAAAAMU/QFzjZGjOQ2QTiV40jwtlD4DRYZNMJAyggCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/skunkingwoolwich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2f3jVFHFLe4/XZyMnvHLTDI/AAAAAAAAAMU/QFzjZGjOQ2QTiV40jwtlD4DRYZNMJAyggCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/skunkingwoolwich.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br />On April 14, 2016, a Letter ToThe Editor of the Woolwich Observer from Dr. Dan Holt was published. The title that the Observer put on Dr. Holt’s letter was “Standing up for the environment shouldn’t invite council’s disdain.” I refer to Dr. Holt’s letter as a combination of kudos and brickbats. Dr. Holt praises Councillor Patrick Merlihan, Observer Editor Steve Kannon, both Paige Desmond and Luisa D’Amato of the Record, and Eric Drozd of 570 Talk Radio. He advises that all these news media people and one councillor stood up for free speech and democracy. Dr. Holt also praises “those people” who have been fighting for the environment while urging Chemtura, the Ministry of Environment, and Woolwich Council to do the same. This praise includes “those people“ who are current and recent past CPAC members. Dr. Holt, however, uses an unfortunate term that Councillor Murray Martin used to disparage current CPAC members. In fact, Dr. Holt specifically addresses Councillor Martin’s unenlightened and indeed reactionary attitudes thusly: “And lastly, I’d like to thank Coun. Murray Martin for lumping me in with that type of people council is dealing with. ” I’m proud to stand with “those” citizens who see an injustice or problems and are willing to put their time, fortune, and effort into making it better for all."204<br /><br />I am preceding these next words with an apology. I asked permission to write about correspondence that was sent to the six members of Woolwich Council by an individual citizen expressing disappointment in council’s behaviour regarding their handling and mishandling of the censorship policy. This individual’s words were direct, blunt, respectful yet, in my opinion, devastating. This citizen may well be but one of many. Obviously “private” correspondence on public matters sent to elected council’s rarely become available for public knowledge. I asked for permission to use the correspondence in its entirety as well as the name of the author. The answer was if council has made the letter public via its minutes, for example, of a council meeting, then permission was granted. Otherwise not. Well that’s a quandary. I’m doubtful that council would do any such thing with a signed letter sent to them privately even though it is in regards to a public matter. The next difficulty is if council did include it in a public document, which document, which date and would council release it anyway if requested. Therefore my apologies but I’m going to use some of the contents of that letter in this book albeit without identifying the author or presenting the letter in its entirety.<br /><br />A private citizen in a letter to Woolwich Councillors expressed surprise at Mayor Shantz’s behaviour at the April 5, 2016 council meeting in speaking prior to two registered delegations to council. This letter was in regards to her apparently trying to pre-empt if not pre-judge the two upcoming delegations. Her assumptions and claims were ridiculous, rude, and inaccurate. The author of this letter went on to suggest that council had violated their own procedural by-laws. The letter ends with a plea for mutual respect but that for councillors to so receive they must behave in accordance with their own rules.<br /><br />If prior to publication of my book I were to discover that this letter had somehow been made public by council, then I would reproduce it in its entirety along with the author’s name.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 21<br /><br />174 Editorial, Councillors fail democracy with embarrassing act”, Woolwich Observer, March 24, 2016, p.6.<br /><br />175 Ibid.<br /><br />176 Ibid.<br /><br />177 Ibid.<br /><br />178 Ibid.<br /><br />179 Paige Desmond, “Woolwich moves to curb speakers”, Waterloo Region Record, March 29, 2016,p.A1.<br /><br />180 Ibid.<br /><br />181 Ibid.<br /><br />182 Ibid. p.A2.<br /><br />183 Luisa D’Amato, “Woolwich council should be listening to its citizens, not censoring them”,<br />Waterloo Region Record, March 30, 2016<br /><br />184 Ibid.<br /><br />185 Ibid.<br /><br />186 Ibid.<br /><br />187 Ibid.<br /><br />188 Editorial, “Council shouldn’t gag the public”, Waterloo Region Record, April 5, 2016<br /><br />189 Ibid.<br /><br />190 Ibid.<br /><br />191 Ibid.<br /><br />192 Ibid.<br /><br />193 Anam Latiff, "Woolwich council won't block speakers", Waterloo Region Record, April 6, 2016<br /><br />194 Ibid.<br /><br />195 Ibid.<br /><br />196 Ibid.<br /><br />197 Ibid.<br /><br />198 Steve Kannon, “Woolwich backs away, but not all the way down, from divisive delegate policy”,<br />Woolwich Observer, April 7, 2016, p.8.<br /><br />199 Ibid.p.9.<br /><br />200 Ibid.p.9.<br /><br />201 Ibid.p.9.<br /><br />202 Ibid.p.9.<br /><br />203 Ibid.p.9.<br /><br />204 Letter To The Editor, “Standing up for the environment shouldn’t invite council’s disdain”, Woolwich Observer, April 14, 2016</div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-38407657968852748852023-12-19T09:14:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:14:29.924-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_9.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8405893035209772778" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Twenty-Two:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />174.....Strange Disturbances<br /><br />174.....The Ghost of Severin Argenton Stirs<br /><br />176.....Councillors Election Woes Continue<br /><br />176.....Good news and Bad News<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 22<br /><br />Strange Disturbances<br /><br />The Waterloo Region Record published a story on May 2, 2016 titled “Town pushes Feds on creekwater."205 This article, of course, was due to the efforts of Dr. Richard Jackson and the TAG committee. Dr. Jackson had been chair of TAG since September 2015. He had attended at most three quarterly RAC meetings and several more TAG meetings which gave him the opportunity to take the measure of the other parties present at the table. I believe this may have been why he was trying to get the Federal government involved in the cleanup of the Canagagigue Creek. Another reason may have been the earlier informal meeting involving Dr. Jackson, Dr. Henry Regier, myself, and one other. Remember that Dr. Regier in 2004 of course had applied to the Auditor General of Canada asking the federal government to step in to assist in the cleanup of the Uniroyal site.<br /><br />Dr. Jackson had spoken with the Kitchener-Conestoga riding MP Harold Albrecht about approaching the current federal government on the matter. Mr. Albrecht is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. I believe that Sandy Shantz on behalf of Woolwich Township may also have been involved in that exercise. Nevertheless as expected it went absolutely nowhere. Dr. Jackson especially wanted greater efforts to test suspended sediments for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as DDT and dioxins/furans. He also strongly advocated for Hatfield Consultants to be involved in any and all work in Elmira dealing with dioxins. Hatfield Consultants have extensive expertise which includes major work in Vietnam cleaning up dioxin contamination. Two days later the Record’s own editorial titled, “Toxic Time Bomb Must Be Defused “ was published calling on both the Ontario and federal governments to step up and fulfill their responsibilities.206 The editorial also suggested that Environment Canada, as the lead federal agency with environmental responsibilities, should assume its proper and rightful place in both investigating and remediating the Canagagigue Creek. What was undisputed was that the dioxins/furans in the Creek were the direct result of Uniroyal Chemical producing Agent Orange for the U.S. military during the American War on Vietnam. DDT production had also been part of the war effort for multiple countries during the Second World War as troop casualties decreased after DDT spraying in the Pacific theatre greatly reduced malaria infections.<br /><br />The Ghost of Severin Argenton Stirs<br /><br />The former Varnicolor Chemical site at 62 Union Street in Elmira (between First and Howard Avenue and running along Union Street) was up for discussion at a public meeting held May 19, 2016 in Woolwich Council Chambers. The discussion was part of a risk assessment insisted upon by the MOE West Central Region as part of Elmira Pump’s attempt to obtain a Record of Site Condition (RSC) from the MOE. Elmira Pump and its owners Jim Germann and Joey Kuntz had purchased the 62 Union Street property from Phillip Environmental Inc. in 2001. Mr. Germann had extensive experience operating a water treatment facilitiy from his prior employment at Kuntz Electroplating Inc. in Kitchener. Elmira citizens were advised that the shallow groundwater on this Elmira property would require approximately ten years of pumping and treating in order to successfully remediate the sub-surface contamination. Seems to me the Ontario MOE misled the public and I expect probably misled Elmira Pump as well. Now, in late 2018, the site still is not remediated. However, in hindsight that is not really a surprise.<br /><br />The MOE had initially insisted on a full areal and vertical delineation of the contaminants on the Varnicolor property which was included in the control order that it laid on Severin Argenton, the owner of the then Varnicolor Chemical. To sweeten the pot to get Phillips Environmental to buy the property, MOE officials removed the requirement that deeper soils be investigated. Phillips management were not fools and knew just from the free phase LNAPLs and DNAPLs in the surficial aquifer that most likely the volumes of spilled or dumped solvents had migrated both laterally and vertically. Free phase non aqueous phase liquids exist only in the sub-surface when their volumes are such that the groundwater is not able to readily and immediately dissolve the solvents. Once the release of chemicals has stopped it can take years or even decades for the migrating groundwater to fully dissolve the LNAPLSs or DNAPLs.<br /><br />The Waterloo Region Record published an article written by reporter Paige Desmond (May 21, 2016) titled, “Chemical site still concerns Woolwich.” This report concerned the May 19th public meeting held in Council Chambers. Jim Germann readily admitted that while the shallow soil and groundwater was now in acceptable condition the same was less true the deeper they dug on the site. I would suggest that neither the surface excavations in 1995 nor the pump and treat system at that time had any immediate impact on the deeper contamination. The deeper contamination both in the aquitard and the municipal upper aquifer would over the decades have received a small amount of flushing from precipitation that went vertically downward on the site. The bulk of the precipitation, however, would have travelled laterally (horizontally) both under natural gradients as well as by the effect of the surficial pump and treat system.<br /><br />I am mentioned in this May 21, 2016 Record article because I had worked at Varnicolor Chemical in the late 1980s briefly as a still operator but mostly as a fork lift operator and labourer.207 I had blown the whistle on them as polluters described back in Chapter Two. Varnicolor Chemical was the first contaminated site that I had examined, reviewing hydrogeological reports and other technical studies that investigated the sub-surface contamination as well as propose remediation. Since that time, I have physically worked on one other contaminated site namely the former Strauss Fuels which is at the north end of Elmira and beside the Canagagigue Creek. I worked for Quantum Environmental who had been contracted to clean up the site and my duties there while variable did include regular operation and maintenance of the on-site groundwater treatment system. By 2018 I have studied likely dozens of reports regarding other contaminated sites located mostly but not completely in southern Ontario.<br /><br />Mayor Shantz got a little excited at this public meeting and in fact her behaviour was quite odd. She literally didn’t have a clue what she was talking about but it was entertaining because of that. Entertaining that is, for a few citizens in the know but I imagine Mr. Germann and Mr. Kuntz wondered what the hell the mayor was doing. She mumbled on about macro versus micro views of contamination and a lack of a direct pathway to people and then she reversed herself suggesting that this lack of a pathway means that “They may not be leaching out into an area that is of concern today but at some point they have to go somewhere and where is that."208 While I don’t think that her concerns are invalid I do know that if I or CPAC members had ever attempted to critique Chemtura in that same uninformed, wishy-washy, subjective way Chemtura would have laughed themselves silly. There is another concern. Elmira Pump representatives had given Dr. Dan Holt, my daughter and me, and a couple of other CPAC members a heads up on this risk assessment including a private viewing of the technical data a week or so before the public meeting. This effort was a little over a month after Woolwich Council had taken a shellacking from the news media in regards to their attempted censorship policy towards Dr. Holt and me (as described in the previous chapter). Could Mayor Shantz, seeing the relaxed atmosphere between myself and Elmira Pump representatives, have decided to get a little payback? Could her uninformed criticism of the risk assessment results been simply pettiness once again raising its head? In other words, if I’m generally okay with an environmental plan does she then feel the need to oppose it on general principles? I hope that this is not so because it’s not fair to the third party involved.<br /><br />Jim Germann also made a very telling comment, suggesting that the surficial aquifer contamination at the former Varnicolor Chemical site was so bad that it didn’t need to be measured in the standard units of parts per billion or parts per trillion but actually could be measured in ounces per gallon. That is incredible contamination in the natural environment and describes the situation in which free phase solvents are floating on the surface of the water table (i.e., LNAPLs). I am repeating this story from Chapter Two because I believe that it is that important. Contamination of that magnitude obviously requires vertical delineation in the sub-surface and the MOE did its best to see that that did not happen but also to falsely advise APT and the public that it was not necessary. That action was a cover-up, plain and simple.<br /><br />At this May 19, 2016 meeting attendees also learned that there were a half dozen solvents from Varnicolor operations deep in the sub-surface whose concentrations exceeded Ontario drinking water standards. These chemicals were the ones Mr. Germann admitted to, albeit he did not know what should be done about them if anything. It was the reporting done by the Woolwich Observer on May 26, 2016 by Liz Bevan that mentioned the half dozen solvents deep in the sub-surface.209 What neither article mention is the pathetic testing done for NDMA in the deep sub-surface of this 62 Union Street site. As of 2016, only one sampling had been done for NDMA immediately above the upper municipal aquifer. To be more specific, only one deep well on the entire site has been sampled just above the Municipal Upper Aquifer, and only tested once. Both these newspaper accounts also clearly indicated that a final risk assessment would be publicly released and that Elmira Pump’s efforts to obtain a RSC would then come to fruition. Again nearly three years later there is no imminent completion or release date for the approved risk assessment or the Record of Site Condition.<br /><br />The six toxic chemicals found just above the municipal upper aquifer on the Varnicolor site are trichloroethylene (TCE), vinyl chloride, dichloroethylene (DCE), trichloroethane (TCA), dichloroethane (DCA), and toluene. All of these chemicals are originally from the Varnicolor Chemical surface soils and surficial groundwater and I was shown the text of the risk assessment by two different staff of Peritus Environmental, consultants to Elmira Pump. For them to be found more than twenty years later after the sources were removed including shallow soil excavations and decades of shallow pump and treat is amazing. Additionally the site is not paved nor covered, which means that any sub-surface contaminants have had the benefit of both rainfall and snow dilution as well as natural attenuation. Finally, of course citizens do not yet have the Elmira Pump risk assessment report to be studied carefully and properly courtesy of the Ontario MOE. If there were only two deep boreholes and monitoring wells installed over the whole site, then I have reason to believe, the complete picture is still missing. It is virtually impossible for two boreholes approximately a maximum of six inches in diameter to be indicative of the sub-surface contamination of an entire industrial site. Regardless the existence and location of these six chemicals decades later at greater than Ontario drinking water standards is the smoking gun indicating that Varnicolor Chemical contributed toxic contamination to the Elmira drinking water aquifers. This fact is exactly what the MOE have always tried to avoid making public. Oddly, the MOE seem to deeply resent my and Richard Clausi’s efforts especially with regards to this site. APT personnel not so much despite Mr. Clausi, Ted Oldfield and myself being members of APT at the time.<br /><br />Councillors Election Woes Continue<br />During 2016 and until January 2017 I was simultaneously pursuing transparency and accountability of half of Woolwich Councillors through the courts. MECAC, of course, had proven their lack of worth both in regards to Councillor Scott Hahn as well as Mayor Shantz, as previously described. Therefore, starting in the fall of 2015, I went to Superior Court in Kitchener as per directions provided by the Municipal Elections Act (MEA). The courts certainly were not user-friendly and, in fact, the process for citizens to access them is nothing less than shameful. I found the staff was unhelpful in the extreme, the rules and times available were ridiculous (Fridays only), and the Justices of the Peace seemed to have zero experience dealing with citizens attempting to access their rights under the MEA. The-out-of-town Crown Prosecutor Fraser Kelly was beyond contemptible in my opinion. He was rude and disrespectful in court and in a private meeting where he had asked to personally interview me. This meeting was held at the Waterloo Regional Police headquarters on Maple Grove Road. Mr. Kelly also seemed to feel the need to have a plain clothes police officer present during the interview which he had not told me about ahead of time. Mr. Kelly worked much harder at trying to incriminate me due to a private recording made at a public MECAC meeting held in council chambers than he did trying to follow or understand incriminating evidence against Mayor Shantz under the MEA.<br /><br />Michael Carnegie, the second Crown Prosecutor I worked with, was much better. This meeting was in relation to charges laid against Councillor Scott Hahn. When I say much better I admit that superficially better might be more accurate. Mr. Carnegie was generally respectful, polite, and professional. He, unlike Mr. Kelly, was complimentary towards me at the final court appearance in late January 2017. Mr. Carnegie suggested that it was good for democracy and the MEA to have citizens step up and exercise their civic rights and responsibilities under that legislation. Alternatively, Mr. Kelly simply criticized, insulted, and blamed me for Sandy Shantz’s inability or unwillingness to follow the law.<br /><br />Both prosecutors unfortunately came to the same conclusion, Mr. Kelly with vinegar and Mr. Carnegie with sugar. Both of them were wrong. Both stated that it was not in the public’s interest to pursue charges against elected Woolwich politicians who had major failures, discrepancies, and inaccuracies in their legally mandated Electoral Financial Statements. Mr. Hahn’s case was both blatantly inaccurate and there was later evidence that some stick handling of facts and/ or family collusion may have occurred as he attempted to “fix” and explain his errors. Unlike Councillor Hahn, Ms. Shantz had submitted Electoral Financial Statements before, both as a Woolwich councillor and as a Woolwich school board trustee. Hence, I found her numerous consistently self-serving errors to be very suspicious. This behaviour also included her failure to fully abide by the conditions that Justice David Broad mandated in July 2015 in order for her to be reinstated to the position of mayor of Woolwich Township. There was also the not small matter of Ms. Shantz misinforming Justice Broad in her affidavit when she claimed to have provided the Municipal Elections Compliance Audit Committee (MECAC) with new Electoral Financial Statements and a personal audit three days before a public MECAC meeting. She handed out these thirty pages of documents both to MECAC and myself, the complainant, ten minutes prior to the start of the meeting.<br /><br />Good News and Bad News<br />The year 2016 was filled with both highs and lows. The well-deserved public beat down laid upon Mayor Shantz and her band of not so merry councillors regarding the censorship issue was classic. The discovery of decade’s overdue and non-transparent, deep monitoring results on the former Varnicolor Chemical property was enlightening. In July 2016, Jeff Merriman on behalf of Chemtura Canada made the public brag that the long promised expanded off-site pump and treat system should be up and running by the fall. Alas, it was not to be. Yes, a couple more pumping wells were brought on line but their pumping rates started out pathetically and slowly escalated to less than a joke. The November 2012 promises by Mr. Merriman and Chemtura Canada regarding a tripling of the off-site pumping rates haven’t come close to reality. Later, downgraded brags of doubling the off-site pumping rates never came close either. What were they thinking?<br /><br />More bad news appeared. Dr. Jackson had continued his assault upon puffery and hot air throughout 2016. In July 2016, Dr. Jackson was quoted in the Waterloo Region Record advising that rather than thirty years being required to clean up the Elmira aquifers to drinking water standards, that it would more likely take fifty years.210 He also suggested that the initial estimate of thirty years likely wasn’t a serious, researched estimate. It was simply Uniroyal and Conestoga Rovers & Associates assuring the public that for many of them they would never live to see the ultimate cleanup.<br /><br />Days later in July 2016, I discovered a bullet hole in one of our upstairs bedroom windows. Well, thank you very much Scott Hahn, I recall thinking. I did contact the Waterloo Regional Police and I will say that the officer took heroic measures attempting to find the projectile whether a lead bullet, a ball bearing, or even a high-powered pellet gun projectile. The projectile penetrated the outside layer of glass but not the inside layer. I expect that it was fired from ground level upwards towards the upstairs bedroom window where despite breaking the outer pane it then ricocheted. The police officer could see the broken glass sitting between the two panes but the projectile was not there. The timing of this shooting was interesting in that, as I recall, it was only a day or two after a scheduled court appearance for myself and Mr. Hahn. As much as I initially felt that he had done the deed, it could not be proven. I had not informed the news media about this incident although a few months later a friend apparently let it slip to the Record who called me for confirmation. I am not terribly surprised or saddened by Mr. Hahn’s abrupt resignation from Woolwich Council eight months before the 2018 municipal election.<br /><br />Other bad news appeared in September 2016 at a public RAC meeting. Dr. Jackson, Chair of TAG, announced his upcoming resignation. That shocked and deeply saddened me. The departure of Scott Hahn from municipal politics was absolutely to my mind no loss to the public interest whatsoever. The scheduled departure of Dr. Richard Jackson, however, was devastating to me and I felt to the entire community. He had, in my opinion, single-handedly turned the remediation of the Elmira aquifers as well as the Canagagigue Creek completely on its head. He had unilaterally, albeit with TAG furiously hanging on to his coattails, put both the Ontario MOE and Chemtura Canada into a defensive posture yet again. CPAC had worked them over from June 2011 until October 2014 when Chemtura Canada and the MOE fled the battlefield with their tails between their legs. In the ensuing months from November 2014 until September 2015 when Dr. Jackson became the first TAG chair, they’d recovered their chutzpah, their arrogance, and their sense of self-entitlement. Dr. Jackson, professionally and thoroughly eviscerated those attitudes in a year. I have no difficulties bragging about what CPAC and SWAT did but I bow to the master, Dr. Richard Jackson. His resignation became effective December 31, 2016.<br /><br />By October 2016, the bad news was replaced with some good news. The Record, which had long ago stopped covering CPAC meetings, was still interested however. On October 21, 2016, they reported on a GHD Report regarding testing that was finally going to be done on the Stroh farm, at Chemtura’s eastern border.211 Since the previous year’s testing on the Chemtura side of its border had dioxins/furans and DDT well above the criteria, no one was going to be surprised to see detections of these same chemicals on the Stroh property. Of course, the proposed testing was inadequate both in vertical (depth) and lateral (areal) extent. Chemtura Canada and its consultants kept the soil and groundwater testing very close to the border with Chemtura. GHD and Chemtura’s claim was that there were decreasing concentrations from zero metres out to nine metres away from the border; therefore, there wasn’t any contamination past that point. That and their refusal to test for dioxins deeper than 15 centimetres on the Stroh farm was typical, self-serving junk science as far as I was concerned. They also failed to properly test the “Gap” area yet again.<br /><br />The Record then followed up this article with an editorial a week later titled, “Get serious about Elmira cleanup."212 The editorial demanded items such as a rigorous investigation of the Stroh farm, a precise cleanup schedule for the Canagagigue Creek, and reassurances that the 2028 Elmira groundwater deadline will be met. Late in 2018, none of these have been met. Both the October 20, 2016 article and the October 28, 2018 editorial make it clear that members of the Citizens Public Advisory Committee were right in their claims of off-site contamination from Uniroyal/Chemtura onto the Stroh farm and as Paige Desmond, Record reporter, states “The test results are an “I told you so"213 for members of the Citizens Public Advisory Committee.”<br /><br />In January 2017 both TAG and the general public were introduced to Tiffany Svensson, the new TAG Chair. She is a senior hydrogeologist at BluMetric Environmental Inc. in Kitchener, Ontario.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MU1uCeekA-k/XZ3GKqnaj7I/AAAAAAAAAMs/SU4LQ9CWM3sfh2weI7xD3mvV0vUG0aYmwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/localadvocatessay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1234" data-original-width="1600" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MU1uCeekA-k/XZ3GKqnaj7I/AAAAAAAAAMs/SU4LQ9CWM3sfh2weI7xD3mvV0vUG0aYmwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/localadvocatessay.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uxhRrPLAvVY/XZ3GXL-vQrI/AAAAAAAAAMw/TMNrPKTrVH4uROx0Yf9TO3SzY-Is0j_5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/chemturachemprobe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uxhRrPLAvVY/XZ3GXL-vQrI/AAAAAAAAAMw/TMNrPKTrVH4uROx0Yf9TO3SzY-Is0j_5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/chemturachemprobe.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wO7CREGjOQ4/XZ3Evl2O4CI/AAAAAAAAAMg/33KYZhHzeKYRS6BrwSTkX6KuC7b-9EJ1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/elmiragerserious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wO7CREGjOQ4/XZ3Evl2O4CI/AAAAAAAAAMg/33KYZhHzeKYRS6BrwSTkX6KuC7b-9EJ1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/elmiragerserious.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br />The past year of 2016 was a strange one with the presence of Dr. Jackson as Chair of TAG along with bullet holes, court dates for councillors and more bad news regarding shoddy investigations and delays in clean up of the aquifers. During late 2015 and all of 2016 I was absolutely thrilled to see a real professional in a position of authority, versus what had been generally inflicted upon Elmira residents for so many decades by Chemtura/CRA and the Ontario MOE. With the appropriate spectacle of public humiliation for Woolwich Township Council closely followed by the Varnicolor Chemical revelations and finally the last days of Dr. Jackson as TAG Chair; it truly was a back and forth year. The upcoming chapter will deal with conflicts of interest, Dr. Neil Thompson, University of Waterloo, fish tissue testing, another purchase of Uniroyal/Chemtura and finally serious methane issues in the Bolender Park Landfill.<br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 22<br /><br />205 Paige Desmond, “Town pushes feds on creek water”, Waterloo Region Record, May 2, 2016, p.A1.<br /><br />206 Editorial, “Toxic time bomb must be defused”, Waterloo Region Record, May 4, 2016<br /><br />207 Paige Desmond, “Chemical site still concerns Woolwich”, Waterloo Region Record, May 21, 2016,p.B1.<br /><br />208 Ibid.<br /><br />209 Liz Bevan, “Environmental assessment the first step in development plans for former Varnicolor Site”, Woolwich Observer, May 26, 2016<br /><br />210 Paige Desmond, “Water cleanup won’t meet deadline”, Waterloo Region Record, July 26, 2016, p.B1.<br /><br />211 Paige Desmond, “Chemtura starts offsite chemical probe”, Waterloo Region Record, October 21, 2016<br /><br />212 Editorial, “Get serious about Elmira cleanup”, Waterloo Region Record, October 28, 2016<br /><br />213 Paige Desmond, “Chemtura starts offsite chemical probe”, Waterloo Region Record, October 21, 2016<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-24626025571024517912023-12-19T09:05:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:05:52.845-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_26.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3120335872112294035" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter Twenty-Three:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />182.....Conflict of Interest Witness Statements<br /><br />190.....Conceptual Site Model<br /><br />191.....Fish in the Creek<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 23<br /><br />Conflict of Interest Witness Statements<br /><br />Remember that somewhere around 2009 I became aware of what I view as further peculiar dealings by Pat McLean, then chair of CPAC. By this time she had been chair for nine years and while I was aware in 2009 of her subterfuge, backroom dealings with the MOE, and her manipulation of people, I was shocked to learn that she had been a member for some time of the National Advisory Panel of the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA). The National Advisory Panel is reputedly a group of knowledgeable citizens on matters dealing with chemical industries in their respective neighbourhoods and relationships with their neighbours. For myself I had followed various local verification committees and their decisions regarding verifying Uniroyal/Crompton and Chemtura Canada and by 2009 I was not particularly impressed with the CCPA. I and many of my colleagues and associates viewed the CCPA and their follow-up name, the Chemical Industry Association of Canada (CIAC), as simply a public relations lobby group for the chemical industry and its individual corporate members.<br /><br />What was most obvious to me was that Ms. McLean appeared to have virtually zero technical knowledge, abilities or even desire to learn about technical matters of grave concern to Elmira and Woolwich Township residents. Therefore, how on earth did she receive an appointment to the National Advisory Panel from the CCPA? Ahh, the light came on. She would be Crompton/Chemtura’s representative on this panel. She could get brownie points from the CCPA for Crompton/Chemtura decision-makers who were in need of whatever assistance they could get. They had failed *Responsible Care verification on four occasions namely in 1997, 2000, 2001, and finally in July 2003. They finally achieved allegedly their verification in December 2004, which they had been chasing since 1997. I would certainly like to know when Pat McLean first was appointed to the National Advisory Panel in order to understand how long she had been deceiving CPAC by omission. Seeing how the world works over the past three decades it’s become plain to me that it’s all about making deals, especially private deals out of the public eye.<br /><br />Just as this advisory panel or NAP is fundamentally made up of reliable people unlikely to make waves, at the same time a few legitimate people have been on this panel from time to time including Pat Potter and Dr. Gail Krantzberg. In fact it was Pat Potter with assistance in 1993 who tried to get Uniroyal Chemical kicked out of the CCPA. That was stymied at least in part by Sylvia Berg, vice-president of APT, with her letter to the CCPA in support of Uniroyal Chemical.<br /><br />Pat McLean’s journey on behalf of the advisory panel has taken her at the least, all across North America. Her on-line journey, accessible simply by Googling the National Advisory Panel of the Chemical Industry Association of Canada, indicates numerous different meeting locations in Canada and the United States. Not only her name but pictures indicate that it is indeed Pat Mclean from Elmira. These trips include free air travel, accommodation and meals. I do not know if there is a per diem value also paid to National Advisory Panel members and if it is payable on only some occasions such as verification teams for local industries just as Uniroyal/Crompton received numerous times over the years. What is most abhorrent to me is that Ms. McLean was receiving these benefits from the CCPA simultaneously while she was the chair of a citizens committee fighting a member of this chemical association, namely Uniroyal Chemical, Crompton Co., and Chemtura Canada. To add insult to this she kept it all a secret from CPAC members, that is, she kept it secret from most of us for years. That is not to say that Susan Bryant and possibly one other did not know, but they kept it very quiet. To say that this appointment of Ms. McLean to the advisory panel was anything other than a quid pro quo or a token of appreciation by the polluter is to be deaf, dumb, and blind. This appointment is a gift and a consideration of considerable dollar and prestige value and would not have been given to someone exhibiting independence from Chemtura, the MOE or the local political establishment.<br /><br />Approximately a year and a half after Woolwich Council appointed members to the TAG committee, CPAC decided to confront council in regards to the two blatant conflict of interest appointees on TAG. This action was just a few months after Dr. Jackson had unfortunately departed from the scene. One of these appointees was Pat McLean and the second was Susan Bryant. CPAC members Dr. Holt and Vivienne Delaney had already seen the nastiness and pettiness those two women were capable of in the summer of 2011 with their ambush of the two CPAC members at the Elmira Public Library. Then, at a November 29, 2012 public CPAC meeting, Susan Bryant’s mixed loyalties were exposed. While other CPAC members did not doubt the story recounted by Dr. Holt and Ms. Delaney, nevertheless they preferred to limit their opinions of Ms. Bryant to what they could see and hear themselves.<br /><br />Other CPAC and SWAT members and I could hardly believe what we were hearing as a suddenly very chummy and collegial relationship between Susan Bryant and Conestoga Rovers and Associates was publicly exposed for the first time. The very next morning, I posted on my Elmira Advocate blog the highlights of the general CPAC meeting as well as the details of the exchange between Steve Quigley of CRA and Susan Bryant. I wrote ”There was a somewhat bizarre interchange at the end of Steve’s presentation with Susan Bryant who has started attending occasional CPAC meetings. Ron Campbell politely asked Steve how long CRA had had this capability i.e., 3-D model. Steve turned right around towards the back of the room and asked Susan Bryant to respond. She immediately and unhesitatingly stated “a long time.” Steve then elaborated and I believe he told Ron Campbell, twelve to fourteen years. He also advised the room that Susan Bryant had “assisted” with its development. Now Susan’s area of expertise is English literature and probably editing etc. Technically I cannot imagine her having anything whatsoever with which to “assist” Conestoga Rovers. Then when Steve was taking “orders” for copies of the flash drives (USB’s) to be distributed, Chair Dr. Dan Holt asked Susan if she would like one to which she replied no she already had it. There are a multitude of possible interpretations for this information but I do know that years ago I was discussing with Susan the necessity of getting rid of the extremely client driven CRA, possibly at the same time that she unknown to me and others was “assisting” them."214 There was also the shock to me in realizing that Susan Bryant, my friend and colleague from 1990 until 2007, had withheld this major and significant environmental piece of data, the 3-D model, from me, during a very large part of that time frame. On further reflection, I realize that I am hardly the only citizen betrayed. Susan Bryant, while representing the citizens of Elmira and Woolwich Township, had absolutely betrayed each and every one by not sharing this helpful electronic tool with every UPAC and CPAC member, not to mention the general public and or the heavily-involved news media personnel. This electronic tool could have been handed out to each and every new CPAC member to assist them in their orientation to this technically difficult volunteer committee. I was once again disgusted with her behaviour.<br /><br />As if the public CPAC meeting wasn’t a serious enough indictment of Ms. Bryant, the plot thickened again at a private CRA meeting held at their offices in Waterloo. They had extended an offer to CPAC and SWAT members to attend an orientation session in regards to their E-Dat program (3-D Model). We agreed and attended on Thursday January 10, 2013. Lo and behold, if Susan didn’t get called out yet again this time by a different CRA employee. On this second occasion, Ms. Bryant, who had presumably been invited by Chemtura, seemed much less happy in regards to being singled out as having knowledge and participation in the E-Dat program many years earlier. At least one CPAC member has a very strong memory of Ms. Bryant’s demeanour when she was asked by CRA to speak about the E-Dat program. This member suggests that she appeared surprised and flustered. That wasn’t my impression of Susan Bryant’s reaction when called upon by Mr. Quigley at the public CPAC meeting held the previous month. This CPAC member also felt that the entire matter raised issues of conflict of interest as Ms. Bryant appeared to be simultaneously representing citizens’ interests at CPAC against those of the polluter while she was either assisting or working with the polluter’s consultants on this E-Dat program. The CPAC member eventually in writing suggested that Ms. Bryant’s actions as described raised for the member the fear of wilful collusion.<br /><br />At my request, five CPAC and SWAT members put pen to paper. I will call their writings “witness statements” although they are not, for example, notarized legal Affidavits. There was not any need for them to be. They are written recollections both from memory as well as any written notes that the CPAC and SWAT members had made at the time. They were e-mailed to each and every Woolwich Council member from the late 2014 until the late 2018 term. This included Sandy Shantz, Mark Bauman, Scott Hahn, Larry Shantz, Murray Martin, and Patrick Merlihan. I felt that council members would likely have some clarifying questions and want to hear for themselves what six citizens (myself included) had witnessed and heard that transpired between Conestoga Rovers and Susan Bryant. They did not. I asked all five of these still CPAC members if any had received so much as a call or e-mail back from any council members. To date absolutely nothing. This behaviour appears to be Woolwich Council’s response to issues they don’t want to hear. That said there was a pathetic e-mail from Susan Bryant in which she denied being “paid or compensated in any way.” That is a lie. She was paid or compensated at the very least by receiving access to CRA’s E-Dat program years before her peers and fellow citizens, victims of Uniroyal Chemical’s negligence. She has also been paid or compensated repeatedly over the years by being selectively picked by Chemtura to represent Elmira and Woolwich citizens at both public and private talks with them. This even occurred when Woolwich Council did not pick her to represent Woolwich citizens on CPAC from 2011 until September 2015, because Chemtura held regular private talks with Ms. McLean and Ms. Bryant. This private chit chat was held at Chemtura Canada with the APT Chemtura Committee or ACC, a temporarily invented sham to give the appearance that Pat and Susan were representing someone other than themselves. I believe that this was when Pat McLean was given a membership into APT Environment in order to bolster the charade. I expect that Ms. Bryant’s false denial was all that a mostly biased council required in order for them to once more pretend to have resolved a problem. Keep in mind that it was the very same Susan Bryant who lied to Sandy Shantz, Mark Bauman, the GRCA, the Region of Waterloo, and numerous others at the April 9, 2015 pretend “stakeholders” meeting in which she and Pat McLean along with Chemtura offered fantastic and dishonest allegations that CPAC had bullied and intimidated MOE and Chemtura Canada personnel. If she had suggested that CPAC members bullied others by speaking the truth then she would have a point. Otherwise not.<br /><br />After considerable thought I am going to give the names of the five Citizen Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) members who agreed to put pen to paper and to advise Woolwich Council what they perceived as either extremely inappropriate behaviour or behaviour that they and I feel was a betrayal of the Elmira citizens that this individual was allegedly representing. I also believe that Susan Bryant’s betrayal of Woolwich and Elmira citizens goes much further. She betrayed the organization APT Environment, founded by Susan Rupert, Sandra Bray, and Esther Thur, which she, along with Sylvia Berg, ran after 1991.<br /><br />These five CPAC members have all also given me permission to use their names and witness statements for this book. The purpose of my providing these witnesses and their statements is not to heap more coals upon one individual. Throughout the story of the Elmira Water Woes, there are unfortunately so many people and institutions of disappointing character. I hope to help readers understand how citizens’ groups can be co-opted by simple actions of merely one or two citizens and who outlast all others over time. APT and the original co-ordinating committee members were a wonderful, talented, and intelligent group of people who, by merely living their lives, working, and raising their families in Elmira, allowed a pair of keen, hardworking individuals to slowly assume all the workload and ultimately all the decision-making. The purpose is also to show the readers how perverted public consultation can become. Woolwich Council with the support of the Ontario MOE assembled various so-called stakeholders together in late 1991 along with a few citizens representing APT Environment and called them the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee (UPAC). Other groups represented included the Grand River Conservation Authority, the Region of Waterloo, the Lions Club, the Waterloo Region District School Board, a couple of former Uniroyal employees, and a couple of Woolwich councillors. It was a disaster as Susan Rupert in 1991 had tried to warn APT co-ordinators that it could be unless they were careful and particularly diligent about transparency. Over time many of these alleged “stakeholder” groups dropped by the wayside while local citizens such as Gerry Heideburtt, Ron Ormson, Dr. Henry Regier, and others joined. Throughout this evolution, however, the municipal councillors were not in charge of UPAC. UPAC members were, quoting Dr. David Ash, “masters of their own fate”. UPAC members then were not automatically up for reappointment at the end of each term of Woolwich Council. UPAC as a group decided who would be added and no one was subtracted except due to ill health, death, or their own resignation. From this improvement in membership it was then all thrown away by Pat McLean and Susan Bryant lobbying and convincing UPAC members to give up their independence in favour of a few trinkets of more clerical support from council. But I digress.<br /><br />By 2010, Woolwich Council under chair of CPAC and former councillor Pat McLean were totally in charge of CPAC and had been for years. Pat was given a gift by Mayor Bill Strauss and allowed to stay on as chair after she lost her councillor’s seat to Sandy Shantz in 2006. Then, the new mayor, Todd Cowan, and council in October 2010 dropped their bomb and gave the whole CPAC mess the boot. Sandy Shantz and her new council four years later did the exact same thing only with much more dishonesty and nastiness towards the CPAC members. For that behaviour they paid and continue to pay.<br /><br />UPAC and CPAC went from very bad in 1992 to much better in the late 1990s only to become a committee of council in 2000, which was the beginning of the end. It is now so badly run by council that honest, experienced, and even many professional citizen volunteers with backbones to stand up to the company and its friends are shown the door while two co-opted citizens confronted with major evidence of their conflicts of interest are kept on the committee by Woolwich Council because they are more favoured by Chemtura/Lanxess and the MOE. That is beyond shameful pretend public consultation.<br /><br />The five CPAC members who submitted witness statements to Woolwich Council in March 2017 advising council as to what they saw and heard regarding the development of Conestoga Rover’s E-Dat program were Dr. Dan Holt, Vivienne Delaney, Dr. Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, Ron Campbell, and Richard Clausi. I too provided my comments from my first-hand observations at the two mentioned meetings. The statements are as follows.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YkEqn9cjiY/XZ3-1VEeP6I/AAAAAAAAANA/ux7cLEcbW2Eb8oZuacQS0a9aJLjMjfWBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/vivdelwitstate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1234" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YkEqn9cjiY/XZ3-1VEeP6I/AAAAAAAAANA/ux7cLEcbW2Eb8oZuacQS0a9aJLjMjfWBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/vivdelwitstate.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fIloMRPsgo8/XZ3_knwastI/AAAAAAAAANI/lPw5AAi6Hmc4lSZIbO-Ov8S3mB7YJTbDACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/richwitstate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1235" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fIloMRPsgo8/XZ3_knwastI/AAAAAAAAANI/lPw5AAi6Hmc4lSZIbO-Ov8S3mB7YJTbDACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/richwitstate.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aPP7p8JDETI/XZ4AfOfVu6I/AAAAAAAAANU/7XR3CcKFAIwhejJ7K7bt-tKYFJouIaSWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/danwitstate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1234" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aPP7p8JDETI/XZ4AfOfVu6I/AAAAAAAAANU/7XR3CcKFAIwhejJ7K7bt-tKYFJouIaSWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/danwitstate.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-19-tyOZyabk/XZ4BcPR75OI/AAAAAAAAANc/g1UrV9UN8Agdh2g9Y2sYELizSFNsz6W1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/roncwitstat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-19-tyOZyabk/XZ4BcPR75OI/AAAAAAAAANc/g1UrV9UN8Agdh2g9Y2sYELizSFNsz6W1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/roncwitstat.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dBuug_FA6b8/XZ4C3FsSl3I/AAAAAAAAANo/NkIEtkUOC-wtz2ePBY9Z8WVe9Z6nVzh3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/sebastianwitstat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dBuug_FA6b8/XZ4C3FsSl3I/AAAAAAAAANo/NkIEtkUOC-wtz2ePBY9Z8WVe9Z6nVzh3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/sebastianwitstat.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Conceptual Site Model<br /><br />I listed in Chapters Nineteen and Twenty a number of Dr. Richard Jackson’s professional criticisms of the MOE, Chemtura, and CRA that he elucidated in late 2015 and throughout the rest of his tenure in 2016. Along with those criticisms he was his shocked that a proper, standard, and comprehensive Conceptual Site Model (CSM) had not been completed. Dr. Jackson was well aware of CRA’s one page diagram that its staff purported for decades to be a CSM of both the Uniroyal/Chemtura site and of the Elmira aquifers and aquitards. I believe it may well have been Dr. Jackson who referred to CRA’s CSM diagram as being little more than a cartoon. Both his and apparently the remediation industry’s understanding of a CSM was a lengthy and comprehensive written document that expressly characterized the sub-surface beneath the contaminated site as well as of any nearby receptors. This CSM would also include a discussion of the contaminants of concern (COC) as well as the hydrogeology of the entire Elmira area. This document was to make clear what the problems were, where they were, and what the remediation plan was. Dr. Jackson expressed satisfaction at his last meeting as TAG Chair that Chemtura had hired Dr. Neil Thomson of the University of Waterloo, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, to research and write this CSM.<br /><br />While most of Dr. Thomson’s Elmira work and meetings were held behind closed doors, he did attend a TAG meeting in April 2017 to speak about his findings. He advised that using both soil and groundwater sampling plus company records of waste percentages that he had calculated the weights of NDMA and chlorobenzene which had been released into the natural environment. They had determined that there were approximately 1,900 kilograms of excess chlorobenzene in the off-site Elmira aquifers. This is in excess of the decades old estimations by CRA of contaminant releases into the natural environment courtesy of Uniroyal Chemical. Well that was embarrassing! They also had calculated that there was more NDMA as well dissolved in the off-site groundwater although it was very close to being within their accepted margins of error. The chlorobenzene certainly was not and spoke to a second source of chlorobenzene and hence a second polluter. Well, not exactly a second polluter what with the admissions after 2000 that Nutrite had contributed ammonia and the recent and relatively quiet 2016 admission that Varnicolor had also contributed at least six different solvents to the Elmira aquifers. Dr. Thomson advised that as of the spring of 2017, that the source of the additional chlorobenzene was unknown. Well, why not? Certainly the MOE and Uniroyal/Chemtura had no desire after the October 1991 “sweetheart” deal to out other polluters in Elmira so why start now. As I’ve stated earlier in this book my bets are on the former Borg Textiles Canada Inc. and possibly one or two other sources in town. Even today a small amount of shallow soil sampling would likely find the source as chlorobenzene is a DNAPL chemical and is likely sitting in the free-phase form in the nearby sub-surface of Borg or one of its neighbours. I suspect that further examination near monitoring well OW57-32R, west of Varnicolor and north of Borg Textiles, would be still helpful decades after DNAPLs were first found there accidentally. TAG members plus myself and a few others did receive a copy of the Draft CSM from Dr. Thomson. I found it well-written, clear, and straightforward. I did look it over carefully and offered some small suggestions to Dr. Thomson for addition or clarification.<br /><br />I haven’t seen him at any additional public meetings throughout 2018 so it is difficult to obtain the final version of the CSM. As previously stated, public consultation meetings such as TAG where the document might have been distributed is more than wanting in Elmira these past four years.<br /><br />Fish In The Creek<br /><br />Officials at the Ministry of Environment, West Central Region knew that all the sediment and soil testing in and around the Canagagigue Creek needed some relevance. In other words were the concentrations of DDT, dioxins/furans, and more, bioavailable to life forms in the Creek? From the 1966 and 1995-96 testing followed by the 2012 to 2016 testing of Creek bank soils, bank sediments, and flood plain soils it was obvious to all, even the most biased and dishonest, that the Canagagigue Creek was still in dire straits despite on-site Uniroyal remediation and hydraulic containment of the most contaminated groundwater. The MOE, therefore, conducted fish sampling of multiple species of fish. They tested for four different contaminants including DDT and its metabolites, namely DDE and DDD. They also tested for the expected dioxins and furans. To my surprise, MOE officials also tested for mercury and PCBs. The mercury, I assumed rightly or wrongly, might be a function of the upstream Canagagigue Creek at the Woolwich Dam. Apparently mercury found naturally in the ground can be chemically altered after being submerged and then it becomes bioavailable to various life forms in the water including fish. The finding of PCBs was even stranger to me. I had been looking carefully for PCBs either in ground or surface water samples for decades plus in the few soil samples that ever were taken and analysed. It was only in recent years that I had finally seen a soil sample on the east side of Chemtura Canada with PCBs in it. The title of the MOE’s fish sampling report was “Biomonitoring Assessment of Canagagigue Creek in Elmira, Ontario. Sediment, fish, and toxicity and bioaccumulation results from 2014-2015.” The report was dated February 2017. The short summation is that the majority of fish tissue residue samples that were taken exceeded the Toxic Residue Guidelines (TRG) of at least one of the four chemicals listed above. Carp tissues exceeded the TRG for all four chemicals albeit not in every single sample. White suckers exceeded three of the four TRG as did the common shiner, again however neither in every sample nor in every location tested in the Creek. Bluntnose minnows only exceeded one of the four TRG. Creek chub had the best results with zero exceedances of the TRG; however, they had the smallest numbers of samples tested and they only tested for three of the four contaminants and their accompanying TRG. These last two fish species amazingly were not tested downstream of the Chemtura site. This upstream and downstream testing was the whole idea with regards to testing fish in the Creek. While fish are mobile and could move back and forth from upstream to downstream of the chemical plant, in fact their mobility is somewhat restricted by the Chemtura on-site small dam, at the north end of their site, which provides cooling water for its processes as well as water for emergency firefighting requirements. Therefore, fairly direct comparisons can be made between upstream and downstream fish as the upstream fish represent fish that have not been exposed to Uniroyal/Chemtura compounds, whereas the downstream fish certainly have been exposed.<br /><br />Five different fish species were examined for four different contaminants. The fish sampling locations were taken from multiple locations within the Creek. For me the locations for sampling are a big problem. I have seen many examples over the years of what I perceive to be poorly-designed research and investigations. These poor designs seem to result despite instances of the MOE or even CRA/GHD asking stakeholders to assist in developing the work plans for various studies. If authorities are sincerely trying to determine if fish are exposed to and accumulating the various persistent organic pollutants (POPs), then one would expect some common sense and consistency in sampling locations as well as in sampling parameters and even consistency in the number of samples taken per fish species and per upstream and downstream locations. In my opinion no such consistency or common sense has been exercised in this February 2017 fish sampling report.<br /><br />Carp and white sucker, for example, have two different locations in the Creek from which they are sampled. The upstream location is between the Reid Woods Drive bridge and the further upstream Woolwich Reservoir. That reservoir/dam is much larger and higher than the downstream on-site Uniroyal/Chemtura dam. The downstream testing location is between the downstream end of the Chemtura property in Elmira and the first bridge downstream which is the New Jerusalem Road bridge. Hence, this sampling does not provide us any clarification as to whether or not the POPs are distributed the length of the Creek from the Chemtura property all the way downstream for the next seven to eight kilometres prior to the Creek discharging into the Grand River.<br /><br />The next three species, common shiners, bluntnose minnows, and creek chub, were sampled from six different locations. Two of the locations are upstream above the Woolwich Reservoir and below the Woolwich Reservoir. The four downstream locations are 1) downstream of the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant (STP); 2) at the New Jerusalem Road bridge; 3) at the Northfield Drive (#22) bridge; and 4) at the Jigs Hollow Road bridge just outside West Montrose, Ontario. Well that is these fish species sort of share the six same sampling locations. The problem is that the data for the common shiner exists for all four downstream locations and for all four contaminants but data for all four contaminants exists at only one of the two upstream locations. It then becomes much worse. Bluntnose minnows were sampled upstream above the Woolwich Reservoir only. Literally only because they were not sampled at the other upstream location nor at any of the four downstream locations. Creek chub also were sampled only at one upstream location namely the one below the Woolwich Reservoir and also at none of the four downstream locations. I view these sampling selections as basically ridiculous. On the one occasion when I was able to ask the question why, the MOE official said that its technicians could not locate any creek chub or bluntnose minnows downstream. I find that explanation to be unbelievable and as I and every other stakeholder not appointed to TAG or RAC by Sandy Shantz and her colleagues are refused the opportunity to ask questions of the MOE or Chemtura Canada at either committee, then I’m not likely to get a better answer.<br /><br />Here is what does appear obvious in the results of this study. Carp downstream of Chemtura Canada consistently have higher concentrations of DDT and metabolites as well as of dioxins than carp caught upstream of Chemtura. PCBs and mercury are less obvious and actually appear similar in concentrations up and downstream of the Chemtura site.<br /><br />White sucker have higher concentrations of DDT downstream than upstream. The levels for the other three contaminants are less clear although total dioxin Toxic Equivalency Quotient (TEQ) as well is difficult to compare as there are seven downstream samples and only one upstream.<br /><br />Common shiners have consistently higher downstream concentrations of three of the four contaminants at all four downstream locations than the one tested upstream. Mercury is the exception.<br />Data for creek chub and bluntnose minnows simply does not exist to determine any trends location- wise because they have zero downstream test results. Oddly, the dioxin TEQ value for bluntnose minnows is somewhat elevated above the TRG at the upstream location.<br /><br />Generally, the larger, older, and fattier fish bioaccumulate these toxins more readily, which is why carp generally have the highest concentrations of all contaminants. What is also interesting is that higher fish predators allegedly living in the Creek were not tested. These predators would include bass and particularly northern pike. I would expect pike to have even higher concentrations of these various contaminants from their consumption of smaller, contaminated fish due to the bioaccumulation up the food chain of all four of these contaminants. Then of course is the consumption of carp, suckers, pike, and bass by other predators even further up the food chain. This could include both scavengers eating dead fish floating in the creek to predatory animals and birds catching fish in shallow areas at spawning time or other times. Some of these life forms could include herons, hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, mink, muskrat, etc.<br /><br />This chapter covered the incredible discovery of, at the minimum, a blatant conflict of interest by Susan Bryant. The chapter also covered Dr. Neil Thomson’s CSM as well as a major bio-monitoring study of the Creek. The next chapter introduces Lanxess Canada, methane gas in the Bolender Park Landfill, and a new east-side Elmira Boundary Rationalization.<br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 23<br /><br />214 Alan Marshall, “Last Evenings Public CPAC Meeting”, www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com ,November, 30, 2012<br /><br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-900817046255554536.post-74057731972981425592023-12-19T08:53:00.000-08:002023-12-19T08:53:18.080-08:00<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://waterlooregionadvocate.blogspot.com/2019/10/elmira-water-woes-triumph-of-corruption_10.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;">ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5954935406619457437" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><br />TABLE OF CONTENTS<br /><br /><br />Chapter Twenty-Four:<br /><br />Pg.<br /><br />193.....Ongoing News and Old Issues<br /><br />194.....Methane<br /><br />196.....Further Bizarre revelations in 2018<br /><br />199.....Lanxess Show Their Colours<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chapter 24<br /><br />Ongoing News and Old Issues<br /><br />The April 22, 2017 Record published a story about the purchase of Chemtura Canada by Lanxess Canada.215 Lanxess was a subsidiary of Bayer AG, the chemical and pharmaceutical giant founded in Germany. Lanxess representatives claimed that they will support and follow through on all ongoing environmental plans in Elmira, underway by its predecessors Chemtura Canada.<br /><br />In June 2017, the “Elmira Boundary Rationalization” plan was in full gear. There had been a few public meetings in the past discussing this somewhat radical turnaround from previous plans which had appeared to favour both industrial development and an Elmira vehicle by-pass on the west side of Elmira. The by-pass had long been promised by senior levels of government as it would remove stinky and unhealthy diesel fueled trucks from proceeding slowly through the downtown area of Elmira. Additionally the intersection of Arthur Street (Hwy #85) and Church Street (Hwy #86) is narrow and congested even without truck traffic. Any truck making a left turn from Church Street onto Arthur Street would back up traffic behind it. This intersection had also been a factor in the opposition to the proposed Bio-En plant from a few years earlier. That plant was located just north of the Arthur and Church Street intersection and the additional truck traffic bringing in foodstuffs for production of methane at the plant was a concern for locals living nearby.<br /><br />While no one denies that congestion in the Elmira downtown area and the need for a by-pass exists, the idea of placing the by-pass on the east side instead of the west side of Elmira seems bizarre. First, the Canagagigue Creek floods during spring runoffs and also during heavy rainstorms. To punctuate this reality the tremendous rainfall during June 2017 caused extensive flooding across Arthur Street north barely a quarter mile north of the Arthur and Church Street intersection and it also flooded immediately downstream of the Chemtura now Lanxess 25 Erb Street property. Bolender Park just across Church Street from Lanxess was similarly submerged. The second problem is contamination both in and along the Creek and likely on the Stroh and Martin farms, which would be part of the proposed by-pass and east side developed lands.<br /><br />Was the intent to save millions in remediation costs by rezoning these farms from agricultural/residential to commercial/industrial? With such a rezoning the cleanup criteria are dramatically decreased thus resulting in a reduction of actual cleanup work and associated costs. In effect, the filling in of contaminated low lying areas would essentially just bury DDT, dioxins/furans, and other POPs such as PCBs and mercury.<br /><br />Furthermore there were suspicions that this east side by-pass was going to be a more expensive route with the low elevation requiring major quantities of fill to be placed in order to raise the new north-south highway (i.e. the by-pass) above the floodplain. A long and expensive bridge would also be required on the east side due to the flooding of the Canagagiguie Creek.<br /><br />Another ongoing issue had to be the pathetic failure of Chemtura and then Lanxess to elevate the off-site pumping in the Elmira aquifers to the promises made by Chemtura Canada and CRA in November 2012. These promises were frankly incredible at the time but Chemtura was beginning to get a lot of pressure from multiple sources over its long time commitment to restore the Elmira aquifers to drinking water standards by 2028. In May 2012, the still relatively new CPAC with professional outside expertise combined with professional inside expertise had publicly determined that the likelihood of Chemtura achieving drinking water standards in the Elmira aquifers was essentially zero. CPAC members presented their information to all parties including Woolwich Council and the local news media. Of course, both Chemtura representatives and the Ontario MOE West Central Region went ballistic with denials, only to roll over six months later in November 2012 with the stunning announcement that independently they had determined that they were not going to make their 2028 commitment and deadline unless major changes were made. All of this was discussed back in Chapter Fourteen. Well, five years after those announcements (November 2017) the off-site containment & treatment system’s pumping rates had indeed been increased to between sixty-two and sixty-four litres per second from the November 2012 rate of approximately fifty-two litres per second. This increase was neither the initial promise of triple nor the later promise of a doubling of the pumping rates. Moreover the promised in situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) or off-site source removal did not happen either. The actual increase in pumping was about twenty-one percent. These numbers include all the off-site pumping wells at the time.<br /><br />Methane<br /><br />The more I’ve learned over the last few decades both environmentally and politically, the more of a cynic I have become. I really was, up until age fourty, very unworldly. I truly believed that mankind and the world were on a one way direction of improvement and enlightenment. I actually believed that our governments consisted of the best and brightest among us with the majority never losing sight of the public interest. Life in all its grandeur and disappointment has intruded upon that fantasy. It’s really only been the last twenty years at the most that I’ve also understood that politics and the environment are horribly intertwined. Horribly intertwined because politics are the absolute boss of whatever actually does get accomplished to delay the likely and inevitable crash of the human race on earth. In fact, in my worst moments, I only hope that when mankind becomes extinct on this earth that people don’t destroy all remaining life along with themselves.<br /><br />In May 2017, I received ten reports written by Conestoga Rovers & Associates between 1983 and 2015. The reports had almost nothing to do with Uniroyal Chemical, or so I thought when I first received them. They were, in fact, technical reports describing methane problems at the former Bolender Landfill. Somewhat to my surprise many of these reports referred to the landfill as the Bolender Park Landfill. I did not know the exact location of the landfill but had always assumed that it was directly underneath the current park itself. According to these reports that was not so. In one of the reports the park land was identified to the immediate south of the former landfill and butted against the north side of Church Street in Elmira.<br /><br />I found the material in the ten reports both shocking and devastating. Once again I learned the hard way through experience as to how perfidious the local political scene actually is. The Canagagigue Creek, a tributary of the Grand River, runs in a generally north-west to south-east direction from its source north of Floradale, Ontario to its mouth at the Grand River, just south of the village of West Montrose. The landfill was located on the east side of the Creek as was the park just south of it although there was a footbridge across the Creek to a small piece of parkland on the west side of the Creek butting up against Church Street. Now, what shocked me was learning the history of the search leading up to 1962 for a new landfill for Elmira. The landfill was located and operated from 1962 until 1970 and I was appalled to learn who had been in charge of it. The Town Council of Elmira had a Sanitation Committee whose members directed the search for the new landfill just prior to the closing of the municipal landfill (M2) in 1962 now located on the south-west corner of the Uniroyal/Lanxess property. The Chair of the Sanitation Committee in 1962 was Councillor Art Gorman, General Manager of Uniroyal Chemical at that time. To add insult to injury this Sanitation Committee was in charge of accepting industrial wastes at the Bolender Landfill. These CRA reports as well as reports written in the 1980s and early 1990s by consultants such as CH2M HILL and others suggest that Uniroyal’s industrial wastes may have been limited to filter cloths and some resins. I’m sorry but this is an absolute classic case of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Uniroyal and many other local industries had been using the Elmira town dumps for decades and the likelihood of either Woolwich Council or the Sanitation Committee with Art Gorman as chair turning down industrial wastes of any kind seems to me to be remote.<br /><br />During the summer and fall of 2017, I went to Woolwich Council as a delegate five different times all in regards to the methane issues at the former Bolender Park Landfill. I was careful to always present different and new information and discoveries so as not to disturb the tender sensitivities of this council. Recall that a little over a year earlier they had been publicly humiliated -- this time in regards to their blatant attempt to censor topics going to council meetings for discussion. When their censorship was exposed they then made a feeble attempt to rewrite what they had said and done but all the local news media including those in Kitchener-Waterloo were all over their excuses. My delegations were factual and straightforward. I included both titles and page number references to specific CRA reports written about the landfill. It was like talking to a bunch of rocks. I believe that over the course of five presentations to council on this subject I may have been asked one question. Even Councillor Merlihan seemed to keep his head down. Sometimes there were no questions for me and I returned to my seat in the gallery. Dan Kennaly, Woolwich Township staff answered a question or two from Woolwich councillors. I often found that his answers did not coincide with the CRA information in its reports. Some of my follow-up delegations referred to incorrect answers and statements made after I had sat down at the end of my previous delegation. Some of these corrections referred to detections of methane far in excess of the lower explosive limit (LEL) at the monitors on the east side of the landfill, particularly close to the west end of High Street and the homes nearby. Other information I presented included homeowners on George Street indicating that the garbage limits were not as indicated in the CRA reports but extended right to their backyards bordering Bolender Park. I even had a copy of a soil investigation report done prior to the construction of the new children’s splash pad in the park. The soil investigation report indicated a larger area of garbage disposal and the CRA reports indicated the severity of the explosive methane concentrations detected over the previous thirty-four years and as recently as 2015. Woolwich Councillors were in full denial and ostrich mode throughout my five delegations.<br /><br />Woolwich Councillors were also in a dispute with Frank Rattasid, the new owner of 86 Auto and Metal Recyclers Inc., who was not amused to learn that he’d been sold a bill of goods by the Township regarding the methane issues on the property at 39 Arthur Street North in Elmira. The previous owner was Mr. Paleshi and he had had a gas station and auto recycling yard on the property for decades. He had cooperated with Woolwich Township in regards to allowing access to his land to install both methane monitoring probes as well as installing a methane collection system. There had been consistent problems and issues with the collection system as well as with various probes over the decades. After reading the reports and conducting some independent research, I had concluded that Woolwich Township and their consultants, Conestoga Rovers, had been less than diligent in their combined efforts, actions, and decisions to protect potential victims of methane concentrations that could result in highly explosive conditions in any area of buildings where ignition sources existed such as gas water heaters and furnaces, fireplaces, or machinery. The machinery reference is primarily in regards to the Elmira Pet Products Co. plant on the north side of the former Bolender Park Landfill. I understand that over the decades there have been a number of small fires and strange happenings on the property. One of the most bizarre was in regards to the death at work of an experienced, long-time employee. The circumstances were incredibly difficult and awful for the man’s family as he was working the night shift and was alone at the time. The next morning, a Saturday, when he did not return home by the expected time his wife drove over to the plant. She found him dead on the floor. While there obviously is no good way to find a spouse or family member has passed on, this clearly had to be terrible. There was much speculation as to the cause of death including electrocution and even what appeared as a grasping-at-straws suggestion that lightning may have hit the building potentially causing the electrocution. To date, I have not seen any follow-up conclusions as to the cause of death. While his death may be unrelated to high methane readings found on their property decades ago, I am unaware of any investigation to determine that. I criticize the CRA representatives for their early abandonment to monitor the Elmira Pet Products Co. property. It seems peculiar to me that dangerously high methane readings both on the east side near High Street and George Street homes as well as north of the site (at Elmira Pet Products Co.) were not followed up with regular monitoring whether or not new probes were needed to replace either damaged or missing probes.<br /><br />On August 4, 2017 the Woolwich Observer published an excellent editorial suggesting that diligence and care is needed to ensure the safety of residents as well as of owners and workers at the 86 Auto and Metal Recyclers Inc. operating on the 39 Arthur Street site. The Observer also published the following story with the unfortunate and probably inaccurate title “Elevated methane levels at former Elmira Landfill don’t extend to nearby residents."216 Let’s give the Observer the benefit of the doubt and suggest that those responsible for the title were simply being optimistic and upbeat with the title and story. They appeared to have accepted assurances from Woolwich staff as well as the MOE at face value. I have learned over the decades never to do so. If they had the facts to support their positions, then fine. Otherwise not. There were also suggestions in the Observer editorial that the MOE were in fact on the job, monitoring the situation. That may have sent alarm bells ringing through those Elmira residents who remember the hollow assurances of the MOE both before and after the Elmira Water Crisis starting in November 1989.<br /><br />In November 2017, I submitted a typed list of fourty questions to Woolwich staff and councillors in relation to the Bolender Park Landfill. Some of the questions were historic in nature and several were questions regarding current actions and efforts underway as recent as 2015. Woolwich Council and staff did what they do best, which was to stall for months. In conversation with Woolwich Councillor Pat Merlihan, I was advised that a staff report had been written and was to be submitted to councillors for discussion at their March 6, 2018 council meeting. Staff submitted the methane report to councillors who approved the report. Having gained a much better understanding of this township’s actual procedures versus its written ones, I expect that this report met council’s private approval first before being trotted out for public review.<br /><br />Apparently Staff were advised not to answer allegedly “historic“ questions from the previous November. No rationale was given to me as to why. Staff, therefore, answered only two of my fourty questions in the report. Even at that, I found the answers inadequate. Councillors once again swept a potentially dangerous problem under the rug while hiding behind their consultants, CRA, as well as the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. This hiding is exactly what successive councils did for decades while Elmira’s water was slowly contaminated with carcinogenic industrial chemicals. I find that politicians learn nothing from history, and in fact do their best to avoid it. It seems to me voters also have short memories and do not remove incompetent, lazy, or biased councillors from office.<br /><br />Frank Rattasid spoke at Woolwich Council on a number of occasions. His family business was started in Elmira in 2016 and Mr. Rattasid was often accompanied to council meetings by his wife and son, Frank Rattasid Jr. These were not naïve or inexperienced people either in the business world or the political world. They had legitimate concerns with not only the suddenly reappearing methane issues but also with Woolwich Township’s rather peculiar attitude towards their business. Both Frank and his son spoke to councillors at length in regards to business problems they were having with Woolwich staff. Some of the business problems included a pretty clear bias against 86 Auto and Metal Recyclers Inc. engaging in metal recycling. Considering that a major part of automobiles is the steel and other metal parts, that is odd on the face of it. There is also the issue of accepting junk metal of all kinds and paying customers for it rather than the customers leaving it in backyards or ditches. Woolwich staff gave the Rattasids a hard time about their having a large bin out for customers to dispose their worn out and broken metal parts, appliances, tools, etc. into. This objection was only slightly lessened after Frank provided photographs of other businesses around Elmira with outside metal bins for collecting metal garbage.<br /><br />Another bone of contention above and beyond the methane issues was the discovery of an illegal municipal waterline crossing the Rattasids property. This waterline ran parallel to the eastern property line of 86 Auto and Metal Recyclers Inc. and provided water to the Elmira Pet Products Co. on the north side of the recycling company. Apparently, even before Mr. Chris Paleshi owned the property, Woolwich Township had permitted the then owners of the former landfill to run the waterline across their property and to connect it into the municipal waterline already in existence on High Street. The owners at the time and the Martin Pet Foods Plant did not have any legal easement on the deed to the property. Mr. Paleshi has since indicated that he did not know that this waterline ran across his property and so Mr. Rattasid was unaware when he bought the property that this waterline existed.<br /><br />It is my understanding that Mr. Rattasid is not opposed to assisting Woolwich Township’s methane problem including further incursions on his private property. He is opposed however to giving Woolwich Township carte blanche to continue doing as they see fit, whenever they so choose on his private property. He is aware that, for example, the illegal waterline just north of his property crosses provincial land (former railroad line) and that a modest fee is paid to the province by the Township for that incursion. He is also aware after reading and having discussions that Woolwich Township have not properly attended to nor responded appropriately to three decades of technical reports regarding the production, migration, and collection of explosive levels of methane gas in and around his property. Mr. Rattasid’s son, Frank Jr. and I carefully read the collection of CRA technical reports and certainly we were not impressed with either the monitoring or maintenance that was done on the gas collection system over the decades for the Bolender Park Landfill site. The utter failure of the collection system (for various reasons including the collection probes being regularly flooded with groundwater) probably contributed to the longevity of the problems. CRA personnel on occasion offered strong recommendations such as the installation of methane warning devices in High Street homes that appeared not to have been communicated to the homeowners nor acted on by Woolwich staff or council. In my opinion this entire file has been mishandled and considering the dangers of explosion involved, probably to the point of negligence based on reading the CRA reports, my own research, and receiving what I view as inadequate responses to questions I asked Woolwich staff and council.<br /><br />Further Bizarre Revelations In 2018<br /><br />The citizens of Woolwich Township were greeted with the fabulous spectre of a midterm councillor resignation. The spectre was fabulous because it was the least qualified, most inexperienced councillor, Scott Hahn who resigned. Also you will recall that Councillor Hahn had the most blatant, most obviously egregious, Electoral Financial Statement possible with the exception of Councillor Mark Bauman who managed not to submit anything. Councillor Hahn’s Electoral Financial Statement initially had only approximately two hundred and fifty dollars worth of expenses noted, which ended up being slightly north of three thousand dollars when the smoke cleared. The ensuing gamesmanship by him and by the Municipal Election Compliance Audit Committee (MECAC) was a ridiculous disgrace and all credit goes to Dr. Dan Holt, CPAC member and former chair, who brought these provincial election law violations to the MECAC’s and the public’s attention.<br /><br />Why was this resignation a spectre in the first place? It’s not as if citizens are legally or even morally obligated under all circumstances to complete their elected terms of office. Some elected citizens have died while holding office and obviously were unable to complete their term. Others have had major health reversals resulting in either surgeries or bed rest or otherwise being physically incapable of attending to their duties. Perhaps some have suffered close family members either becoming very sick or even passing on. None of these were the case regarding Councillor Hahn. In fact, the word spectre might be inappropriate except that his replacement for the rest of the term actually ended up being someone with even less municipal management knowledge than he had, if that were possible.<br /><br />Mr. Hahn was elected based on the usual in Woolwich Township, namely a well-known in the area last name. Additionally, he had spent time in the militia drinking and socializing with like minded individuals. He had spent nine months overseas in Afghanistan and certainly there is a lot of respect in Elmira for military veterans. With those qualifications he was elected instead of mature, educated, intelligent, and experienced citizens who could have stepped in immediately and helped manage Woolwich Township in a professional manner. It is of course not Mr. Hahn’s fault that the citizens who elected him were so foolish as to ignore far better qualified candidates. It’s even ironic with the current emphasis on qualified persons (QP) allegedly, only being allowed to attend so-called expert, technical meetings with Lanxess and the MOE. If followed to its logical conclusions, one must ask if only QPs should be allowed to run for public office or whether only QPs be allowed to vote for our elected representatives.<br /><br />Councillor Hahn resigned from elected office in January 2018 citing that he was too busy. Really? When he ran for office he was a young husband and father of twenty-six years of age without municipal, political, or based on his age even much life experience. He had a full-time job in his father’s business, his own home to maintain plus he had a wife and very young children. I wondered early on why he ran for municipal office in the first place. Supposedly, shortly before his resignation, he’d been given a promotion by his father in the family business. This reason was given publicly for his inability to finish out his term. A skeptic on the other hand might speculate that Mr. Hahn, son and father, may have decided that after all the negative publicity including MECAC, court dates, and media stories, that Mr. Scott Hahn’s chances of re-election were slim, and thus, why wait for the inevitable loss .<br /><br />Later in January 2018, the first runner-up for Ward One councillor in the 2014 municipal election, Dr. Dan Holt, addressed Woolwich Councillors. He advised them that in October 2014, thirteen hundred voters had expressed their wishes that he represent them at council and with the resignation of Scott Hahn he was prepared to do so. Of course these were the very same Woolwich Councillors who had decided to roll over in 2015 and let Chemtura Canada and the MOE continue to have their way in all matters pertaining to the decades long, already admitted failed groundwater cleanup by 2028. This incompetent council viciously and dishonestly threw out CPAC while lying through their teeth in regards to Dr. Holt, me, and other CPAC members. This same council had been caught red-handed and in 2016 exposed censoring citizen delegations speaking to council in regards to the Chemtura cleanup efforts. Woolwich Councillors quickly made it clear that they, and they alone, had the final say as to how a new councillor would be chosen to replace Scott Hahn. While the final decision was theirs they did have to follow the rules in the Municipal Act of Ontario. Unfortunately, the Act gives councils considerable leeway in choosing which selection method to use. Councillor Merlihan advised his fellow councillors that the quickest, least expensive, and least disruptive choice acceptable according to the Municipal Act and in his opinion most democratic was for Woolwich Council to indeed appoint the first runner-up, Dr. Holt, who had already advised that he was willing and available. Apparently Woolwich Councillors had absolutely no intention of doing what was most democratic or most fair. They decided by vote of three to two to go through a two month, expensive, and time-wasting formal Application process. While this decision was a poor one, it paled in comparison to council’s complete disregard and disrespect both for its own process but also for the ten applicants who followed the process in good faith. To say that this council lacked any shred of decency, fair play, or respect of due process became obvious to all who followed this disgusting and contemptible sham.<br /><br />The Waterloo Region Record carried an opinion piece by Luisa D’Amato titled, “In Woolwich a vacant council seat exposes bitter divisions.” Ms. D’Amato quoted Mayor Shantz as suggesting that there is a learning curve to becoming a councillor. Dr. Holt rather dryly advised that his having a PhD pretty much validates his ability to learn and quickly. Mayor Shantz suggested that she owes it to other interested candidates including former councillor Julie-Anne Herteis to open up the application process. Ms. D’Amato of the Record also quoted Richard Clausi who stated that “There is a lot of bad blood that revolves around the environmental problems we have here."217 That was the gist of it as Sandy Shantz had no intentions, after slandering Dr. Holt less than three years earlier, to have Dr. Holt then sit on council with her.<br /><br />The February 1, 2018 Woolwich Observer carried both a cartoon showing a Kool Aid jug present during council discussions as well as an editorial titled, “Put public first in filling council seat."218 The cartoon with the Kool Aid jug is, of course referencing the poisoned Kool Aid used in the Jonestown mass suicides and massacre. The editorial writer advises readers that involved citizens with a true desire to further the public interest need only apply. The writer suggests that those “inside the bubble” such as staff have different priorities than the elected councillors. Or at least councillors should be looking at the big picture and not agreeing to spending that does little for the public while satisfying administrative needs and program spending only. The Observer’s editorial makes it clear that a new councillor must be careful not to be co-opted by the entrenched system in place.<br /><br />On February 8, 2018, the Woolwich Observer published an editorial titled “Vacancy gambit means council has to deliver.” Councillors did no such thing. The “vacancy gambit” consisted of two councillors, Murray Martin and Larry Shantz, in concert with pretend Mayor Sandy Shantz, spouting platitudes about “due consideration” and “keeping options open.” As the title of the editorial states filling the vacant councillor’s position was nothing but a gambit. The editorial states that the most democratic decision would have been appointing Dr. Dan Holt so that 1,036 Woolwich citizens would choose Dr. Holt rather than five councillors doing the choosing. In fact it was the same three: Martin, and the two distantly related Shantzs who ended up eventually choosing Julie-Anne Herteis for the vacant council seat.219<br /><br />In this same edition of the Woolwich Observer its cartoonist “Arnold,” had his cartoon published titled “Big Brother Woolwich.” The five councillors are seated exactly as they voted, across from each other, with Murray Martin saying “I sure know who I don’t want in our house” and Sandy Shantz stating, “We’ve got to stick together on this one.” The caption at the bottom says “First there was Big Brother. Then Big Brother Canada. Now the finest in reality TV comes to Woolwich in the selection of a new member of the household…” The nearly ubiquitous Kool-Aid jug is also in the cartoon and the meaning of the cartoon is crystal clear: Three members of Woolwich Council will pick the replacement for Scott Hahn, not based upon merit or the voters’ wishes, but upon their personal comfort level with sitting with the individual over the next eight months.220<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fc8l_WpHBvo/XZ8TpGCABHI/AAAAAAAAAN0/GXtiMogd0rACIdFYSbZFppRHk0OEm5QOACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/bigbrothwoolwich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fc8l_WpHBvo/XZ8TpGCABHI/AAAAAAAAAN0/GXtiMogd0rACIdFYSbZFppRHk0OEm5QOACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/bigbrothwoolwich.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />The process was a horror show! It wasn’t even well orchestrated and orchestrated it was. Most of the other eight applicants who went to the trouble of applying in writing, attending a council meeting, and then speaking for ten minutes made no attempt to throw their names in the ring for the municipal election eight months later. All these excellent candidates learned as I had that local politics in Woolwich is all smoke and mirrors. The Council was a self-entitled clique focused on maintaining the status quo and not rocking the boat. Dr. Holt was way too honest and decent for their likes combined with commitment and strong character. They couldn’t baffle him nor could they intimidate him. Councillors were incensed when simple Todd Cowan won the mayor’s chair over Bill Strauss and Pat McLean so they sure as heck weren’t even going to open the door a crack for Dr. Holt. A couple of them might even have been embarrassed after council’s tacit and explicit libeling of Dr. Holt’s character and skills from three years earlier, followed by his publicly humbling the pack of them in 2016. Having to serve with him even for eight months on council would be way too close to eating crow for them, and the electorate be damned.<br /><br />In mid- February the Observer published an article titled, “Woolwich sets out process for filling vacant council seat” and on March 1, 2018 an article titled, “Woolwich picks former councillor to fill vacant seat.” Steve Kannon of the Observer states: “Herteis was selected by the five remaining councillors from among ten candidates at a special Woolwich council session Tuesday night, winning three of five votes cast on the first ballot. The other two votes went to Dan Holt, the first runner-up in the 2014 municipal election. The voting process lasted only minutes in what appeared to be an orchestrated effort that placed Herteis’ experience above all other considerations. Eight of the nine candidates who had previously made written applications outlining their bids for the seat, made pitches to councillors who listened but asked no questions of any of them."221 “Afterwards, Holt said he wasn’t surprised by the outcome.” “It was pretty obvious what was going to happen."222 Frankly I believe that while the Observer were 100% accurate about the appointment being orchestrated they gave council the benefit of the doubt in suggesting that the appointment was based upon Herteis’ “experience.” What a joke. Regardless of her personal attributes, she was an embarrassment on the 2010-2014 council due to her inexperience and inabilities. I with others suggest that council simply wanted a seat filler who would not rock the boat and would be duly appreciative of the salary to be banked while not reading the reports or doing due diligence. The council split was the same from the first of the month when councillors Merlihan and Bauman favoured appointing Dr. Dan Holt to the position.<br /><br />A few weeks later, I was advised face to face by a person with direct access to Woolwich councillors, that indeed the process was exactly as grotesque as it appeared to be to the public present at the penultimate council meeting. Eight educated, intelligent, and experienced applicants delivered carefully prepared and professionally presented delegations to Woolwich Council. While admitting the decency of at least one of the council members, in my opinion none of them could hold a candle to the qualifications for office that these serious applicants had. It was embarrassing to me that three of the five idiots on council should ever be in a position to judge those far more qualified and likely more honest than they could ever hope to be. Then Ms. Herteis spoke. It was pathetic. She stated that she was a former councillor as the current council members knew. She stated that she did not have a university degree but she did have “experience.” She did not appear to have a prepared speech or notes and it showed. The only thing she failed to say was that Sandy and council had already rubberstamped her for the opening occasioned by Scott Hahn’s resignation.<br /><br />The Woolwich person involved was working in the performance of their duties when we had the heart to heart talk. No commitments were made by me beforehand although the person involved tried to invoke them after the fact. This person’s words and meaning were crystal clear. Three council members had decided unequivocally that they were going to give the vacancy on council to Julie-Anne Herteis prior to even listening to any of the other applicants who were to speak at the upcoming council meeting. These three council members did so on the first ballot despite Julie-Anne’s pathetic, yet completely confident in the results, presentation. She knew, council knew, and those in attendance that evening figured it out nearly instantly. Those three councillors namely Shantz, Shantz, and Martin were disrespectful of the public, the applicants, the process, and the Township itself. Frankly, to my mind they brought the administration of Woolwich Township into gross disrepute. They were beyond shameful. Was Mr. Flip Flop, Mark Bauman, part of the orchestration despite voting for Dr. Holt? Very difficult to say although nothing surprises me anymore.<br /><br />Lanxess Show Their Colours<br /><br />Lanxess purchased Chemtura Canada in 2017. By this time, Jeff Merriman, Environmental Remediation Manager of Chemtura had been interviewed by Bonita Wagler and Michael Heitmann for their documentary. The Woolwich Observer published an article in February 2018 regarding Lanxess management who rescinded their permission for these two film makers to use either Mr. Merriman’s statements or for the film makers to use any footage that they had done on the Chemtura site. It was a nasty and devastating blow. It was also unnecessary. The Documentary titled “Grand Illusion” as well as the predicament of Ms. Wagler and Mr. Heitmann was also described in a story in late November 2018 in the Waterloo Region Record.223<br /><br />Having seen an early draft of the documentary I was actually impressed with how prominent a role was given to Mr. Merriman as he defended quite well the Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura and eventually Lanxess’s role in the whole cleanup process. Yes other individuals were also interviewed for this documentary that had opposing views such as me, Dr. Richard Jackson, Dr. Dan Holt and others. Nevertheless I found the story the filmmakers presented was balanced and no one had as much single input as Jeff Merriman who completely defended his employer whole-heartedly and professionally. I suggest that the last minute backing out by Lanxess will do them far more public relations harm than anything said by their harshest critics in the documentary.<br /><br />The years 2017 and 2018 were important ones in the Uniroyal Chemical saga. Plans are in place for the long term burial of “sinks” of persistent organic pollutants on the off-site east side of Lanxess Canada, on the Stroh and possibly Martin farms. The Elmira by-pass and highway will likely and eventually be routed through these two farms. Woolwich Township Councillors once again did their image and reputation no good with their blatant and amateur hour appointing of a councillor to replace Scott Hahn. For political observers, it was shocking as was the October 2018 municipal election. More games are played in the next chapter in regards to the proposed cleanup of the Canagagigue Creek and its’ unfortunately accompanying Site Specific Risk Assessment (SSRA).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ENDNOTES for Chapter 24<br /><br />215 Brent Davis, “Lanxess pledges to carry on cleanup at Chemtura site”, Waterloo Region Record, April 22, 2017, p.D18.<br /><br />216 Steve Kannon, “Elevated methane levels at former Elmira landfill don’t extend to nearby Residents”, Woolwich Observer, August 4, 2017<br /><br />217 Luisa D’Amato, “In Woolwich, a vacant council seat exposes bitter divisions”, Waterloo RegionRecord, February 2, 2018<br /><br />218 Editorial, “Put public first in filling vacant council seat”, Woolwich Observer, February 1, 2018<br /><br />219 Editorial, “Vacancy gambit means council has to deliver”, Woolwich Observer, February 8, 2018<br /><br />220 Scott Arnold, “Big Brother Woolwich”, Woolwich Observer, February 8, 2018<br /><br />221 Steve Kannon, “Woolwich picks former councillor to fill vacant seat”, Woolwich Observer,March 1, 2018<br /><br />222 Ibid.<br /><br />223 James Jackson, “Elmira water documentaries in limbo”, Waterloo Region Record, November 29, 2018<br /></div>Alan Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03086839087679958516noreply@blogger.com0