POLICE MAKING SWEETHEART DEALS WITH CRIMINALS

Now if they did that and got caught there would hopefully be criminal charges laid against the Police. October 7, 1991 a sweetheart deal was consumated between Uniroyal Chemical and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Some have called the M.O.E. our environmental police. To date I have not had much to say about the M.O.E. here on this blog. Today will be the exception.

Many environmental activists were born in Elmira, Ontario after the drinking wells were shut down due to industrial contamination in 1989. Some literally have passed on since then, others have retired from activism and a very few of us keep soldiering on. About five weeks ago a document surfaced known as the Settlement Agreement. This agreement between Uniroyal, now known as Chemtura, and the Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) is only partially a description of the proposed cleanup of the Uniroyal/Chemtura site in Elmira. More than that it is a complete legal and financial Release (Indemnity) from all liabilty for contaminated soil and groundwater on Uniroyal's site. This Release does specify that Uniroyal/Chemtura are only indemnified for known contamination as of October 1991.

The hypocrisy in this document is overwhelming. It was kept secret from the public for over twenty years. It was written and signed while an Environmental Appeal Board hearing was underway trying to determine who was responsible for the cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers. There were six parties to this hearing yet two of them (M.O.E. & Uniroyal) managed with their sweetheart agreement to shut it down. After the Appeal Board left; the M.O.E. through Woolwich Township stated that they wanted the public involved in discussions and consultation around the various options and choices that could be used to clean both the Uniroyal site and the Elmira Aquifers. The M.O.E. didn't bother to advise the Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee that the cleanup was already a done deal. They didn't bother to advise that Uniroyal Chemical had a legal Indemnity and that they couldn't be forced into doing one thing more than was listed in the Settlement Agreement. My estimate is that Uniroyal/Chemtura literally saved hundreds of millions of dollars with this agreement. The M.O.E. saved face by not having evidence of all the other unsupervised polluters brought forth in glorious detail at the Environmental Appeal Board hearing. The public got lied to, deceived and manipulated.

One of the biggest issues was around a class of chemicals known as DNAPLS or dense non-aqueous phase liquids. These are in the subsurface in many areas on the Uniroyal site and are and were contributing to the destruction of the municipal drinking water aquifer. They were known to be present beneath the west side operating ponds at Uniroyal. This Settlement Agreement(sweetheart deal) effectively removed them surrepticiously from any kind of a cleanup . We literally have had twenty years of various DNAPL investigations all of which were shams. The M.O.E. and Uniroyal/Chemtura working together undermined any and all attempts to legitimately investigate and report on this class of chemical compounds. Now they've been found out and to date they've gone to their standard defence which is obfuscation and muddying of the waters. There will be a debate/discussion at the first public CPAC meeting in four months. That will occur on Thursday March 29/12, 6 pm. in Woolwich Council Chambers. This whole Alleged cleanup has always been more political than environmental. The guilty parties and their political supporters have and continue to run interference for them.