GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE TO INDUSTRY

The above title refers to the obscenity occurring currently in Elmira, Ontario. The industry is Chemtura, formerly known as Uniroyal Chemical. They have generously shared their toxic wastes with Elmira as well as downstream communitys for decades. I have generally avoided posting on environmental issues here as I do so elsewhere. This partnership and crawling into bed together is however too blatant, self serving and contemptible not to.

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment are in the business of coddling polluters and running interference for them. Sometimes this direct government assistance to industry is subtle and sometimes not. Most recently in Elmira it's not. Chemtura and their paid consultants are trying to justify a pretend cleanup of Dioxins and DDT on the south-east corner of their site, right beside the Canagagigue Creek. They claim that these toxins are immobile. Yes they are in the natural environment, namely the soil but that's O.K. because nobody has tested downstream in the creek for over a decade to see if they are still moving off-site. Yes I said "still moving". It was determined over a decade ago that these compounds had been mobilized and they were found downstream several miles in the floodplain of the Canagagigue Creek.

The polluters' best friend, the Ontario M.O.E., are willing to take Chemtura's word that after a cleanup a few years ago, upstream from the south-east corner, that any remaining Dioxins and DDT will not be mobilized and move downstream. This hope is actually more of a fantasy. Neither the M.O.E., Chemtura or their comsultants have provided a lick of evidence to support that theory. Their current plans are to scrape one foot of soil off the top of one of two former gravel pits that acted as the end point for toxic liquid drainage. They would then cap the rest with a synthetic liner. Elmira citizens, the public advisory committee (CPAC) and Woolwich Council are all opposed. Chemtura, their consultants CRA and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment are on board. Without M.O.E. support Chemtura would be in an untenable position. Here is a classic case of a democratic government supporting the unsupportable and incomprehensible. Thank you very much Ontario.