POLITICIANS ARE INHERENTLY TRUTH CHALLENGED

This title should also include high level bureaucrats. How high? Well in my mind I've started to think of George Karlos of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.) as number 78. That was his salary ranking last year at the M.O.E.. He is a recent guilty party involved in bantering, bafflegabbing and gross misleading of citizens. Then we have our local mayor. He misrepresented the position of these same citizens who are volunteer members of the Chemtura (formerly Uniroyal) Public Advisory Committee. Last summer at a General Membership Meeting of the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) he not only allowed a GRCA staffer (B. Brown) to misrepresent CPAC's position regarding a mickey mouse cleanup of Dioxins and DDT from Chemtura's south-east corner, but he contributed to it. Next this very same mayor (Todd Cowan) turns around and does the right thing by providing a memo from the Region of Waterloo's Waste Management Division to the Chair of CPAC (Dr. Dan Holt) who as I would have expected did the right thing by providing it to CPAC & SWAT (soil, water, air, technical). This memo advises us that the Region shut down a local drinking well just north of Elmira due to an industrial contaminant (1,1 DCA) in 2012 and are going to shut down two more this summer.

Back to George Karlos. He and the M.O.E. were asked by a local activist/citizen two years ago about the possibility of surface water or liquid contaminants ever having left the Uniroyal/Chemtura site and ending up in or near a nearby Mennonite swimming pond. George and fellow travellors emphatically said there was no such pathway. Not believing George to be stupid I believe therefore that that was a blatant lie. If I'm wrong then he's merely stupid and or uninformed. Regarding B. Brown at the GRCA meeting last summer perhaps this person is corrupt or perhaps merely grossly naive. Maybe they had asked the question of Chemtura or their consultants who were present and she simply repeated the lie told to her. Todd in the past has been described to me as a person who doesn't lie, he simply tells people what they want to hear. Well! Regarding the memo from the Region it is filled with assumptions, inferences and overall slick stickhandling around the truth. The former Woolwich landfill was closed in 1986 but even before it was closed there were contaminant plumes emanating from it. The landfill is just north of an area on the outskirts of Elmira known as the sandhills. What a just dandy place to locate a landfill that contrary to reports was used for industrial liquid wastes. The organic chemicals in the plume include phenolics, aromatics and chlorinated solvents. The Region's memo of course overlooks all this bad news and talks about low level dichloroethane not being a health hazard and all the usual buzzwords and bullshit. Thirty years ago it was known that nearby drinking wells were at risk but why bother doing anything until after the folks are drinking this crap?