WHY DOES THE SCIENCE GET DONE AFTER THE FACT?

The likely answer is money. Money and politics that is. Industry that produces pesticides and herbicides do their own research and guess what: it's not always the best science. Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Scientists find bees that nest in soil exposed to deadly pesticides". Honey bees have been well studied due to the negative effects upon them by viruses as well as by neonicotonoid pesticides. The University of Guelph are now studying the effects of pesticides on bees that nest in the ground which encompasses more than 400 bee species in Ontario. The news is not good to date in those studies.

The past focus has been on honey bees probably due to the bee losses over many years and the accompanying honey losses. Now the University of Guelph are finding that bees which feed on the nectar and pollen as well as help pollinate squash, pumpkin, gourds and melons are being exposed in the soil to lethal concentrations of pesticides sprayed on these crops.

Self-monitoring and self-regulation in industry has been a failure environmentally across North America. The whole purpose of pollution is to externalize business waste disposal costs upon the public via the cheapest discharges possible to the natural environment. This includes air, surface water, groundwater and direct soil discharges of toxic wastes as well. Hell human beings even dump directly into the oceans when they can get away with it. Our governments are there to protect us from these bad apple and or rogue industries yet far too often governments turn a blind eye to industry transgressions for a multitude of reasons. The recent SNC-Lavallin case is but one example of a corporate body both breaking the laws (bribery of foreign governments) with impunity as well as lobbying their own government to change the rules/laws for their direct benefit (deferred prosecution/remediation agreements).

POLITICOS SPEND THEIR CAREERS COVERING UP THEIR MISTAKES & FAILURES

Most of us everyday citizens, that is non-politicians or government bureaucrats, figure that once the cat is out of the bag, then forget lying and covering up. Not politicians and their ilk. They are hard wired to always gild the lily or put the best face on unfortunate or negative events that reflect badly on them. One obvious example is Uniroyal Chemical and the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis. Uniroyal's waste disposal methods were beyond primitive and third world like until around 1968-1970. They destroyed the local creek, polluted the Grand River, and destroyed the Elmira drinking water aquifers. I say destroyed because thirty years later we are still waiting for their "restoration" with the latest estimates being another thirty years. I'll believe that "restoration" when I see it and I'm within a whisker of being seventy years old.

Part of the public exposure through the 1990s of the self-serving and dishonest behaviour of Uniroyal Chemical also reflects upon our Ministry of Errors and Excuses when it was known as the MOEE. The behaviour that I am referring to is ongoing public statements (i.e. lies) by the Ministry of Environment (currently known as MECP) in the 1970s and 80s that everything was fine, under control, and that the Elmira drinking wells were protected. Uniroyal when asked then and now like to use the MOE/MECP as a shield. Oh they say we do as we are told by the MOE. They are fair but firm. Uniroyal and successors have always known that this crap they have been espousing is exactly that, namely crap. They have consistently pressured, threatened, and intimidated the Ontario MOE constantly looking for concessions, exceptions, and relief from onerous environmental interpretations of the law.

Then we have the Walkerton crisis in 2000. Same thing all over again except this time it was Walkerton's council and staff who messed up along with the typical incompetence demonstrated by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. They couldn't find their own butts in a snowstorm much less find serious environmental infractions and if they do find them rest assured they will go nowhere until there is a crisis. This folks is what happens when the politicians at the top (provincial and municipal) are always in coverup mode and their attitude of ignoring and covering up serious problems permeates downwards through the ranks. I sometimes wonder if those that get promoted in the MOE are essentially yes men and women and those who are forthright and honest get career sidetracked into positions where their honesty cannot harm those in charge.

Again the Varnicolor Chemical scandal which is ongoing to this day. Full coverup mode even thirty years later and after the owner actually got sent to jail with an eight month sentence. The company were an illegal toxic liquid dumping organization who were protected by the MOE both before and after I and others publicly exposed the company. Even today the MOE will not release to the public documents pertaining to this site and its ongoing remediation over the last twenty-five years. Why would they when both they and provincial politicians would rather this embarrassment go the route of all the others.

In Cambridge we had the Northstar Aerospace disaster. Hundreds of homes and occupants in the Bishop St. community inhaled trichloroethylene (TCE) and Trichloroethane (TCA) fumes for decades due to vapour intrusion courtesy of Northstar and another commercial neighbour. Allegedly the MOE inspected this site and missed everything going on throughout this period. Or the inspectors simply didn't want to rock the boat. Were their job reviews based upon finding environmental infractions or perhaps just the opposite? Clearly the system is rotten.

Politicians, government ministries, and accompanying bureaucrats rely on the short attention span of citizens. Most of us are focusing on our every day lives including jobs and families and health. We pay through the nose for government services and far too often get poorly served by them. These politicians and governments have our money and busy lives to hide behind. They become experts at puffery and bull.... . Each and every failure is chalked up to a one time exception or "slipping through the cracks". They will claim that their agencies are "world class". That is their puffery and bull.... in action. Systemic failures will not be admitted to. When pressed they use their financial might (paid for by you) to use the courts to support them and harass citizens. That is the unfortunate behaviour of some school boards among other agencies.

The last brief coverup of past failures I will mention is the last Woolwich Council's behaviour to hide their failure to properly oversee and supervise the potentially explosive methane issues in and around Bolender Park in Elmira, Ontario. The methane originates from the Bolender Landfill, possibly due north of the Park although far from proven not to include parts of the park itself. The last council continue to hide behind their consultants Conestoga Rovers and their successors GHD. This includes denying everything while actually beginning to take some appropriate steps to make up for their benign neglect for decades. Council either denied the lack of regular and ongoing monitoring as well as denying the failure to monitor the entire perimeter of the former landfill. Even their failure to determine the exact location of the entire landfill is mind boggling. They appear to prefer to be ignorant in order to maintain their plausible deniability if it turns out that citizens and children are playing above methane infused garbage. It is also their refusal to provide honest communications with citizens asking hard questions that is so disgraceful. Rest assured if the worse happens that they will suddenly discover the hard way that coverups are not in the public interest.

All in all the behaviour of unaccountable and morally suspect politicians.