ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL

 

ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS



Chapter Seventeen:

Pg.

140.......Recriminations

141.......Calm Before the Storm

142.......The Manufactured Crisis






CHAPTER 17

Recriminations

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Calm Before the Storm

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.

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.

The Manufactured Crisis

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.





ENDNOTES for Chapter 17

142 Gail Martin, “Ministry censured by CPAC”, Elmira Independent, October 3, 2014

143 Gail Martin, “Council pushes for action on Chemtura cleanup”, Elmira Independent, October17, 2014


144 Steve Kannon, “Woolwich backs call for action on Chemtura contaminants”, Woolwich Observer, October 18, 2014


145 Gail Martin, “Shantz meets with CPAC to resolve impasse”, Elmira Independent, February 6, 2015