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 Fifteen:

Pg.

126.......Chemtura and MOE: World Class Scammers

128.......The Stroh Drain

130.......CRA Topographical Map

132.......Reinstatement or Not







Chapter 15

Chemtura and MOE: World Class Scammers

I have to express my admiration for the persistence and the discipline of Chemtura and MOE staff to maintain their cover over decades. Both organizations have been caught in some extraordinary lies, deceptions, and brazen attempts in Elmira to deceive the public, and yet they continue with their public posturing. Once again I must constantly remind myself that there is almost no length to which these two parties will not go in order to promote themselves, save money, or even discredit legitimate opposition to their reign of terror in Elmira, Ontario. The persona for Chemtura is one of a responsible, concerned, corporate citizen with a conscience. The MOE’s persona is of dedicated officials who act in to the public’s interest, a provincial ministry doing its utmost to protect both the natural environment and all life in it. Their efforts have paid off with citizens who do not pay close attention to the issues. Those few of us who have paid serious attention for years, know the truth.

The March 7, 2013 Elmira Independent reported on a discussion at CPAC regarding two former gravel pits on Chemtura’s south-east corner. In the Independent article, Sebastian, Richard, myself, and Susanna Meteer were all quoted.138 Ms. Meteer, somewhat to my consternation, had seemed to appear out of nowhere at a CPAC meeting in 2013 advising us that she had been appointed to CPAC by Woolwich Council. As I was only a SWAT sub-committee member I did not question this appointment but should have. I have long learned the hard way that rules and procedures involving Woolwich Township are at the whim of the winners of the most recent election. CPAC members had also had a person appointed to replace Corrine Shuh as the CPAC secretary. Ostensibly CPAC and SWAT members had input into the decision because we did interview Lisa Schaefer prior to her starting her duties as secretary. I was advised later, however, that Lisa was a done deal and our “interview” was merely a formality. The joys of being a committee member of a municipal council.

CPAC and SWAT members found the discussions and debates around the former gravel pits known as GP-1 and GP-2 to be somewhat peculiar. First, members of past UPACs and CPACs had long been advised that these two gravel pits were the recipients of extensive overland flow of contaminated water originating from the five east-side buried pits known as retention pit east (RPE) one through five (1-5). For some of members including me who had been on the Chemtura property and land adjacent to it, it was obvious that the highest ground elevation on the site was in the north-east corner. Even from a few hundred metres or more away from the site, that elevated land was obvious. Citizens over the decades had also seen maps showing swampy areas and wetlands in the south-east corner of the Uniroyal/Chemtura property. Therefore,the confirmation from Uniroyal/Chemtura seemed logical to us when we were advised that overflowing east side pits flowed both west and downhill towards the creek and also due south and downhill into the two former, low lying gravel pits known as GP-1 and 2.

Chemtura claimed to be voluntarily doing an on-site cleanup that was needed, requested and relatively expensive. Remember CPAC had submitted the July 2003 Request For Action to all parties attending CPAC. Among considerable other on-site remediation, CPAC had specifically requested the excavation and removal of these two pits. The reason was that CPAC members had Crompton’s sampling results for dioxins/furans and DDT from multiple sites within these two gravel pits. These results were part of the early 2000 efforts toward both a Human Health Risk Assessment of the Uniroyal/Crompton site as well as an Ecological Risk Assessment of the site. While GP-1 had more exceedances of soil criteria then GP-2 for these chemicals, nevertheless CPAC and SWAT members believed that any and all exceedances had to be removed. In addition to the July 2003 written request for on-site source removal of contaminants, these CPAC members had been pushing Chemtura and the MOE for on-site source removal since 2012 and CPAC’s resolution advised that hydraulic containment on its’ own was inadequate. This pressure was ongoing from 2012 throughout early 2013. Chemtura management were much less enthusiastic about doing that much excavation.

Chemtura representatives initially stated that they were only going to cap the two gravel pits rather than do any excavation whatsoever. This intention drew ridicule and criticism from CPAC members and from the occasional appearance of either Pat McLean or Susan Bryant in the gallery. Dioxins simply were far too toxic to all forms of life simply to be buried beneath a foot or so of soil that would presumably limit surface soil erosion during flood events. Their second proposal was better although still inadequate to most CPAC members and SWAT. Once again it appeared as if Susanna Meteer was overly concerned with the impression she was giving the MOE. While her efforts on CPAC were appreciated, I could see early on that she was uncomfortable sometimes with strong disagreements of fact and opinion involving the MOE. I was not terribly surprised when she departed CPAC as suddenly as she had appeared. The second proposal was for partial excavation of some of the worst spots in GP-1, within the top foot, and then capping with soil and vegetation for both former gravel pits.

CPAC and SWAT’s long-held belief that these two pits were the recipients of extensive overland flow of contaminated water initially was a result of the information having been presented from Uniroyal and its consultants, CRA. Members had reports such as the CRA 1991 Environmental Audit and others that suggested the east side pits often overflowed during the decades they had been in operation. Two pipelines crossed the Creek carrying toxic liquid wastes from the production processes on the west side to the pits on the east side. As per a report completed by the MOE and GRCA in 1985, titled, “A History of Uniroyal Waste Management at Elmira,” CPAC members learned that 165,000 Imperial gallons per day of these toxic wastewaters were sent across the creek in the 1960s. Using 165,000 gallons per day over a five and a half day work week (with overtime) one extrapolates that close to one million gallons of grossly contaminated water per week was pumped into these east side ponds. The ponds were neither covered nor did they have any kind of liner beneath them. The idea was that they would soak into the ground and that there would be a certain amount of evaporation into the air. Suggestions or excuses have been made to the effect that Uniroyal hoped that the clay in the soil would help neutralize the acids in some of the waste products. Uniroyal had indeed essentially dumped directly into the Creek via overflowing ponds on the west side situated immediately beside the Creek in the floodplain. On the east side, there seemed to be an attempt to use the earth as a filter prior to the contaminated waters and solvents eventually getting into the Creek via groundwater.

Of course, however much might evaporate and or soak into the ground was pretty much irrelevant on rainy days. Think about it. That volume of 165,000 gallons per day was being pumped into a couple of these pits while it rained. It’s far more likely that the rain added to the depth of liquids in the pit rather than the levels decreasing by slowly draining out the bottom. Jeff Merriman, Chemtura environmental engineer, advised CPAC at this time that furrows had been ploughed in a north-south direction to assist with the drainage into the two gravel pits. Two events conspired to add to the overwhelming evidence to date of the willingness of Uniroyal and their corporate successors to gild the lily unmercifully. The one had to do with detailed information and data that the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) likely required Chemtura to provide prior to the remediation of the two gravel pits. Both GP-1 and GP-2 were located in the floodplain of the Canagagigue Creek, and hence, the GRCA had authority and its approval was required prior to any work being done. Therefore, detailed maps of all factors such as vegetation, elevation, and types and numbers of trees were all required by CRA to provide to the GRCA.

The second event was even more unlikely. In early 2014 a private Documentary producer (Merit Motion Pictures) contacted me for both technical information as well as advice regarding possible locations around the property for film shooting. Hence, I was out and about with a private property owner’s permission, scouting possible locations when I made a totally unexpected and astounding discovery.

Remember that I had lived in Woolwich Township since 1993 and in Elmira since 2002, and while I had a pretty good idea of the locale and terrain, Uniroyal was completely surrounded by private property except at their north end where Church Street was the northern border of their property. Furthermore I had been looking at photographs and maps of the Uniroyal/Chemtura site from 1991 until this scouting excursion in 2014. What I found in addition to these filming locations was shocking and stunning to me, the instant I saw it. We will come back to these two events shortly.

The remediation of the two former gravel pits, GP-1 and GP-2, was completed in October 2013 or so we all thought. Surprisingly, Chemtura decided that there was significant contamination in GP-1 just a little deeper than the one- foot depth that they had proposed excavating. In fact, staff actually excavated near the north end of GP-1 to a depth of two metres! This area was approximately fifty metres in length and fifteen metres in width. Interestingly it ran in a north to south direction to an area that often had standing water. This standing water was groundwater exposed at the ground surface. As surprising as that was, it turned out come the following summer and fall that three supplementary excavations were required based on late lab results showing areas after remediation that were still above the MOE’s criteria for dioxins/furans and DDT. These three areas were much smaller and were arranged in a semi-circle around the deeper, two- metre excavated area. One supplementary area was on the west side, one on the east, and the final one was due south located in the area of very low elevation with standing water during high groundwater periods. All three of these supplementary areas were also excavated at greater depths than the original one foot- depth Chemtura wanted.

It seems clear to me that while Chemtura representatives virtually refused to ever admit that dioxins/furans and DDT could possibly be transported deeper into the ground than six inches to a foot in depth, their actions spoke much louder than their words. Presumably, the MOE were on-site during this remediation and pointed out these deeper contaminated areas causing Chemtura to excavate them on some sort of “without prejudice” basis. Sure enough, a few more years down the road and now Lanxess, the new owners, were again piously and with extreme poo poo del toro advising the public consultation bodies and the public that dioxins/furans and DDT are hydrophobic and bind strongly with soils, thus they won’t ever be found deeper than fifteen centimetres (5.9 inches). Such rubbish!

There were some logical inconsistencies going on with GP-1 and GP-2 above and beyond the much deeper excavations required near the north end of GP-1 that I hadn’t yet figured out. It made general sense to me that as the overland flow of toxic waste waters from the overflowing buried pits moved southwards, that the north end of GP-1, which was the closest to the incoming flow, would be affected most severely. This overland flow CPAC and SWAT members were advised was allegedly due to furrows being intentionally ploughed into the ground to assist the southwards flow to GP-1 and GP-2. However, based on the likely volumes of these wastewaters, something still didn’t add up for me.

Meanwhile, about this time in the summer of 2013 at a CPAC meeting Susan Bryant raised a question she directed to MOE officials. Keep in mind that this Woolwich Council of November 2010 to November 2014 and this CPAC embraced both questions and delegations from the public during the regular, monthly CPAC meetings. Susan Bryant had looked at an old photograph of the south-east corner of Uniroyal, provided by CRA in one of its reports describing the proposed remediation of GP-1 and GP-2. Ms. Bryant stated there appeared to be some sort of open, flat area shaped like a curve from Chemtura’s south-east side over to the neighbour’s property. She asked if this area was some sort of pathway from Chemtura onto the neighbour’s property. MOE Assistant Director George Karlos stated that it was not. He went into some detail about how he himself had walked from the south-east side of Chemtura across this area and onto the neighbour’s property owned by Mr. Stroh. Mr. Karlos did not go into great detail as to his motivation or reason for doing so but he was very clear that he had walked this area and that absolutely there was no pathway of any kind that could transport contaminants from the Uniroyal/Chemtura property, south-east onto the Stroh farm. Well, that was certainly unequivocal and reassuring. Thank you Mr. George Karlos . Your emphatic assertion will soon be undermined quite well.

You see, there was a tiny problem with Mr. Karlos’s public reassurances to CPAC, SWAT, the media, and the public. They were false. I return now to the two events of the drainage map within CRA reports for the GRCA regarding GP-1 and GP-2 and my discovery as I looked for filming locations for the CBC documentary. When on my location walkabout I had made a totally unexpected and astounding discovery, which I instantly recognized as significant.

The Stroh Drain

I had talked in early summer of 2014 to Mr. Stroh about his family property on the east side of Chemtura when looking for filming locations. His main concern was that any shots would be of the Chemtura property and not of his. Therefore, I drove my car into the laneway from Church Street (highway # 86) southward toward the turnoff westward heading toward the Chemtura site. I parked the car and walked a little. I saw what appeared to be a wet, low lying area on the north side of the gravel laneway where I had parked. Next, I noticed that the wetland area was in fact slowly draining southwards through a culvert under the road. Then I saw the rest of it. It wasn’t just groundwater from a spring. It was a stream flowing into the wetland area from further north, through the culvert under the road, and discharging into a well-defined creek bed that flowed southwards.

“What, you may ask, is the big deal?” The big deal is that I’d spent the previous twenty-two years reading every single technical report, map, viewing photographs, legal documents, and affidavits that I could get my hands on. I’d studied, discussed, and debated both ground and surface water flowing into, out of, and in and around the Uniroyal Chemical site for over two decades and NOWHERE had a running stream of water ever been identified on the east side, right beside that grossly contaminated toxic waste site.

I was stunned. I was shocked. I was apoplectic with anger.

I and other Woolwich Township citizens had been given the run around for decades by multiple Uniroyal representatives, engineering consultants and MOE representatives. We’d been lied to blatantly. We’d been lied to both by commission and omission and we had been told that we should trust their information, that they were the experts implying that at best we had become informed well enough to discuss issues but lacked expertise to make sound decisions. We’d been sold junk science and self-serving opinions and wishful thinking as if they were pearls of wisdom from on high. For over two decades we had been told repeatedly and consistently that the contaminants in Uniroyal’s various on-site waste disposal areas had flowed towards the Canagagigue Creek that ran down the middle of the Uniroyal site or polluting chemicals had infiltrated much deeper into the ground where they had contaminated the municipal aquifer, which naturally flows south-west toward the south wellfield.

Citizens had also been told in no uncertain terms that no ground or surface water flowed east from the Uniroyal site. Whether related to the surficial aquifer in their north-east corner or the Upper Aquifer just south of it, we had been told verbally and in writing that everything flowed either westwards or southwards from the eastern boundary.

So where in heck was this stream coming from? Since 2013 I had been recuperating from having received an artificial hip. Although the new hip felt fine it had not done anything for my loudly protesting knees. Despite these physical challenges I went for a little further walk upstream. It shocked me how close that the stream was to the Uniroyal/Chemtura property. I would estimate that the stream was approximately sixty feet or twenty metres from its fenced property line and soon realized that it was likely man-made. It was narrow (ten to twenty feet wide), straight, and appeared to be several feet deeper than the stream discharging on the south side of the gravel laneway. Despite finding a large, dead beaver that later Councillor Mark Bauman suggested had died from “lead poisoning,” I had not yet figured out that the beaver had partially blocked the culvert under the road in order to expand its pond on the north side of the laneway. I named this so-called stream the “Stroh Drain.” I could tell that although man-made it had been there likely for decades based on the height of the trees growing on both sides of its banks. I followed the Stroh Drain northward until I saw an eight-inch galvanized pipe coming out of the ground at least a few feet below grade and discharging into the Stroh Drain. I continued further north, past the Stroh Drain, and shortly emerged from the woods and saw that I was at the south end of the Stroh field that ran from the cemetery on Church Street southward to where I was standing. Clearly, the water coming out the end of the pipe was groundwater; however, at that time I had less of an idea of exactly where it was coming from.

Words from George Karlos kept ringing in my ears: “There is no pathway for contaminant travel from Chemtura’s south-east area over to the two neighbouring properties [Stroh & Martin].” I had enough knowledge and experience to know that both groundwater and surface water divides exist in nature. A divide exists where all surface water on one side of a mountain flows roughly in one direction while all surface water on the other side flows approximately in the opposite direction. At first I didn’t know what my next step was. I was still too shocked by the clear deception and obviously well-kept secret of this surface water drainage so close to the border between the Stroh and Chemtura properties.

I went home and made a couple of phone calls. Dr. Dan Holt, the chair of CPAC, lives just north of and very close to the Chemtura property. Vivienne Delaney, also a CPAC member, lives very close to Chemtura, just west of the site. I advised them of what I had discovered and they both agreed to go out later that evening for a little environmental field trip with me. I didn’t know how keen they were about rough walking but was soon disabused of any worries as they both had no difficulty walking circles around me. Not only did they walk north up to the top of the Stroh Drain but they both followed it in the other direction as it actually became a natural spring-fed stream as it went southward. They saw how this drain/stream approached the Martin swimming pond before turning and going around the pond until it discharged into the Canagagigue Creek. This discharge location was several hundred metres downstream of the Chemtura property. Both Dr. Holt and Ms. Delaney, new to CPAC in 2011 were aware of the significance of this waterway so close to the Chemtura property. They had heard George Karlos of the MOE make his pronouncement of no possible contaminant pathway between Chemtura and the Martin swimming pond nor between Chemtura and the Stroh property. All three of us took photographs during our field trip as we had no doubts as to the significance of what we were seeing. Either Mr. Karlos had not walked through this area as he claimed or he was so incompetent he didn’t know a contaminant pathway when he stared right at one. The third option is much worse: that he knew fully the major implications of what he was looking at and chose to dissemble. Keep in mind but for the permission granted to me from Mr. Stroh I would not have found this waterway and contaminant pathway from the Chemtura property to the Stroh and further south, Martin property. There is absolutely no public road or pedestrian access to this side of the Uniroyal/Chemtura toxic waste site and until now no reason to suspect this waterway/drain existed.

The three of us carefully examined the Stroh Drain along its path northward and parallel to the Chemtura property line. There was a fence along the property line with the occasional sign hanging on it clearly indicating the start of Chemtura’s property. It appeared to me that the original earth dug up for the Stroh Drain had been piled along the east side of it. Although both properties are well-treed, we could see how flat the ground surface was on the west side or Chemtura side. It was also obvious that the Stroh Drain was excavated well below the ground’s surface of both properties, and hence, would readily collect any surface flow of water whether from an elevated water table at the surface or from heavy precipitation or any other source.

CRA Topographical Map

Conestoga Rovers & Associates published and distributed a report titled “Scoped Environmental Impact Study” in May 2013. This report was but one written prior to the physical excavation and remediation of the two former gravel pits, GP-1 and GP-2 that occurred later that summer. This report revealed major evidence of long-term deception and deceit by the partners in pollution, Chemtura, the West Central MOE plus their local fellow travellers. At the back of the report there are a number of pockets for various maps of the site to be stored. I revisited this report and many others in the weeks and months after we made the discovery of the Stroh Drain. I understood that because CPAC and SWAT members were dealing with professional truth spinners and experts in junk science and sleight of hand and mouth that they needed to have facts nailed down solidly. Therefore, among other things, they and I were looking for hard evidence that would prove what seemed obvious to the eye. I wanted to find clear topographical information that would show where the overland flow of water would travel and whether or not flow from Uniroyal Chemical could cross over into the Stroh Drain. Peter Gray of MTE Consulting, hired by CPAC and paid by Woolwich Township actually advised CPAC many months later that this below surface drain, in a former wetland kindly marked by CRA on its map, had also changed the natural direction of groundwater flow. Groundwater just like surface water, flows from higher elevations to lower elevations due to gravity. Once a drain is opened below ground surface, you drain not only surface water but you induce groundwater to flow towards the now lower surface of the water table as well.

In the back of this report in those provided pockets was a map titled “Existing Conditions,” produced by CRA and dated May 17, 2013. It is a topographical map indicating the ground surface elevations in metres above sea level. This map focuses on Chemtura’s south-east side where the two former gravel pits, GP-1 and 2, are located. Besides elevation contour lines, there are areas marked as wetlands, roadways, and treelines as well as fences and monitoring wells. GP-1 and GP-2 are of course also carefully marked. What is not marked is any suggestion whatsoever of the existence of the Stroh Drain despite the fact that this map was produced for the Grand River Conservation Authority for its approval (stated on the back of the map). The GRCA are entitled to insist that any construction work within so many metres of rivers, creeks, streams, and lakes must be examined by them so as to minimize adverse effects upon wetlands and surface and groundwater flowing into the Grand River as the Canagagigue Creek and its tributaries do. This map does not stop directly on either Chemtura’s south border or its eastern border. It extends approximately eighty metres southward and close to one hundred metres eastward showing elevation contours well past the Stroh Drain. Bizarrely, there are spots where there is a half an inch gap or less in the contour lines as they leave the Chemtura property and progress to the Stroh property. A skeptic such as I am might think that that was a pathetic attempt by CRA to discourage anyone from clearly interpreting exactly where the lowest surface elevations are. In fact, they are located on the Stroh property --unsurprisingly-- exactly where the Stroh Drain had been dug. Obviously, this man-made drain had been carefully surveyed beforehand in order to drain both the Stroh and Chemtura properties.

To suggest that the topographical map produced by CRA substantiated what Dr. Holt, Ms. Delaney, and I saw with our own eyes is an understatement. It did so much more than that. It showed us where the lowest lying areas are as well as showing us where the high ground in the south-east corner is. A diagonal ridge runs north-west to south-east on the Chemtura site and just slightly into the Stroh property. Sometime during my investigations, I decided to outline on my own copy of the map the low- lying areas such as the Canagagigue Creek and the Stroh Drain in blue. I then outlined the highest elevations on the ridge in red.

Something clicked.

I looked even more carefully at the elevation contour lines. Was what I was thinking possible?

From what I could see on the topographical map combined with what I had seen in person on the ground which was flowing water in the Stroh Drain, I jumped to a possible confusion. It seemed obvious to me that when the further north, east side pits were overflowing and the north to south swale was bringing the contaminated wastewater southwards that the bulk of the wastewater would flow in the direction of the Stroh Drain as it is the lowest elevation. Later on and with more thought I realized that timing was important. In other words, when was the Stroh Drain built? If it had been built in the 1950s or 1960s, then indeed the swale would have been delivering wastewater southward where it would primarily follow the lower lying land on its east side, especially as ahead of it was the diagonal ridge of high ground. If, however, the Stroh Drain was built say in the 1980s, then the two pipes that had delivered waste water from the west side across the Creek to the east side pits would no longer have been in operation because by 1970 these east side pits were mostly out of active use. That said, what was still obvious was that any overland flow of water from either Creek flooding or heavy rainfall would still flow toward the Stroh Drain as it was intended to do. Other discoveries were soon forthcoming which I will get to all of which continue to undermine the veracity of the parties with any responsibility toward implementing the cleanup of this site.



An incident with CPAC in late 2013 brought me considerable personal satisfaction and vindication. You may recall Councillor Bauman’s generally snotty attitude at Woolwich Council back in May 2011 when Mayor Todd Cowan lied to his councillors in order to get them to vote me off of CPAC. He told his councillors that I had agreed not to report any private meetings or confidential information in my daily postings into the Elmira Advocate Blog. I had categorically refused to agree to that, advising him that I was volunteering to do free work on behalf of the community and I did not feel that I had to make concessions or pay in any way for the right to voluntarily assist my community. He and David Brenneman had accepted that–at least to my understanding.

I am confident CPAC members knew and understood the knowledge and strength I bring to the CPAC table. They had learned in their dealings with Chemtura and the MOE that those parties would cheerfully gild the lily at will. I was able to present data, dates, and facts that Chemtura and the MOE could not successfully dispute, over and over again. I produced previous old reports, CPAC minutes and so much more that I had in my possession, which none of the CPAC members seemed to have. I also did a tutorial or two for CPAC members on lnapls as well as on dnapls. In other words, I shared freely with them any and all relevant knowledge that I had. Over the years I was a significant asset to CPAC and so CPAC members attempted to get me formally back on CPAC. I had been sitting on my own, with Richard Clausi on occasion, as SWAT team members who were somewhat constrained by the rules laid down by council that gave CPAC members priority in speaking. Nevertheless, Chemtura and the MOE typically were very unhappy when they learned that I would always question their hot air, junk science, and historical revisionism. The relatively inexperienced members on CPAC were learning fast and the folks who had decades of environmental and technical experience (such as Ron Campbell and Graham Chevreau) also were not going to stand for any shenanigans by Chemtura and its consultants. Dr. Regier was a formal SWAT team member and he attended whenever possible, especially quieter meetings in the boardroom beside the council chambers, due to his hearing difficulties.

Reinstatement or Not

Four of the five CPAC members voted to have me rejoin CPAC as a full member. Except for Councillor Bauman, none of them had wanted me kicked off in the first place. Mark Bauman had only joined CPAC after Mayor Cowan departed. While I had a bit of a hand in getting Mr. Bauman on CPAC it was not a smart move. He continued to do what he does best which is to talk out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously. God save us all from politicians. Mayor Cowan meanwhile had let the power and prestige of the mayor’s chair go to his head and thought that he was the answer to all issues. He made the mistake of attempting to threaten and browbeat CPAC members when he was its chair and got his head handed back to him. Several CPAC members threw his threats right back in his face. You can understand right there why I was happy with these changes. So we all went to Council and, of course, the politicians did want they always do. They bafflegabbed and bullfrittered and Mayor Cowan didn’t want to lose the support of Dr. Holt, the new CPAC chair, so he claimed that he was supporting my move back onto CPAC. When crunch time came, only Councillor Al Poffenroth and the mayor voted for me with Bonnie Bryant (no relation to Susan Bryant) still thinking that I had broken my word due to Mayor Cowan’s earlier lying and hence she voted against me along with Mark Bauman. The tie was left to be broken by the evening’s chair who happened to be Todd’s good buddy and former co-worker in Toronto, Julie-Anne Herteis. This was the same Julie-Anne who stormed out of the CPAC spring 2011 meeting and resigned as CPAC chair. I never had bought into Todd Cowan really voting on my behalf. He was far too petty and far too arrogant to want me back on CPAC especially after CPAC members had seemed so happy to get rid of him as chair. Afterwards, I was interviewed by the local newspapers and they published my comments that this was a moral victory for me. While Council refused me membership, CPAC had publicly endorsed me to rejoin their committee and Mark Bauman who had lied in May 2011 by stating that I couldn’t work with CPAC was exposed for the double dealing prevaricator he was.139 This is also yet one more example why biased, muddled-headed councillors should not be in charge of a technical, volunteer committee: apparently each citizen member quickly knows more about the issues than the council members will ever know.

In this chapter, I exposed the extent of deception and deceit to which the partners in pollution are willing to descend. Whether using decades-old man-made drainage ditches to collect toxic groundwater or keeping relevant topographical information hidden for twenty-four years. It seems it’s all in a day’s work for the guilty parties. In Chapter Sixteen I reveal some even more shocking facts that I learned later on in the summer of 2014, revealed as a result of these two discoveries. To this day we are only beginning to bring those facts to the forefront, due to the uninformed and biased meddling of Sandy Shantz and Mark Bauman.






ENDNOTES for Chapter 15

138 Gail Martin, “Committee opposes partial excavation of waste pits”, Elmira Independent, March 7,2013

139 Steve Kannon, “Council denies bid to return Marshall to CPAC”, Woolwich Observer, August 10, 2013