POLITICIANS PREFER TO CONTROL THE INFORMATION & MINIMIZE THE CRISIS

This of course goes double when the politicians involved are the ones who've either instigated the crisis through their bad decisions or who have known about the problem for years and just kept on sweeping it under the rug. This seems to be the case in Woolwich Township yet again. The North Woolwich Landfill has had contaminant plumes associated with it at least since the 1980s. These plumes unsurprisingly consist of both chlorinated and unchlorinated solvents. A few years ago they were beginning to pop up in drilled wells south of the landfill located on Seiling Drive in Woolwich Township. I don't know if the road is named after our esteemed regional Chairman but I certainly hope so.

Meanwhile it turns out here in town (Elmira) we have methane issues. They have sort of been studied to death although in my opinion not very professionally. Nor in my opinion has Woolwich township remotely acted in an appropriate fashion. This includes their overlooking two sets of nearby neighbours who absolutely need to be informed as to the potential problems. The studies have been overwhelmingly focused on but one of four possibly affected areas. Not only have the majority of neighbours been given short shrift in the studies but they most importantly don't seem to have even been informed that there is a problem nearby. A potentially serious environmental problem that fortunately rarely causes explosions but it can. This is Elmira and if it can go wrong we've got the right people on the ground to ensure that it does. The ongoing "water crisis" has been bad enough. We don't need a methane crisis but as it's here let's deal with it properly including communicating with affected neighbours.

PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO SENIORS MURDERS UNLIKELY

Last Tuesday's Waterloo Region Record carried the following story titled "Victims' families speak of pain, anger". The very last sentence stated "Shortly after Wettlaufer's sentencing hearing, the province announced it would hold a public inquiry into the murders to ensure a similar tragedy does not happen again.". Really? Why am I so skeptical? We are talking seniors with either physical or mental health problems or even both. We are talking very elderly people who are in a fragile state and whose deaths are not terribly surprising at the time. Let us not forget that neither multiple nursing homes nor our authorities caught up to Elizabeth Wettlaufer. She confessed to the crimes while she herself was in a mental hospital. That's how she got caught.

So the province really want to open the can of worms that is our nursing homes? Ask yourself how Ms. Wettlaufer was let go by nursing homes for medication "errors" and then rehired by other nursing homes. Are they so desperate for staff? Apparently the answer is yes. Is anybody looking at death statistics from all nursing homes? Doubtful. Are autopsy's routinely done for sudden deaths? Apparently not. Ms. Wettlaufer injected patients with insulin and they died suddenly. That insulin should have shown up in their bloodstream and it should have shown up as being missing from inventory. Why wasn't anybody checking inventories more carefully much less sudden unexplained deaths? I'm not holding my breathe that Ontario's most vulnerable will actually receive some benefit from these multiple tragic murders.

$85 MILLION FOR GRASSY NARROWS

Decades ago $85 million would indeed have been a marvelous sum to clean up the English-Wabigoon river systems courtesy of mercury dumped into them by Reed Paper. Nowadays that sum will certainly be helpful but I wonder how far it will go. I also wonder if the whole $85 million will still be available after the next provincial election, whether or not the Liberals win. Why do I expect that the whole belated cleanup is mostly one more desperate attempt to get the Liberals re-elected?

Today's Waterloo Region Record advises us that Glen Murray our Environment Minister views the past fifty years as being a period of "gross neglect". he also suggests that the lack of cleanup was due to both racism and colonialism. he is right on both counts. Seems we extend citizenship in this country to both newcomers and those that were here before us, albeit it is second class citizenship. Canada is second to none when it comes to hypocrisy. Yes well done that this provincial government at least appears to give a damn about Ontario and Canadian citizens victimized by corporate negligence combined with governmental negligence.

MORE ON THE DAMAGE OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM INFLICTS ON FAMILIES

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following Letter To The Editor written by Barrie Lillie of Kids"n" Dad Shared Support. He is commenting on a recent article in the Record about Justice Grant Campbell apologizing to the parents of a child seized by the state. Mr. Lillie indicates that the indictment of one particular lawyer is actually an indictment of the judicial system. Both lawyers and judges have remained silent through decades of abuse, incompetence and negligence by various parties in the courts. As Mr. Lillie states how can ethical lawyers "maintain a deafening silence even in the most egregious of cases" ? This silence from those working in our court system enables destructive outcomes for families. Mr. Lillie's final comment is "It remains unclear if the best interests of the family is at the forefront of the legal community". I would suggest that it is not.

MORE WRPS SELF-DESTRUCTION

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries this story titled "Officer facing assault charges arrested". Now these charges were laid last January however the Waterloo Regional Police officer was arrested by London police in February for breaching court orders. Similarly these latest charges are due to an alleged breach of court orders stemming from the initial charges in January. All this is very interesting as various public interest groups over the years have indicated that often times court orders and conditions are onerous, ridiculous and essentially penalizing the charged person prior to any conviction. No details were given in today's Record article so it's difficult to know if these breaches were technical breaches of stupid terms and conditions or if they were something substantive. perhaps it's not just the police who are self-destructing but also the entire so called judicial system itself.

OF WHAT REAL USE ARE OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS?

Well they collect taxes and they spend them. Road repairs, streetlights, snow removal, sewers etc. are all part of their purview. Here in Elmira, Ontario they have responsibility for water distribution and share responsibility for water quality within their distribution system. The Regional government are responsible for initial water quality after treatment and into the various distribution systems around Waterloo Region. Municipal governments are involved with sampling within their systems for bacterial contamination (ie. coliforms & E.Coli). That said Woolwich Township were just as asleep at the switch as was regional government and even more so the Ontario Ministry of Environment. It is my belief and understanding that many citizens died prematurely from cancer and other diseases from long contaminated drinking water prior to the "discovery" of NDMA in the water in 1989.

Methane generation and movement through the subsurface is a long known phenomenon of municipal landfills. Methane just like Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) can intrude into homes through basements via a process known as vapour intrusion. In Cambridge, Ontario hundreds of individuals were exposed to Trichloroethylene (TCE), chromium and Trichloroethane (TCA) in the Bishop St. community of Preston. Here in Elmira we may have a similar problem. Technical reports by so called experts cautioned Woolwich Township to consider an indoor air monitoring program beside an old closed landfill. To date there has been no confirmation that any such program ever occurred.

While the issue with VOCs is toxic poisoning, the issue with methane is explosions. They are rare but they do happen. There is if you will a sweet spot whereby if the methane is above the LEL (lower explosive limit) and below the UEL (upper explosive limit), in the presence of a spark or open flame they can go boom. This open flame needs to be no more than a pilot light for a gas furnace or gas water heater.

Further investigation is underway.

FURTHER SHAME OF OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this article titled "Judge orders Waterloo lawyer to pay $100,000". Justice Grant Campbell of Superior Court in Kitchener has written the following in regards to the court system as well as in regards to Ontario's child welfare system. Firstly he stated that Ontario's child welfare system is broken. He then added that the parents and child "...have been consumed and trampled by the Frankenstein process we have created and allowed to become unmanageable". Justice Campbell then apologized for the manner in which the parents had been treated, ignored, demeaned and disbelieved."

All of this was in regards to the now discredited Motherisk program which in hindsight erroneously tested mothers for drug use. It had several false positives resulting in Children's Aid removing children from their parents improperly and in effect illegally. Compounding these problems was the lawyer for the parents who was negligent in her duties and legal responsibilities towards the child and her parents.