Woolwich Township council passed a motion on Tuesday night asking the province to do more testing on the contaminated Canagagiuge Creek and of the Chemtura site in Elmira and to release the results of testing done last year.

Councillors voted to ask the Ministry of the Environment to do comprehensive testing along the south and east boundaries of the Chemutra site near two gravel pits and to investigate off-site chemical leakage. They also asked the province to release the results of a 2014 downstream and creek sediment monitoring story, as well as fish monitoring results, in September 2015.

Earlier this summer, members of the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee released test results showing that levels of the pesticide DDT were much higher in the creek than previously believed.

"It's a huge concern for the township, and it should be for not just the township but anyone who drinks water in Waterloo Region. Potentially that is going into the Grand River and into our drinking water supply," councillor Mark Bauman told CBC. He is also the council representative on the committees that deal with the Chemtura spill.

However, Graham Chevreau, a member of CPAC says that the township's letter doesn't go far enough. He notes that council revised their letter to the ministry and changed the language in several sections. He says the revisions don't ask the ministry to take immediate action on the site, as the original draft did, and instead just ask for testing. He also wants the ministry to release test results now, rather than wait until September.

"CPAC is disappointed that the August 26, 2015 letter from Mayor Shantz has lost the necessary sense of urgency that the situation calls for," he wrote in a email to CBC News.

Chemical contamination

Uniroyal Chemical, which became Crompton Chemical in 2001 and then Chemtura in 2006, manufactured DDT at the site from 1945 to 1948. The company used two gravel pits to collect and dispose of seepage and storm water contaminated with DDT, according to CPAC.

The chemical NDMA leaked into Elmira's groundwater and contaminated it in 1989, forcing the township to close wells and construct a pipeline from Waterloo to bring clean water into town.

Earlier this year, CPAC released results showing that DDT and dioxins were higher than expected in the creek and one spot tested just south of the Chemtura site found DDT levels were 2900 times higher than Ontario Ministry of the Environment maximum allowable concentration standards.

New committees

The Chemtura Public Advisory Committee has been dissolved, and there will now be two new groups, the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and the RAC, or Remediation Action Committee that will take up the role of advising council on the site and cleanup.

"One of the things, the third point, is asking for them to present their sediment samples at the September RAC meeting," said Bauman of the resolution passed by council on Tuesday night, asking the Ministry of the Environment to release testing results. Bauman says the township is working with the ministry to set a date for the results to be presented at a RAC meeting, which is open to the public.