Patterson fuzzy on contract – but what contract?

By Kate Harries WaterWatch
In an interview with the Barrie Advance, Simcoe County Warden Cal Patterson says he’s perplexed that the County paid for the Dump Site 41 computer modelling but can’t have the information.
“There must have been something in the contract that said the information (gathered at Site 41) was theirs, not ours,” he told the Advance.
That prompted a couple of pointed comments on the Stop Dump Site 41 website suggesting that the warden get a copy of the contract and read it.
Turns out he can’t.
Stephen Ogden posted a comment to explain:
“What contract? Just read IPC Adjudicator Colin Bhattacharjee Order MO-2449, in part, to have a better understanding of the contractual agreement. “I would note that the County has never provided this office with a copy of this alleged contract. In fact, during my initial inquiry that lead to Order MO-2416, the County stated in its representations of February 14, 2008 (at page 5) that it “did not enter into a formal retainer agreement with this third party consultant…”
This is sad. It shows that the new warden – who along with all members of council has been part of the decision-making process that has propelled the County into an expensive legal challenge to the IPC – never asked to look at the contract so he could make up his own mind on the nature of the legal advice he was being given.
It also shows that he hasn’t read the two IPC orders directed at him. He (and 31 other councillors) have been in breach of the IPC orders for four months – defying the law! – and it turns out he doesn’t even know what the order says!
This summer, both Premier Dalton McGuinty and Environment Minister John Gerretsen said that they relied on the “science” in their refusal to take another look at Dump Site 41.
What is being sought here is that science – the data entered and the calibrations used in computer modelling of the hydrogeological conditions at Site 41. It is in the nature of any scientific conclusion that the underlying calculations can be replicated, again and again and again. If that can be done successfully, we can have some security in relying on the science.
That is what is not being allowed here.
And that is what Simcoe County’s legal action would deny citizens, because Simcoe County accepts Genivar’s position that the “science” is theirs.
If a court was to uphold Simcoe County’s position, citizens would be condemned to taking every environmental decision on trust. Science – which by its nature must be open and transparent – will have been privatized. It will become a magic wand to be waved by the highest bidder.
Clearly that’s not acceptable, as the IPC has clearly articulated. Is this really the position that the warden and county councillors are prepared to spend truckloads of our money to defend?