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Frank Manzo's letter to Environment Minister Stockwell

This is the continuation of a letter sent March 19 by Frank Manzo (shown) to Ontario Environment Minister Chris Stockwell. The letter was provided, at SooToday.
FrankManzo4

This is the continuation of a letter sent March 19 by Frank Manzo (shown) to Ontario Environment Minister Chris Stockwell.

The letter was provided, at SooToday.com's request, by City Solicitor Lorie Bottos, who advises that both the City and the Environment Ministry consider it to be a public document.

SooToday.com has not edited this document for spelling, style or grammar.

**************************************************************** My Grand father came here One hundred and twenty seven years ago (127)when he supervised constructing the C.P.R. Railway from Sudbury to the Sault Ste. Marie Ont. As my Grandfather started with his crew from the Sault towards Sudbury and another crew started from Sndbury.And My Family was here long before Algoma Steel Corp. was here.

When I have mentioned that I have experienced a lot of damage to my well. When the brushing and escavation was going on across the road from my property and house, they had thirty two (32) pieces of heavy equipment there working and they shook and vibrated my house as if we were sitting on a raft, I have a downsyndryme daughter and this was a disaster to my daughters health as well as my wife and other kids of mine as well as my self.

I had called John Churchill on March 10-1994 before the start of the construction and told him that the property across the road from me was nothing but a swamp and loon dunk muck. But Mr. Churchhill said that Trow Engineering told them that it was good sold land, I had told Mr. Churchill that I had done some test holes for a company from Toronto on that property across the road, and when I dug the test holes this company told me to fill in the holes as they had said that it was to wet and silty and was not stable for development of any kind. When I bull dozed the soupy fill hack into the holes this got very dangerous as the backfill was so soupy as someone if they walked there they would fall in the quicksand, I had to go and buy several rolls of the plastic barricading tape and put two rows of tape around each test hole for safety .But Mr. Churchill would not listen, As I mentioned above when they started construction with the 32 pieces of equipment and shaking my house, I called the manager Mr Matt Gibbon to come and check my house as I said I was Going to My Lawyer.

Mr. Gibbon came over and seen what wns happening With all the vibrations and shaking as I told Mr Gibbon of My downsyndrome daughter as he was shocked to see what was happening,as my artesian well was damaged,as the AQUIFER of my Well goes under the G.P. Flakeboard Mill property and towards St. Mary's River and into Lake Superior. My WELL IS One hundred and thirty three Feet (133) down and into the bedrock that leads towards Lake Superior. With the 32 pieces of equipment shaking my house and shaking the AQUIFER my well is damaged. All the manganese that forms on the rock down 133 feet was broken up and my pressure system wore out with all the grit from the manganese,and my bathroom sink and bath tub and toilet went all black from the grit. Mr Matt Gibbon seen this. Mr Gibbon told me to get a well driller to check this damages to my well. I called the Ministry of Environment here in the Sault and Mr Ed Bil came and took SWAB TESTS from my toilet,bathtub.bath room sink and the sink in the kitchen, Mr Ed, Bil sent the swsb tests away to get tested and he brought back the results of the manganese that formed on the aquifer rocks below. I never had lime in the water before the construction of G.P. Flakeboard Mill now I have tons of lime as they shook up the lime aquifer.

AS Mr Gibbon had requested to me to get a well driller, I called the best well driller in the Sault by the name of Rolf Koehler who is a seismic well driller. Rolf came here at noon Hour in August of 1994, had dinner with us as he came from out of town, I called Matt Gibbon and he came to my home to meet Rolf, as Matt had a cup of coffee, Rolf said to Matt do you feel the vibration Matt said yes, Rolf said look at your cup of coffee the coffee I shaking in the cup.WE then went to the construction site and Roff Koehler got out of the car and he kneeled down and put his finger straight down on the ground and he told Matt to Kneel down and put his finger next to his and said to Matt do you feel the vibration Matt said yes, Rolf said to Matt that the damaged my well and he told Matt that My well was 133 feet down and they have to put a well in for me to 500 to 600 ft down to get me a good well, Matt batted his eyes.Rolf did not have to take his instruments out of his car as the vibrations were terrible. Rolf came back with me to the house and checked all the samples of water that I have put in bottles and sealed them. As Rolf looked at the Manganese he said to me they sure shook the hell out of the aquifer and Rolf said do not drink the water as there is now a high amount of coliform as I had my water tested after all this manganese in the water. Rolf told me to put some fitlters to filter out the manganese that I could use it for the Toilet but said do not drink it. Also Rolf said to not repair my piston type Pressure system Pump as he said it will ware out again he told me to get a jet type pump as the manganese will go through a jet pump. I had to pay $1200.00 for a Jet Pump.

I took hundreds of tests of my well water to the Ministry of Health as they all show high amounts of Coliform, but does not show Ecoli.As I get the tests the report comes back as to not to drink this water. I installed a four bank filter of Rain Fresh to take the Manganese out but these will not take out the heavy amounts of lime. I let Dave Gooderham from G. P. Flakeboard take all my hundreds of water tests and he catalogued them and G.P. Flakeboard has the file of their own. Dave Gooderham came to my home with all kinds of companies with a filter system but none of them were sufficient to take the lime out. In 1999 my toilet got plugged with full of lime, it was just like a Motar Mix, I had to cut my 3 inch copper pipes in order to clean out the lime,again another cost to me. To this day I was never compensated for a new well. I have to carry water from my daughters well four miles north up in the hills, as I do not drink city water as I have said previously in this document the Public Utilities Inc are doing a study with Burnside To monitor wellof a better quality as city water stinks and tastes bad for me as I grew up on my well water from when I was born to the day my well got damaged in 1994.

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David Helwig

About the Author: David Helwig

David Helwig's journalism career spans seven decades beginning in the 1960s. His work has been recognized with national and international awards.
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