Thursday, September 30, 2004
The same poison that plagues the Tittabawassee River has come to roost in Bay County.
It has been a reasonable assumption that dioxin contamination from Dow Chemical Co. in Midland doesn't stop where the Tittabawassee River joins the Saginaw River at Saginaw.
But until recently, there wasn't a great deal of hard evidence that dioxin from Dow was in Bay County.
That has begun to change.
And that ought to change the nature of secret, closed-door talks between Dow and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
The negotiations are for the cleanup of dioxins from Midland and the Tittabawassee River and its floodplain.
So far, studies of dioxin contamination have concentrated on those areas.
If these talks result in any agreement between the state and the company on cleaning dioxin, that deal should be limited to the area around the Tittabawassee River area and Midland.
Those places have been studied closely in recent years, both as part of a class-action lawsuit from floodplain residents and state pressure on Dow to address high concentrations of dioxins.
Parts of the Tittabawassee floodplain have dioxin levels far exceeding the state standard of 90 parts per trillion - the state limit for residential property.
Now, we're learning that soil samples that the DEQ and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dug from exposed Saginaw Bay bottomlands at Bay City State Recreation Area last year also exceed the state standard.
To boot, the chemical "fingerprint" of the dioxin found at the state park is of a type that used to come from Dow.
The results of more tests by the Corps of Engineers may be released in the next few weeks.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tests of Saginaw River sediment from Saginaw to four miles out in the bay are due to be released next year.
With all this information coming in about dioxin in Bay County, it's too early to include contamination here in any cleanup deal that is brokered between Dow and the DEQ.
Because talks between DEQ Director Steven Chester and Dow officials - mediated by Lt. Gov. John Cherry - are out of the public eye, nobody knows what points are debated, and which aren't.
This shouldn't be for debate: Keep Bay County out of any deal until we know the extent of the dioxin contamination here.
Then we can talk cleanup.
DEQ officials have suggested that an agreement might look like the 1998 Natural Resources Damages Settlement for PCB contamination of the river and bay.
In that agreement to settle a lawsuit brought by the state, federal government and Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, General Motors Corp. paid moist of the $28.2 million to dredge PCB hotspots from the river, and to built boat launches. The other defendants were the cities of Bay City and Saginaw.
The DEQ will release any proposed deal with Dow for public comment.
The howls from Bay County could be long and loud if its waters and lands are subject to that agreement just as the extent of dioxin contamination here is becoming known.
Keep any deal now focused on the Tittabawassee.
We can talk about the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay later.
Once we're fully informed.
© 2004 Bay City Times
For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawasse River Watch web site www.trwnews.net for complete coverage of the Tittabawassee River Dow Chemical dioxin contamination saga. . The Newspaper / Media page of our site contains an extensive archive of media articles dating back to January 2002. The source organization's web site link is listed to the right of the article, visit often for other news in our area. The Newspaper / Media page may be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom of the CONTENTS section and clicking on the Newspaper/Media link.