December 20, 2004
BY HUGH McDIARMID JR.
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
New tests showing high dioxin levels in the Saginaw River sediment have complicated a federal plan to remove tons of the river bottom as an aid to navigation.
The Army Corps of Engineers plans to dredge river muck -- much of it contaminated with dioxin from Dow Chemical Co.'s Midland headquarters. It would be deposited in a 281-acre confinement facility the corps is proposing to build in a rural farm field.
But the plan has run into opposition from environmental activists and from the EPA, which has urged the corps to conduct an environmental impact assessment and revise its plans to better deal with the dioxin.
Corps test results released earlier this month showed dioxin levels dozens of times higher than the state would consider safe if it were in a residential area and several times higher than the federal government's trigger for immediate corrective action.
The proposed dumping area for the dredged material "is not an appropriate location for the disposal of sediments contaminated with high concentrations of dioxins," federal Environmental Protection Agency officials wrote to the Army Corps.
Instead, the EPA has asked the corps to:
•Coordinate its dredging project with the state and Dow, which are negotiating a long-term cleanup plan for dioxin contamination in the Tittabawassee River (a Saginaw River tributary), the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay.
•Send the most contaminated sediment to a hazardous waste incinerator, rather than storing it indefinitely in the disposal facility.
•Dredge extra material from the river bottom to create holes where contaminated sediment will settle -- trapping it and keeping it from flowing into the bay.
•Abandon its plan to selectively dredge around the most contaminated areas -- a method that would create islands of contamination that could erode, further distributing the dioxin along the river and into the bay.
Terry Long, chief of plan formulation for the Detroit District of the Corps, said the EPA's comments and those of activists opposed to the storage site will be taken into account when the corps decides in January whether the project proceeds, or needs a comprehensive environmental impact statement first.
In the meantime, the Upper Saginaw River channel continues to get shallower, requiring ships carrying cement, stone and other goods to lighten their loads.
"We've been looking for a facility for the past 27 years, because right now, there's nowhere to put it," Long said.
The state's Department of Environmental Quality also must issue a permit to discharge treated water from the facility back into the river -- a permit under consideration.
Dow spokeswoman Anne Ainsworth said the company does not share the EPA's certainty that most of the Saginaw River dioxin originated from the company's operations -- which released dioxin to the air and Tittabawassee River decades ago.
"There could be a number of sources for the dioxin there because it is the confluence of a number of river systems," Ainsworth said. "We are not going to speculate on that."
The corps plan has flaws that go beyond the EPA's objections, say environmentalists.
The containment facility is vulnerable to damage because it lies in a floodplain, said Terry Miller, chairman of the Lone Tree Council, a Bay City-based citizen group. In addition, there are concerns over odor control and the potential ecological threat to nearby residents and wildlife in an adjacent state game area.
"We would welcome the removal of toxics," said Miller. "We've never opposed dredging, but it has to be done right, not on the cheap."
Dioxins, a family of chemicals created by incineration and chemical manufacturing, are linked to altered metabolism, hormonal changes and increases in diabetes and cancers. They were released in significant quantities decades ago at the Dow Midland facility, and remain in the soil and river sediment because they degrade almost imperceptibly.
The contamination has prompted a state advisory against eating certain types of wild game from parts of the Tittabawassee River basin, and a years-long struggle among Dow, state regulators, residents and environmentalists over how and where Dow must clean up the dioxin.
Lt. Gov. John Cherry and DEQ Director Steve Chester have been immersed in closed-door negotiations with Dow for seven months over a comprehensive cleanup plan for contaminated soil in Midland and along 22 miles of the Tittabawassee River. Dioxin from Dow that has spread to the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay also will be addressed, Chester has said, although it is unclear whether those areas are part of discussions.
Contact HUGH McDIARMID JR. at 248-351-3295 or mcdiarmid@freepress.com.
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