Next round of community input meetings planned

Kathie Marchlewski, Midland Daily News 10/12/2005

The Dow Chemical Co. and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality have tossed aside plans to form a Tri-County committee to advise them as they explore dioxin remediation options, and instead will move forward with input from any and all who'd like to offer an opinion.

"We wanted to start off on the right foot with a plan that was almost unanimously approved," said MDEQ spokesman Bob McCann.

The DEQ and Dow this summer had jointly conducted several meetings in Midland, Bay City and Saginaw, gathering residents' thoughts on the most effective way to communicate with stakeholders. They had suggested the appointment of a panel comprised of 16 to 20 people who would serve two-year terms on a board that would offer input to the decision-making process.

Residents wondered who would be picked, who would do the picking, and if the board would provide adequate representation. They suggested instead that meetings be open to all, and that all be given a place within the dialogue.

"The message we heard pretty clearly was that they didn't think an advisory group would work," McCann said.

The DEQ and Dow had made the suggestion based on concerns that long-term participation might be hard to get, or that town hall-style meetings would be dominated by special interest groups that historically have been the major players at dioxin-related meetings. While they wanted to give the general public an opportunity to ask questions and offer opinions, they had hoped that a separate group with background knowledge of the situation could offer more meaningful input at different stages in remediation plans.

The majority of stakeholders who chimed in, though, worried that the creation of a board could complicate things. "Nearly all parties were leery of forming an advisory group," said Midland Matters founder Bill Egerer. "Any advisory group would probably not be universally trusted."

Besides trust issues, others said it would simply take up more time. "The selection process was not only daunting, but it took away from the central mission -- cleanup," said Terry Miller of Bay City-based Lone Tree Council.

The new, revised community involvement process, which both Egerer and Miller say their representative groups generally favor, includes wide-open, pre-scheduled, quarterly meetings at the Horizons Conference Center in Saginaw. The first will be Nov. 9. In 2006, meetings will be Feb. 9, May 10, Aug. 9 and Nov. 8. Times have not been announced and additional meetings might also be scheduled.

Participants will be provided with an agenda and starter questions, and with background information when it is available. Transcripts of meetings and pre-meeting information will be provided at the DEQ website, www.mi.gov/deq.

"(The plan) offers certainty and plenty of advance notice for a public meeting scheduling. This alone should improve participation levels," Egerer said.

Dow spokesman John Musser thinks the plan is workable, despite his earlier concerns about the tendency of town hall meetings to turn off-topic, or for attendance to dwindle.

"We're going to do our best to manage the meetings so that people know what they're going to hear about in advance," he said. "I think in the end, the people that are really concerned about this issue are going to be involved when the agenda warrants their participation."

Miller said success will depend on the topics of meetings, and information provided. "We'll have to see if these meetings have an impact on the speed of the cleanup," he said.
 

For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawassee 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.