EPA to Dow: 60 days to talk cleanup
 By Tony Lascari, Midland Daily News
10/11/2007

The clock is ticking for Tittabawassee River dioxin cleanup talks agreed to Wednesday by The Dow Chemical Co. with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Advertisement

Dow spokesman John Musser said the company will accept an EPA invitation to negotiate a settlement to conduct an investigation and interim response actions on the river.

The targeted area begins upstream of Dow's Michigan Operation plant in Midland and could include the Saginaw River, its floodplains and portions of Saginaw Bay.

"We're going to accept the offer and go into the negotiation with them," Musser said. "We're going to continue to meet our obligations under our license to operate and work to come up with a comprehensive solution in as timely a manner as possible."

Dow's expected remedial investigation and feasibility study effort must evaluate the nature and extent of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants from the site and assess the risks they present to human health and the environment, the EPA states. It also must provide enough data to develop and evaluate a range of cleanup options.

Dow has until Dec. 10 to present the EPA with a good faith offer demonstrating its willingness to conduct or finance a remedial investigation and feasibility study and design a remedy, though the EPA could choose to extend negotiations until Jan. 9.

Dow had been working on plans with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and spokesman Robert McCann said the DEQ will stay involved in the process.

"It's some different roles being played now, but the EPA and DEQ remain partners and still share some main goals," he said.

The DEQ will continue to work with the EPA to ensure DEQ officials are comfortable with the process and that it complies with state law, McCann said.

"EPA remains concerned about the pace at which Dow is moving forward with their cleanup and that's well within their rights to use their authority to try to make this move forward a little quicker," he said.

Dow continues to seek a collaborative approach to protect the public and environment, Musser said.

"We've been working on that with the DEQ, but now we have a deadline, which isn't a bad thing," he said.

Dioxins and furans are byproducts from the manufacture of chlorine-based products. Historic waste disposal practices, fugitive emissions and incineration at Dow have resulted in on- and off-site dioxin and furan contamination.

EPA has the authority to call for negotiations under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or Superfund. Superfund specifies the process in which a remedial investigation and feasibility study, cleanup removal actions and remedy design must be conducted.

"The Superfund law provides a strong mechanism to continue necessary actions to comprehensively and definitively address the issue of dioxin contamination in the river system," Ralph Dollhopf, associate director of EPA's Regional Superfund Division, said in a news release. "The work begun this summer to address three hot spots in the Tittabawassee River is also being performed under Superfund authority."

We want to know what you think! Please feel free to use the "post a comment" link below. Note that the terms and conditions require both first and last name.

©Midland Daily News 2007
 

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.