Hot spot not so hot?

AMY PAYNE

THE SAGINAW NEWS

The ''hot spot'' of dioxin-like material in the Saginaw River near Wickes Park isn't as concentrated as researchers originally thought, Dow Chemical Co. officials say.

Preliminary testing returned a sample measuring 1.6 million parts per trillion -- a level nearly 20 times higher than any recorded in America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.

But further tests on the original sample of surface soil from a 3-inch wide tube of PVC pipe registered at levels ranging from 7,000 parts per trillion to a little more than 18,000 parts per trillion, Dow spokesman John C. Musser said.

''We found nothing that was anywhere near what we found initially,'' he said.

The high concentration of dioxin contamination may amount to a ''nugget'' of the chemical, Musser said.

''We don't think the quantity of material is very large at all, if you can't find it in the same sample jar,'' he said.

Dioxin concentrations in the river's sediment can vary wildly, Musser said.

''There's no rhyme or reason to what you find in location A, location A 6 inches deeper, or in location B, which is a foot away,'' he said. ''It's all over the map.''

Dow officials and representatives from the state Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other government agencies will conduct the next quarterly Dioxin Community Meeting at Horizons Conference Center, 6200 State, from 6:30 p.m. to

9:15 p.m. Wednesday to present information on the clean-up effort in the Saginaw and Tittabawassee rivers and to answer questions.

Staff from the DEQ, Department of Community Health and Dow will attend a half-hour before and after the public session for individual discussion.

Dow crews are setting up near an abandoned boat launch at Wickes Park, which will serve as a dock for the flat barge that will carry the cleanup equipment, Musser said.

If the weather holds, the sediment removal could begin in earnest by ''Friday at the earliest,'' Musser said. ''Certainly by next week we want to be well into it.

''I don't think we're going to be out there more than a couple of weeks, depending on the weather, of course.''

Officials at the Michigan Department of Community Health were worried enough about the preliminary finding that they extended a fish consumption advisory already in effect for the Tittabawassee River to include the entire Saginaw River and a portion of Saginaw Bay.

The advisory, indefinite until further notice, warns against eating carp, catfish and white bass -- fish that feed near the riverbed where contaminants are buried -- and alerts women of child-bearing age and children against eating certain types of other fish.

For more information on dioxin and the community meeting, visit www.michigan.gov/deqdioxin. v