Questions remain as experts sift through numbers
 Thursday, November 29, 2007
 JUSTIN ENGEL

THE SAGINAW NEWS

About 150 people turned out at a quarterly dioxin meeting to hear from the federal agency that says a hot spot in the Saginaw River is the worst in the nation, the chemical company that disputes the finding and a scientist who disputes that it even matters to human health.

Much of the Wednesday gathering at Horizons Conference Center in Saginaw Township featured representatives from the state Department of Environmental Quality and Midland's Dow Chemical Co. giving updates on cleanup efforts under way in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers.

The meeting came five days after The Saginaw News quoted a top government scientist -- Milton Clark, the senior health and science adviser at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chicago branch -- who said a 1.6 million parts per trillion dioxin sample discovered in the Saginaw River near Saginaw's Wickes Park could prove the nation's highest level of dioxin contamination ever recorded in its river and lake systems.

Clark attended Wednesday's meeting, as did David H. Garabrant, the University of Michigan medicine and epidemiology professor who led a $15 million dioxin probe that found little relationship between dioxin levels in the human bloodstream and people living near the river system.

Clark said he hasn't seen the complete study but acknowledged its conclusion that people who eat fish from the Saginaw and Tittabawassee river systems have higher levels of dioxin in their blood than people living elsewhere.

In response, Garabrant stepped toward the microphone and told him the study's statistics show the relationship ''is quite small.''

''Any elevation (of dioxin in the blood) is a concern to us,'' Clark said.

Garabrant has said residents should heed the fish advisory set upon the Saginaw River last week but that the Wickes Park discovery shouldn't affect citizens' health through any other means.

He said the U-M study released in 2006 would have -- but has not -- revealed any imminent danger to public health from the Wickes Park find.

The contamination likely has rested in the riverbed for decades, and so the investigation would have included any adverse affects the discovery would have had on people, Garabrant said.

''We would have seen it in the study,'' he said. ''We have the numbers.''

EPA and DEQ officials have said the high levels discovered in Wickes Park are cause for concern despite Garabrant's findings.

Officials at the Michigan Department of Community Health 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 notice warns against eating carp, catfish and white bass and alerts women of child-bearing age and children against eating certain types of other fish.

Dow officials said they plan to begin hydraulic dredging at the Wickes Park site on Friday and finish in mid-December. Crews already have assembled equipment to begin the remediation at an abandoned boat launch there.

Monday, Dow officials said further tests on the soil sample that contained the 1.6 million parts per trillion find also registered levels ranging from 7,000 parts per trillion to 18,000 parts per trillion.

Dow spokesman John C. Musser said the 1.6 million parts per trillion might have represented a ''nugget'' in the 3-inch wide tubes used for sampling.

The contamination makeup fits the profile of material released from Dow's chemical plant as far back as the early 20th century and as late as the 1970s, officials say.

Scientists have linked dioxin to cancer, reproductive problems and weakened immune systems in lab animals. However, the World Health Organization says dioxins are not as toxic as once thought. v

Justin Engel is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9691.

©2007 Saginaw News
 

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