New details on controversy surrounding Dow's dioxin debacle

By Terry Camp, MID-MICHIGAN (WJRT) -- (12/07/07)--

A memo that was supposed to be confidential -- and a whistleblower lawsuit -- add more drama to the Dow Chemical dioxin controversy.

The memo was accidentally given out by the Environmental Protection Agency, and the lawsuit comes from a current Dow employee.

This August memo here criticizing Dow Chemical was accidentally given to the environmental group Lone Tree Council, which has Dow a little suspicious.

The August memo says Dow has delayed cleanup and misled the public about dioxin, a by-product of manufacturing that can cause cancer. The memo is made public at a time when Dow is finishing up the third of three clean-up projects on the Tittabawassee River and has started another in the Saginaw River.

Dow Chemical's John Musser says the memo and allegations are an outrage. "This isn't the first time that we've seen a half-baked memo accidentally released to the environmental activist community," he said.

Michelle Hurd Riddick of the environmental group Lone Tree Council says she got the memo in a number of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. She says there has been enough secrecy in the negotiation process between Dow and the government on the whole clean-up process.

"The EPA released over 3,000 documents to me," Riddick said. "I think the more light that is shined on this process -- whether it's by the regulatory agencies, citizens along the river or environmental groups -- the better the clean up will be. The better the public process will be."

Earlier this week in a separate matter, a Dow Chemical employee filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Dow, saying the company demoted her when she told officials soil sample data for dioxin testing was inaccurate. Dow denies that claim.

"She was not demoted at anytime," Dow's Jennifer Heronema said of the alleged demotion. "The other one is looking at the validity and credibility of the data. The data is accurate. We stand by it."

Back on the subject of the memo, Dow Chemical says the company is still working with the EPA on the clean-up process, and will submit a plan of action to them to resolve the dioxin issue by 2010 on Monday.