By Jeff Kart | The Bay City Times December 15, 2009, 9:22PM
Peter
deFur speaks at a "community conversation" held Tuesday at Delta College. The
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may see a bunch of last-minute public
comments on a pending agreement over a Dow dioxin cleanup.At a meeting this evening at Delta College, consultant Peter deFur told an audience of about 50 people that the agreement, called an administrative order on consent, doesn't appear to include enough opportunities for public participation.
The agreement spells out how the Dow Chemical Co. is to investigate dioxin pollution in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and Saginaw Bay and develop a cleanup plan.
Peter deFur has been hired by the Lone Tree Council, an area environmental group, to conduct a technical review of the consent order and a related work plan. Public comments on the documents are being taken by the EPA until 5 p.m. Thursday.
Lone Tree was given a $50,000 EPA grant to retain deFur. The consent order has already been signed by Dow, but the EPA and state Department of Environmental Quality are waiting to sign it, or re-open negotiations, until after the public comments are reviewed.
At the meeting, deFur urged residents to make their voices heard and submit comments by the deadline.
"It doesn't have a number of features I've seen implemented at model cleanup sites around the country," said deFur, president of Environmental Stewardship Concepts in Richmond, Virginia.
DeFur is considered to be an expert on risk assessment and has consulted on numerous Superfund cleanup sites, a term reserved for the most polluted sites in the United States.
He said the consent order is "very, very similar" to others he's seen. But he said the document fails to cover several important areas, including commitments to involve the public in the process of executing the order and work plan.
For instance, there aren't any commitments to hold monthly meetings or provide monthly reports on progress toward a cleanup, which is sure to take years, he said. There's also no mandate for briefing citizen organizations on what has happened or what will happen, or a commitment for posting progress reports or providing notification of developments on a Web site, he said.
"If the public doesn't know what's going on ... then there's no light of day," on the extent of sampling, for instance, he said.
The order also doesn't say there will be citizen representation at technical meetings held during the investigation and cleanup process, or that all documents generated during the process will be released for public review or comment.
"Enhanced public participation is particularly useful in this case," he said. "You can, and will, make a difference."
DeFur said the public needs to demand that more participation be included in the order, or at least get a commitment from the EPA that such participation will occur.
EPA and Dow officials did not speak at the meeting.
Mary Draves, a Dow Chemical spokeswoman, said by telephone following the meeting that her company supports the independent review conducted by deFur.
Draves declined to comment on deFur's criticisms, since she wasn't at the meeting, but said Dow also supported the formation of a Community Advisory Group that will work with the EPA and DEQ during the cleanup process.
"We believe that representation from a full range of local interests and viewpoints is really important to provide us with meaningful input throughout the decision-making process on the site," Draves said.
There was some debate at the meeting about the health effects of dioxins on humans. DeFur said there's no question that dioxins, a byproduct of industrial processes and incineration, are harmful.
He said they bind to soil, bioaccumulate in the environment and have been linked to cancer and a host of other human health problems. But he added that the effects of dioxins on a particular person depend on everything from their level of exposure to their family traits.
John Witzke of Midland came to the meeting with Nancy Bell, also of Midland. They said they thought deFur gave a fair presentation on the consent order. They said they agree that more public participation is needed in the ongoing Dow Chemical cleanup saga. They've been coming to meetings for about eight years.
"The question's up in the air" as to how effective the consent order will be in cleaning up the watershed, said Witzke, a Lone Tree member who used to work for Dow.
"I'm very, very worried about reproductive and long-range health issues" that may remain in the community even after a cleanup is complete, he said.
Charles and Judy Stuart of Saginaw said they plan to submit comments after hearing from deFur.
"It's the sort of thing you have to keep your eye on and follow," Charles Stuart said.