EPA in town to talk dioxin
 By Tony Lascari of the Midland Daily News tlascari@mdn.net
 Published: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:01 PM EDT

 A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency team is in the Tri-Cities today and Thursday to listen to groups with a stake in the cleanup of dioxins and furans released by The Dow Chemical Co.

The contamination, a byproduct of manufacturing chlorine-based products, entered the Tittabawassee River through past waste disposal practices, emissions and incineration at Dow’s Michigan Operations site in Midland. It then spread to the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay.

EPA and Dow officials had been in talks to create a Superfund Alternative Approach process for the cleanup efforts, but U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson put those plans on hold.

“It’s basically a listening session on behalf of the new administration,” EPA spokesman Mick Hans said. “We halted the negotiations we were doing on the Superfund Alternative process. I don’t know if that process is over or not. It’s too early to decide on that.”

Terry Miller, leader of local environmental group the Lone Tree Council, said the Superfund process sought at the end of President Bush’s term is flawed.

“We hope to share with them our frustration over this process,” he said of the meeting with the EPA.

Miller hopes a process that brought cleanup results to the waterways will be reinstalled, with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality taking the lead and the EPA speeding up the work.

“With (former EPA Region 5 Administrator Mary Gade’s) firing and the director of the Department of Environmental Quality being pulled off the job, we became very skeptical of the proposed process,” Miller said. “We were not satisfied that the EPA could justify moving to this process.”

The Lone Tree Council and several other community groups were invited to meet with the EPA’s Robert Sussman, a senior policy adviser to Jackson who had been a deputy administrator at the EPA under President Clinton. Also attending are senior staff from the EPA Region 5 office in Chicago and senior MDEQ officials.

A separate meeting is planned with local officials from the government and business sector, and a third is planned with officials from Dow.

“We want them to talk with all interested stakeholders, including residents, Dow, the chambers of commerce and people who have been active in this for a long time,” said Dow spokeswoman Mary Draves.

Dow wants the Superfund Alternative process to move forward. Draves said it is a rigorous process that would hold Dow accountable where necessary and find solutions for cleanup. She said the company wants a final solution to the cleanup work based on scientific studies.

“That Superfund Alternative Site process is the best way to get us there,” she said, noting it’s an established EPA process used nationally and would create a path to a definitive resolution.

Midland City Manager Jon Lynch said a city official will attend a meeting on Thursday.

“Our goal is to learn about their remediation strategies within the floodplain,” he said.

Hans said the EPA’s visit this week will touch on many community members’ views. A public forum was not planned with the visiting team, but the EPA expects to host future meetings on the issue for the public.

“We’re assuming they’re represented by the various stakeholders invited because there are a lot of them,” Hans said.

The discussions are likely to shape the future of the dioxin cleanup process. Hans expects the team will report on their talks to Jackson at the EPA, after which a decision would be made on how to move forward.

Draves said Dow will continue its dioxin cleanup work at Saginaw Township’s West Michigan Park and neighboring residential properties. The company submitted a work plan on Friday. Initial plans called for excavating soil and backfilling with clean soil, paving the park’s driveway and parking lot and elevating playground equipment to avoid recontamination if the area floods again.
 

http://www.ourmidland.com/articles/2009/03/19/local_news/doc49c1245cb4c9f606111913.txt

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