Dioxin work will continue while awaiting word from EPA
 By Tony Lascari of the Midland Daily News tlascari@mdn.net
 Published: Thursday, May 7, 2009 11:57 AM EDT

Dioxin cleanup efforts will begin this spring while the community, The Dow Chemical Co. and the state wait for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to decide on an overall approach to the work.

The EPA, Dow and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality began negotiating plans this winter to initiate a Superfund Alternative Approach for management of contamination in the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay from Dow's plant in Midland.

Those talks were put on hold when EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson sent a representative to the area in mid-March to learn more about the situation.

EPA spokesman Mick Hans said everything remains under review and there is no time table for action.

"We're hoping the answer is soon," he said, noting the number of questions about the overall approach asked Wednesday at a quarterly public meeting about the contamination and cleanup efforts.

The MDEQ would prefer the Superfund Alternative process because it would add a partner in the cleanup oversight, said Frank Ruswick, MDEQ senior policy adviser.

"We're awaiting word from EPA on whether that process would proceed," he said.

If the EPA chooses not to pursue that option, the MDEQ would continue its enforcement actions, Ruswick said.

"We look forward to hearing from them as much as most, if not all, of you do," he told a crowd of about 50 people at the meeting.

Dow is prepared to restart talks when the EPA is ready, spokeswoman Mary Draves has said.

Work this spring will include continued efforts at the former Dow 47 Building site, further investigations adjacent to Dow's Michigan Operation site, outfall investigations, riverbank stabilization, looking at in-channel deposits, removal actions at West Michigan Park and monitoring at the Riverside Boulevard location that was excavated and backfilled with clean soil.

MDEQ geologist Al Taylor said the state could have done a better job on one of its early cleanup sites. A site adjacent to Dow's Michigan Operations site in Midland, labeled as Reach D, was found to have contamination other than dioxins and furans after cleanup work was already under way.

"Adequate characterization hadn't been completed at the time the Reach D work occurred," Taylor said. "The lesson here is we need to have the full picture of the contamination before we begin to mess around in the river, and be sensitive to that."

There also was an area outside the sheet piling used during the Reach D cleanup that was scoured, meaning sediment was disturbed and sent downstream. That sheet piling is set to be removed by the end of the year, and a cap would have to be placed over the bottom of the river in that area.

http://www.ourmidland.com/articles/2009/05/08/local_news/1775963.txt
 

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