LANSING, Mich.--A state-financed study of the ecological effects of high levels of dioxins in a floodplain downstream from Dow Chemical Co.'s Midland plant showed significant risk to fish-eating birds and mammals.
Four types of fish in the river have enough dioxins to cause significant reproductive impairment to birds and mammals that eat them, the report said.
But Sarah Opperman, spokeswoman for Dow, told BNA Dec. 2 that the study is a screening study and no conclusions should be drawn. "It's a preliminary review that would support the need for a baseline study," she told BNA. Dow is planning its own extensive study, she said.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality released the Tittabawassee River Aquatic Ecological Risk Assessment report on Dec. 1. The DEQ commissioned Hector Galbraith and Galbraith Environmental Sciences LLC of Vermont to do the 48-page report. Soil in the Tittabawassee floodplain has high levels of dioxins that accumulated during more than 100 years of chemical manufacturing in Midland (215 DEN A-3, 11/6/02).
The report is one of many being completed before any cleanup begins, DEQ spokeswoman Pat Spitzley told BNA Dec. 2. "We have a lot of work still to be done before we can sit down and look at all the information in its entirety and formulate an appropriate response plan," Spitzley said. "We are looking at about 30 miles of contamination. We are still trying to wrap our arms around the extent of the contamination."
The levels of dioxins and furans in carp, catfish, shad, and bass are 200 times the safety level for reproductive success in birds, the study said, and 60 times the safe level for mammals. The risk extends to the Saginaw River and inner Saginaw Bay, the report said. The Tittabawassee flows into the Saginaw River and that flows into the Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron.
"The report provides critical risk assessment data that will assist the DEQ in determining the impacts and risks to wildlife posed by dioxin and furan contamination and the appropriate response activities needed to reduce those risks," DEQ Director Steven Chester said in a statement.
Michelle Hurd Riddick, spokeswoman for Lone Tree Council, an environmental group that worked to expose the dioxin contamination, told BNA the Galbraith study lends credence to the activists' position. "I was just flabbergasted," Riddick told BNA. "It was much worse than I thought it was."
Opperman said the Galbraith study was based on very few samples and a number of assumptions. Extending the risk to Saginaw Bay was based on "very little sampling, very broad assumptions," Opperman said. "The river is more vibrant now and filled with a lot of species that would not survive if all those assumptions are true. If you followed the models and the assumptions and got to the modeling levels that were used, you wouldn't find the plethora of species that in fact you do."
Dow is doing a wild game study for residents who hunt in the area and want to know if it is safe to eat game, Opperman said. Dow gave Michigan State University a $326,000 grant to do an initial ecological assessment. "It will have a lot more data and look at food web," Opperman said. "These are all building blocks to get to the answer."
Dow is waiting for DEQ approval of its scopes of work for the site before starting its own ecological study, Opperman said. "Dow prides itself on the let's-apply-science approach," she said.
The DEQ statement said the report also concluded that concentrations of dioxins and furans measured in waterfowl eggs collected from the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge near the Tittabawassee River were much higher than concentrations measured in waterfowl eggs collected from unimpacted areas.
"One of the compelling statements in the study," Riddick said, "is that there is enough data for them to begin remediation and cleanup. That's very significant. We are hoping this will open the door and push agencies to say, 'Come on now and get off the dime.' "
By Sheila Schimpf
Copyright 2003, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington, D.C.
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