The world headquarters to Dow has a river running right next to it, and on that they have an annual “All Things Walleye” fishing tournament. Signs warn anglers not to eat the fish, which are contaminated with cancer-causing dioxins that the company dumped into the Tittabawassee River for most of the last century. Yet tournament organizers sell hats featuring the slogan “Dioxins My Ass.”
Major dillemas arise when addressing the issue of Dow Chemical. It employs hundreds of Michiganders, but is undoubtadely responsible for poisoning a vast river valley that stretches more than 50 miles into the Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. A battle spanning three decades demanding Dow to clean up the mess has finally resulted in the Obama administration to step up with a plan to scour the area of decades of contamination.
Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Dow announced a deal they contend will finally address dioxin contamination from the company’s chemical complex in nearby Midland, about 200 miles northeast of Chicago.
Under provisions in the federal Superfund law, Dow will be required to evaluate and clean up dioxin-contaminated land along the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers starting this winter. Dow also agreed to work downstream from its plant to remove or cap dioxin-contaminated sediment, preventing toxic muck from churning back into the water and spreading farther into the Saginaw Bay. The goal is to restore the watershed by 2018.
With the condition of Michigan lakes and especially the Great Lakes, it is important that steps taken to clean begin immediately.
Dioxins, which are a by product of Agent Orange are so toxic that they are measured in trillionths of a gram and have led to two of the nations most famous enviornmental disasters. Given the sluggish pace of previous cleanup work, the EPA’s inspector general recently had concluded the sites wouldn’t be restored until 2086. The Obama administration has promised to set aside more money to speed things up and is pushing to restore a tax on polluters to help cover the tab, estimated to reach $4.5 billion.
The Tittabawassee River downstream from the Dow chemical plant in Midland, Mich
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