Dow Agrees to Clean Dioxin-Tainted Properties

Dow Agrees to Clean Dioxin-Tainted Properties

Michigan environmental regulators said Thursday that they reached a long-sought deal with Dow Chemical Co. to clean up to 1,400 residential properties in Midland, home of its corporate headquarters and a plant that polluted the area with dioxin for much of the past century.

The state Department of Environmental Quality said it agreed with the company on the outlines of a cleanup plan, marking a milestone in on-and-off negotiations that began in the mid-1990s. Dow will cover all of the costs and will fill in the plan details and submit them for review next month.

The total cost of the plan won't be clear until it's known how many of the 1,400 properties require cleaning and how much work needs to be done, Dow and DEQ officials said. The company said it would offer to buy about 50 homes and lots in two areas close to the plant.

"This proposed plan represents tremendous effort by the many partners gathered to address Midland's dioxin issue," DEQ Director Dan Wyant said. "The proposal is just the beginning of the work that lies ahead. I commend Dow officials for their commitment to the community and Michigan's environment, and we look forward to working with them on this effort."

Property owners will get to decide whether to accept Dow offers to clean or buy their properties, spokeswoman Mary Draves said.

"Our focus is to bring about closure for the residents of the Midland community," Draves said.

Dioxin is a family of byproducts from industrial processes, including chemical manufacturing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has described one form as likely to cause cancer.

Dow has acknowledged polluting some Midland neighborhoods as well as the nearby Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers, their floodplains and Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay with dioxin for the better part of the 20th century, from the late 1890s until the 1970s, first by dumping liquid waste and later by incinerating it and creating airborne emissions that settled in soil downwind of the plant. Installation of new equipment drastically reduced the air pollution, state regulators said.

The company contends the dioxin hasn't harmed people or wildlife. It has spent more than $40 million on studies, sediment sampling and other preliminary work, including the removal of tainted soil from highly toxic "hot spots." One had the highest dioxin levels ever recorded in the Great Lakes region.

Environmental activists have accused the company of dragging its feet in agreeing on a plan to fix the damage.

In addition to the Midland deal announced Thursday, the company signed an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last November to clean a three-mile stretch of the Tittabawassee River near the company's Midland facilities. A solution for the remaining polluted waterways remains to be worked out.

Dow's plan will include sampling soil in Midland neighborhoods near the plant to determine which properties have enough dioxin in the soil — more than 250 parts per trillion — to require cleanup.

Michigan's default cleanup threshold is a more stringent 90 ppt. But the law allows some variation when scientific studies determine that local soil conditions justify it, said Brad Wurfel, a Department of Environmental Quality spokesman.

Asian carp control: deadline near for public comment

Asian carp control: deadline near for public comment on Army Corps ideas

Published: Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 6:35 AM     Updated: Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 7:42 AM

Got ideas for fighting aquatic invasive species?

Friday is the last day for public comment on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' list of available options for controlling non-native nuisance species, such as Asian carp in the Great Lakes.

The corps released the paper Dec. 21.

The paper is part of the corps' multiyear Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study. It contains a long list of possible controls, without ranking or choosing among them, that may help prevent transfer of aquatic nuisance species through the Chicago Area Waterway System and other potential water pathways.

The corps asked the public to comment on its proposed options or to suggest additional ones.

Comments may be submitted electronically through the study's website at www.glmris.anl.gov or mailed to GLMRIS ANS Control Comments, 111 N. Canal, Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60606. Mailed comments must be postmarked by Friday.

The paper and other information on the study are posted at http://www.glmris.anl.gov.

The corps will review and incorporate public input before completing and re-issuing the paper this spring. The final paper will be used to help develop screening criteria and refine the list of controls to determine which warrant further consideration.

Scary invaders threaten Great Lakes

2012/02/11
Scary invaders threaten Great Lakes, environmentalists warn

By Jon Gaskell

Capital News Service

LANSING– Beware the Northern snakehead. Beware the inland silverside. And beware a host of other invasive species prompting a recent report recommending spending billions to separate the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes.

An angry Northern snakehead. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Asian carp is the media darling that gets all the attention.  But according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, there are 39 other “high-risk invasive species” that might migrate through Chicago waterways and have the potential to wreak ruin on native ecosystems.

Of these species, 10 could potentially cause huge environmental damage, the agency said.

“Asian carp are sort of the canary in the coal mine,” said Jared Teutsch of the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes. “They could be the first in, but there are many other threats.”

Among them:

•  The Cuban bulrush and marsh dewflower are two aquatic plants that could crowd out other plants and degrade fish habitats. The Cuban bulrush is native to South America and the marsh dewflower comes from Asia. Both have taken root across the southeastern U.S. and could spread to the Great Lakes.
• The inland silverside, a 6-inch fish, has made its way up the Mississippi to northern Illinois and could harm the Great Lakes ecosystem by competing with native species for plankton. The silverside already has significantly damaged fish in California and caused some to go extinct, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
  • The northern snakehead, a predatory, pike-like fish that can grow up to 3 feet long and is known for its ability to breathe on land for up to four days and migrate between bodies of water up to one-quarter mile apart. It has established populations in Maryland, Virginia, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and New York. With a voracious appetite and no natural predators, the snakehead could destroy large populations of native fish and out-compete them for food.