Michigan: Dioxin Deal

Source: NYTimes

Dow Chemical has agreed to remove 50,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated sediment and earth from the riverbed and levees of the Tittabawassee River near its chemical manufacturing plant in Midland, according to an announcement by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Dow’s agreement with the E.P.A. covers three areas contaminated with dioxin, a highly toxic, cancer-causing chemical, one near a longtime Dow plant and two downstream from the facility, including one at the junction of the Tittabawassee and Chippewa Rivers. A spokesman for Dow said last week that the contaminated areas had been found in November.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/us/18brfs-dioxin.html

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I'm betting this never reaches my local rag, Ann Arbor News!

nt

where it enters the Saginaw Bay. Since Dow put the plant there, Gov. John Engler (R) approved the plant in the 90's, now all of the Smelt fishing area's are gone. Sad times in Michigan, I remember Smelt dipping in my youth, Garbage can's full of fish. Spend the night fishing, get home to clean them then mom would fry up a batch for breakfast. The good old days, one of the better memories too. Btw, for those that never had the pleasure of Smelt fishing, Smelt only grew to 4" to 6" long and you used nets to catch them.

Due to the mercury levels and all. I'm going to Traverse City in about a week and a half. I probably won't be fishing, but I will go swimming.

and it pretty much destroyed smelting at the Singing Bridge and other Hot spots From Twas down to the Saginaw river. I haven't bothered with fishing for a long time because of all the warnings and hazards coming out of the lakes, only eat 5 pounds of fish a week, etc etc. I moved to GR 2 years ago and from what I hear things aren't much better here. I hope that next month I can do some fishing up in Marquette, I have to drive my S.O. up there and we are planning on camping out for a week up there.

You may not remember Seveso, Italy where there was a huge dioxin spill.

The first sign of health problems, burn-like skin lesions, appeared on children a few hours after the accident. Beginning in September of that year, chloracne, a severe skin disorder usually associated with dioxin, broke out on some of the people most exposed to the cloud.

Authorities began an investigation five days after the accident, when animals such as rabbits began to die en masse. Nearly two weeks later, a chemist deduced that the cause was dioxin. And within three weeks, some 736 people living closest to the plant were evacuated.

About 37,000 people are believed to have been exposed to the chemicals, according to researchers familiar with the case.

Approximately 4 percent of local farm animals died, and those that didn't -- roughly 80,000 animals -- were killed to prevent contamination from filtering up the food chain.



http://www.getipm.com/articles/seveso-italy.htm

I was living in Europe where this story dominated the news. Americans may have forgotten it.

there are so many of these spots, only a fraction of which are even known, that it seems like re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic.