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Lone Tree
Council
P.O.
1251, Bay City, Michigan 48706
(Fighting for environmental justice since
1978) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Michelle Hurd Riddick: (989)
799-3313 OCTOBER 24, 2007
Rita Jack: (517) 484-2372
Terry Miller (989)
686-6386
Kathy Henry (989)
695-5348
GREENS AND RESIDENTS ALARMED BY EPA ACTION IN DIOXIN
CLEANUP Fear Delayed Clean-Up; Loss of Transparency
Due to Closed-Door meetings Local and state
environmental organizations and residents are expressing alarm over recent
reports that regulators are again going behind closed doors to negotiate next
steps on the cleanup of Dow’s massive contamination in the Saginaw Bay
watershed. EPA recently announced
plans to engage in confidential discussions with Dow Chemical, the
polluter. “The full sunshine of
public scrutiny is essential to keep the parties honest,” said Michelle Hurd
Riddick of the Lone Tree Council.” While we welcome the EPA’s recent
announcement to demand action on the contamination, we want the taxpayers and
residents of this region to be fully informed, and we want all of the agencies
working together” Dow Chemical
Company is responsible for one of the largest contamination sites in the
country, with highly toxic doxins and furans, cancer causing synthetic wastes
produced by the company and discharged into the Tittabawassee and Saginaw
Rivers, as well as into Lake Huron.
Since the discovery of the extent of the contamination five years ago,
Dow and the state have bobbed and weaved over responsibility for the
contamination, removal, and the risk of dioxin. Over the past five years, the
Dow Chemical Company, regulated by permit through the federal law called the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), has missed deadlines, provided
the State inadequate sampling plans, initiated unapproved actions, and waged a
public campaign denying the danger of dioxin. But after five years, this summer saw
the DEQ pursue the first company directed efforts to remove some hotspots of
contamination in the Tittabawassee River.
Suddenly, the EPA has had enough, and when they reportedly saw more
foot-dragging from the company they stepped
in. The sound of
clapping, however, has been silenced by the realization that the EPA may not
bring the comprehensive cleanup or openness that residents and environmentalists
want. “The EPA comes to
the table with a different set of regulations than the state,” said Lone Tree
Council’s Michelle Hurd Riddick.
“The state has a signed license by the company, a requirement of
transparency, and a legal obligation to deal with off-site chemicals. The EPA has Superfund (CERCLA), and it
has a different set of regulations.
Among the tools in their toolbox is a provision that negotiations between
polluter and regulator will occur in a climate of confidentiality,” said
Riddick. “ We’ve been down that
road with the state, and the closed door negotiations resulted in a weak
agreement and slowed progress on cleanup.
We don’t want to go there again.” Environmentalists
fear that the EPA is about to imitate the
state. “We believe it is
part of Dow’s strategy,” said Lone Tree’s Chairman, Terry Miller. “Shop around for the best deal, and if
you can shut the public out, and meet behind closed doors, you mitigate the cost
of cleanup and the bright light of public scrutiny – with the hope of limiting
future obligations.” Environmentalists
cite recent EPA history in a Michigan cleanup
effort: “In Kalamazoo the EPA intended to go into
secret negotiations for three months, and it turned into three years, with the
public clueless during that entire time,” said Sierra Club’s Rita Jack an
activist with the Water Sentinel Program, and participant in efforts to cleanup
a similarly contaminated Kalamazoo River. “We live in this dioxin. We have had to deal with precautions,
delays, and evasiveness – now Dow has managed to shift the whole discussion to
Chicago. The problem is here, in
our backyards, not Chicago,” said Tittabawassee River resident Kathy
Henry. “We have had to
live with this on again, off again approach,” said Hurd Riddick. “And just when we started seeing
progress, the EPA steps in and changes the process once again. The public deserves better. Is it too much to ask that the EPA and
DEQ work together, that Dow’s cleanup continue, and negotiations stay local and
public – with no caps or limits on this company’s obligation to remove its
pollution from our rivers ?” Supporting groups: Ecology Center, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club Mackinac Chapter and The Michigan Environmental Council, Tittabawassee River Watch, Lone Tree Council Negotiations with
Dow in the last six years
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