Dioxin in Saginaw: 1.6 million ppt

This EPA press release says that Dow will clean up a previously unknown 'hot spot' of dioxin in the Saginaw/Tittabawassee River basin. This hot spot has a concentration of 1.6 million ppt. This is 50 times as large as the hottest previously known hot spot, and the largest dioxin concentration ever reported anywhere.

There is a wealth of information, see Tittabawassee River Watch. Particularly, look at "Where is it?", "How much?", and "Dioxin Source".

It is interesting that this hot spot is in the Saginaw River, well downstream of Dow's facilities in Midland. TRW has some satellite imagery of the Saginaw River sediment plume in Saginaw Bay.





Compare the images of the Saginaw Bay sediment plume, and the map that shows where the Saginaw-Midland water system gets its water, 65 miles north of Midland. It makes me wonder whether they are pulling dioxin into the water system, and it makes me wonder what Dow told the water company about where to build the pipeline back in the 1940s.

The UM dioxin study flaunts their statistical machinery, and jets off to Oslo and Japan to present their findings, but their reports to the residents of the area have emphasized that the effect of living on contaminated soil is small. Given that they were funded by Dow, their credibility was always suspect, but this could lower it further.