Dioxin in Saginaw: 3000 ppt in household dust

The Chicago Tribune and Detroit Free Press report that high levels of dioxin have been found in the Riverside Blvd neighborhood in Saginaw, just upriver from the Wickes Park hot spot with the reported 1.6 million ppt sample. One sample of household dust had dioxin levels of 3,000 parts per trillion. One household had 23000 ppt in the yard, and the average level in yards in this neighborhood was 2000 ppt. The Feds have ordered Dow to clean up the houses.

Although this is a single neighborhood, the high levels found certainly raise questions about the accuracy of the U-M study on the prevalence of dioxin in floodplain areas. The U-M study dust results showed a mean concentration of dioxin in dust of 38 ppt in the floodplain, and a maximum of 1746 ppt (in the near flood plain.

EPA Official Forced to Resign For Defending Public Health Against Dow's Dioxin

The Chicago Tribune reports on the resignation of Mary Gade. Gade was forced to resign because she did her job and tried to get Dow to live up to its obligation to clean up the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers. Truthout link that I hope will not go away

Tittabawassee River Watch continues to do excellent work on the Dow Dioxin issue. Some links from them:


Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D Rhode Island) will be leading an oversight hearing into the politicization of the EPA and the circumstances surrounding Gade’s dismissal next Wednesday.

Youtube video of his C-Span 2 speech.



Additional information can be found at
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/02/epa-politicization-gonzo/ .

The UM Dioxin study provided some interesting data in response to a question at a DEQ community meeting. The data indicates that 10% of residential properties in the Tittabawassee flood plain have soil with dioxin concentrations over 1000 ppt, most of them with multiple samples. Further, 35% of flood plain sits have soil with dioxin levels over 90 ppt, again most with multiple samples.

In the document, the UM scientists admit

garden soil 2378-TCDD concentration was statistically significantly associated with serum 2378-TCDD

The context for this admission is that the UM scientists continue to attempt to downplay the link between soil dioxin and serum dioxin, and to imply that the dioxin contamination is not a problem. This is not surprising, given that their study was funded by Dow, although it is disappointing that the UM crew prefers to sell their reputation to Dow rather than serve the public.

Dioxin Update

Dow is backsliding on its estimates of the dioxin concentration at the Wickes park hot spot. They say that they have measured between 7000 ppt and 18000 ppt on other tests of the Wickes sample, well below the 1.6 million ppt previously reported.

This raises a lot of questions. Was the 1.6 million reading due to extremely uneven distribution of dioxin in the soil? Or are they doing something in their retests that biases the results low?

Dr. Garabrant is still downplaying the exposure of Tittabawassee/Saginaw residents.

See the Saginaw News reports on Dow's spin and the quarterly community meeting with Garabrant's quote.

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.