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MDEQ’s Harding: Acting in the Best Interest of the Public and the Environment ... or Covering Up for Dow Chemical Company?

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March 2002

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Is Harding Covering Up for Dow?
Gregory V. Button

For a Clean and Safe Detroit: Close the Country's Largest Incinerator
Mary Beth Doyle and Brad Van Guilder

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By Gregory V. Button

Take a public of€cial (sworn to uphold the constitution of the state of Michigan and to protect and defend the citizens and the environment), intrepid environmentalists (backed by decades of grassroots activism), dioxins (known to be among the most toxic substances on the planet). Add to that one of the world’s largest corporations (Dow Chemical Company). Finally, as if from Hollywood’s central casting, mix in a couple of insider whistle-blowers, and you have the makings of one of the most intriguing environmental scandals in a decade.

Documents obtained in January by the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC) show that the state has found dioxin levels 80 times its own cleanup standards near parks and residential areas in a �oodplain south of the city of Saginaw. Furthermore, the documents also demonstrate that Russell Harding, director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), has blocked further testing and is suppressing a state health assessment that calls for aggressive state action.

According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), MDEQ’s response division reported that 29 of its 34 soil samples exceeded the state standard. According to state standards, if dioxin levels exceed 90 parts per trillion (ppt) in a residential area, cleanup is required.

While no one knows for sure the source, or sources, of the contamination, environmentalists — and some DEQ staffers — believe it may have been from Dow Chemical Company’s waste-water treatment plant �ood in 1986.

The state discovered the contamination in 2000. However, the high levels of pollution only became public two years later after environmental groups secured the documents in January through FOIA.

The documents further disclose that Harding wants to override MDEQ staff’s recommendations and weaken the state’s cleanup standard for dioxins. An MDEQ employee stated that, based on emerging science, the state standard should be toughened, not weakened.

In a November 20, 2001, e-mail MEC obtained through FOIA, MDEQ Deputy Director Arthur Nash wrote of becoming “uncomfortable” with Harding’s decision and that Harding’s approach is “not protective of public health and not based on the ‘best available information.’”

The central question is this: Why did Harding not immediately inform public health of€cials, as is the protocol in a situation of this severity? And why did he not approve local and state staff recommendations to immediately conduct further testing to investigate the full extent of the contamination? As an editorial in the Bay City Times stated, “Why weren’t we told earlier?”

If it is proven that the contamination is from the Dow wastewater plant, then Dow Chemical Company would be responsible for a very costly cleanup. Only Dow or other possibly responsible parties bene€t from the untimely delays. Says MEC’s Dave Dempsey:

Tracey Easthope, Ecology Center Environmental Health Director, says, “Harding’s actions on this matter are a betrayal of the public trust.”

Diane Hebert, Director of Midland’s Environmental Health Watch, stated, “the evidence points to Harding repeatedly delaying staff effort to dis-cover the extent of the dioxin problem.”

Environmental activists aren’t the only ones disturbed by Harding’s decisions. Some disgruntled MDEQ staffers have grown increasingly frus-trated by the their department’s historic failure under the Engler administration to protect and defend Michigan’s citizens and the environment. Some of this is evident in the internal documents. Perhaps because Governer Engler is now a lame duck, some staff have secretively released information that supports environmentalists’ allegations.

After the disclosure of the MDEQ documents and the controversy surrounding them, Harding seemed to back off a little. In an article in Chemical Policy Alert released in the middle of February, he was quoted as saying the Department would not weaken the dioxin standard until the EPA releases its long-awaited scienti€c reassessment on dioxin.

He then proceded to do the exact opposite. Shortly after Harding’s more moderate statement appeared, MDEQ released proposed rules that would weaken the dioxin cleanup standard. Rejecting his professional staff’s advice, Harding proposed almost doubling Michigan’s dioxin cleanup standard for residential areas from 90 ppt to 150 ppt.

Harding’s rush to judgement seems especially premature since, as noted above, U.S. EPA is about to complete a 12-year reassessment of dioxin risks that validates the increased concern about them. While at least one dioxin compound is a con€rmed carcinogen, an emerging body of scienti€c evidence shows that many dioxin compounds can cause birth defects, neurological delays, and chronic ailments. There is good reason to believe that the federal standards will become stricter in light of this and other evidence.

In fact, an MDEQ document that we obtained through FOIA suggests that dioxin levels in many areas of Michigan may be unsafe. According to the document, the U.S. EPA will release a revised draft of “Dioxin Reassessment” on the Internet on or before May 15.

The MDEQ document goes on to state

The document also makes clear the signi€cant policy implications these new standards would have for the state:

This near-doubling of the amount of dioxin that people can be exposed to is considered by many to be incomprehensible since all of the scienti€c evidence, including the forthcoming U.S. EPA Dioxin Reassessment report, points to the conclusion that we must signi€cantly reduce exposures.

“With a wave of the wand, Harding is trying to ‘declare’ some areas clean instead of actually removing dioxin,” said Tracey Easthope. “This could save Dow millions of dollars but cost the people of Michigan tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup and health care costs.”

Harding’s proposal is even worse than it sounds: it would not only weaken the dioxin standard but would also lock into place permanent rules, thus making it harder to toughen the standards in the future. Here’s why: Until now, environmental cleanup standards have not been promulgated as rules. Instead, the mathematical formula for determining these standards has been promulgated in the rule. Under such a system, the DEQ could revise cleanup standards as new peer-reviewed studies demonstrate health concerns.

Thus far, it appears that Harding has ignored the professional advice of his staff and rejected a growing body of scienti€c evidence in order to make decisions that clearly are not in the interest of the public or the environment. Only Dow stands to bene€t from such incomprehensible decisions.

This is not a controversy that will soon disappear. At this point, probably only federal and congressional investigations will explain Harding’s behavior and uncover the full story.

“With a wave of the wand, Harding is trying to ‘declare’ some areas clean instead of actually removing dioxin.”

Sources within the MDEQ have privately expressed the hope that, what-ever the outcome, the department will adopt standards based on prevailing science and not political maneuvering.

In response to the disclosures in the documents, an alliance of four environmental groups — The Ecology Center, MEC, Environmental Health Watch, and the Lone Tree Council — are calling for:

1) Immediate action to protect children from exposure to dioxin in parks and residential areas along the Tittabawassee River to its con�uence with the Saginaw River.

2) Release of the public health assessment of the risks posed by contamination in Midland and the Tittabawassee River �ood plain.

3) Immediate state authorizationfor a more detailed investigation into the extent of dioxin/furan contamination in the Tittabawassee River, and determination as to the source or sources.

4) State authorization for development of a cleanup plan.

5) Federal and Congressional investigation into the failure of MDEQ, the Department of Agriculture, and Department of Community Health to inform local agencies, and to address a major, public health risk in a timely fashion.

Go to our web site, www.ecocenter.org, to learn more. There, you will €nd the documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and up-to-the-date information.

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