17,370 tons of Dow dioxin-contaminated soil removed from park hot spot

Michigan Messenger Photo

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that the dioxin cleanup work at West Michigan Park in Saginaw Township is nearing completion.

Agency officials required that Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) pay for cleanup at the park — 15 miles downstream from the company’s Midland plant — where flooding from the Tittabawassee River has deposited dioxin-contaminated sediments. The park had been identified by state officials as a top clean-up priority and designated “time critical” by the EPA after dioxin contamination at levels as high as 5,900 parts per trillion was found there. Federal law requires cleanup of contamination at 1,000 ppt.

EPA officials say that picnic tables have been painted, playground equipment has been washed and 17,370 tons of dioxin-contaminated soil has been removed and dumped at Waste Management’s People’s landfill in Birch Run. Grasses and native plants have been planted in areas that have been covered in new, uncontaminated soil. Officials say that gates are in place at the park to block access by the public until the new vegetation becomes established. The park is expected to reopen on Aug. 15.

Brian Schlieger, on-site coordinator for EPA, said that sampling of the area around the park revealed hot spots of contamination at 1,000 and 2,000 ppt at the River Forest condominium complex to the west of the park and at other residential properties to the east of the park.

At these residential areas, Schlieger said, Dow ended up developing barrier controls. In one case excavating and replacing with clean fill. In another, barrier fabric with a rock covering was laid down.

Schlieger estimated that the West Michigan Park area cleanup would cost Dow around $1.5 million.

EPA is negotiating with Dow Chemical to establish a framework for cleaning up the dioxin contamination that extends from Dow’s Midland complex, through the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and into Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay.

At a community meeting held by the agency in June, officials promised that although cleanup of the entire watershed is expected to stretch into 2018, the agency will order emergency cleanups in areas where people might be exposed to significant contamination.

The West Michigan Park cleanup is an example of this type of action.

In a statement this week, the agency said that July negotiations with Dow dealt with how to coordinate compliance with state and federal laws, how to organize existing information about the scope of the pollution in the watershed, how to divide the river up into manageable segments for conducting work and how to resolve disputes that arise during the cleanup process.

In the last month, EPA officials have established a field office in Saginaw, developed a online message board to update interested parties, and has called an Aug. 15 meeting to begin the process of establishing a citizen advisory group. The agency has also released details of its plan to monitor the municipal water systems for dioxin contamination.