Minorities underrepresented in EPA outreach on Dow dioxin

SAGINAW — In a letter to environmental groups this spring, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson said dioxin contamination from Dow Chemical’s Midland complex poses a threat to public health in local communities and pledged “an unprecedented degree of transparency” in cleanup negotiations and “a comprehensive public involvement plan.”

But initial community involvement efforts by the agency show signs of falling short in involving black and Latino residents, who are the majority in the region’s largest city, Saginaw, and who are more likely to be uninformed about warnings not to eat local fish.

In 2007, the most severe dioxin contamination measured by the EPA was detected in the Saginaw River next to Wickes Park in the city of Saginaw.

At a workshop set up by the agency last weekend to create an official community panel to provide input on cleanup plans, most of the participants were male, most were older, and all appeared to be white. Several representatives of Dow Chemical were present.

The Saturday event at Saginaw Valley State University was designed to establish a Community Advisory Group (CAG). EPA officials said the CAG would represent community concerns and provide “a way for people in the community to participate in providing coordinated, local input to the decision making process at Superfund sites.”

EPA organizers asked those present to nominate people to select the members of the advisory body.

They said that having a representative group of citizens on the CAG is very important and acknowledged the lack of minority participation at the event.

EPA Community Involvement Coordinator Jeff Kelley and meeting facilitator Doug Sarno said that lack of minority representation is a common problem for CAG groups.

The organizers said that their CAG outreach efforts involved notices posted on an Internet message board, letters sent to a mailing list and advertisements in local newspapers. They also said that Dow Chemical had done some outreach to local constituencies. Dow spokeswoman Mary Draves, who was present at the meeting, however, said the company played no role in organizing the CAG meeting.

“We can’t answer for the state of journalism,” one official said when an audience member pointed out the that The Saginaw News has reduced publication to three days a week.

Lois Ann Sheafer, a white long-term resident of inner-city Saginaw, said that she was there to represent the Saginaw chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Some of the people speaking the loudest about dioxin are people who built homes on the river, she said.

“Those folks have been most vocal, but in Saginaw many people do not know how this affects them,” she said. “And they are probably taking chances they shouldn’t take.”

Sheafer said that people in her neighborhood are most worried about violence and blight and face obstacles to engaging in the dioxin issue.

Corrine Colvin, office manager for the First Ward Community Center in Saginaw echoed these sentiments.

First Ward provides an array of services to the African American community in Saginaw and has partnered with the Michigan Department of Community Health to do outreach and education on the need to reduce consumption of dioxin-laden fish from the local watershed. This work is supported by an EPA grant.

A 2007 study by MDCH found that minorities are less likely to know about dioxin fish advisories and also more likely to fish for and eat the most contaminated varieties of fish such as catfish and carp.

State health advisories warn that no one should ever eat these bottom-feeding fish because of the health risks they pose.

Colvin agreed that many Saginaw residents are focused on immediate life problems, unaware of the dioxin contamination or in denial about it, and therefore unlikely to get involved with EPA’s advisory group.

“Indigence,” she said, and “not being able to make the bills” are top concerns for many in Saginaw.

“I don’t think if someone is having trouble having a place to live they are going to care about ecology,” she said. “When you are hungry and your food budget is nonexistent it is easy to walk up to the river and get some fish.”

Despite these difficult circumstances, First Ward, in partnership with the Michigan Department of Community Health, has had success in reaching out on the fish advisories.

Colvin said that a recent “Fish Smart, Eat Smart” event put on by the groups drew 300 people from all age groups to a free fish lunch that featured information about the fish advisories.

She said the group is also working with the Westside Friendship center, a Hispanic senior center, to build relationships and do outreach on safe fish consumption in the Latino community.

Colvin said that they have been able to reach people by putting flyers up around town, and sending announcements to area churches.

Colvin said she was happy to learn that the EPA has ensured that more fish advisory signs will be posted this summer.

“I was excited to know they were going to be putting up more of those signs,” she said. “We do need to get this information out.”