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EPA Official Ousted While Fighting Dow
By Michael Hawthorne
The Chicago Tribune
Friday 02 May 2008
Saginaw, Michigan - The battle over dioxin contamination in this economically
stressed region had been raging for years when a top Bush administration official
turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up.
On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade's interactions
with Dow, the administration forced her to quit as head of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Midwest office, based in Chicago.
Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator
Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her
to quit or be fired by June 1.
The call came as the Tribune was preparing to publish a story about the dioxin
issue and Gade's crusade.
Jonathan Shradar, an EPA spokesman in Washington, said Gade has been placed
on administrative leave until June 1. He declined further comment, saying the
agency does not publicly discuss personnel matters.
Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans
to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond
its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. The company dumped
the highly toxic and persistent chemical into local rivers for most of the last
century.
Many local residents see Dow as a lifeline in region plagued by plant closings
and layoffs. But all along the two wide streams that cut through this old industrial
town, signs warn people to keep off dioxin-contaminated riverbanks and to avoid
eating fish pulled from the fast-moving waters. Officials have taken the swings
down in one riverside park to discourage kids from playing there. Men in rubber
boots and thick gloves occasionally knock on doors, asking residents whether
they can dig up a little soil in the yard.
Gade, appointed by President Bush as regional EPA administrator in September
2006, invoked emergency powers last summer to order the company to remove three
hotspots of dioxin near its Midland headquarters.
She demanded more dredging in November, when it was revealed that dioxin levels
along a park in Saginaw were 1.6 million parts per trillion, the highest amount
ever found in the U.S.
Dow then sought to cut a deal on a more comprehensive cleanup. But Gade ended
the negotiations in January, saying Dow was refusing to take action necessary
to protect public health and wildlife. Dow responded by appealing to officials
in Washington, according to heavily redacted letters the Tribune obtained under
the Freedom of Information Act.
Regional EPA administrators typically have wide latitude to enforce environmental
laws, but in April Gade drew fire from officials in Washington after she sent
contractors to test soil in a Saginaw neighborhood where Dow had found high
dioxin levels. The levels in one Saginaw yard were nearly six times higher than
the federal cleanup standard, and 65 times higher than what Michigan considers
acceptable.
On Thursday, Gade said of her resignation: "There's no question this is
about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what
we did."
Dioxin, measured in trillionths of a gram because it is so toxic, was a manufacturing
byproduct of the herbicide Agent Orange and other chlorinated chemicals. Company
documents show Dow knew by the mid-1960s that it could make people sick or even
kill them. Citing years of independent studies, the EPA says dioxin causes cancer
and disrupts the immune and reproductive systems, even at very low levels.
Concerns about dioxin contamination were behind two of the most infamous environmental
disasters in U.S. history: the evacuations of the Love Canal neighborhood in
upstate New York and the entire town of Times Beach, Mo.
But in the Saginaw area, cleanup remains stalled, mainly because Dow asserts
the contamination does not threaten people or wildlife.
"There is all of this mystique about dioxin," said John Musser, a
Dow spokesman. "Just because it's there doesn't mean there is an imminent
health threat."
Dow says it has agreed in principle to restore polluted areas but is contesting
how it should be done - which critics view as more stalling.
"Denial and delay has been part of Dow's game plan for years," said
Michelle Hurd Riddick, a Saginaw nurse and member of the Lone Tree Council,
a local environmental group. "They still haven't delivered."
Dow was forced to stop releasing dioxin into waterways in the mid-1980s. But
when high levels of dioxin were found in fish from Saginaw Bay around the same
time, Dow repeatedly claimed it wasn't responsible, saying the chemical had
settled into the water from air pollution caused by forest fires and wood-burning
fireplaces.
Dow and Michigan officials took until 2003 to negotiate legal guidelines for
a comprehensive cleanup. The company later paid to scour the interiors of more
than 300 homes and spread wood chips outside to reduce exposure to contaminated
soil. At the same time, Dow's political allies tried to relax the state's dioxin
standards.
More recently, Dow financed a University of Michigan study that the company
and its supporters say shows dioxin in soil and sediment has little to do with
levels of the chemical in people. The EPA cautions the study hasn't been peer-reviewed
and appears to underestimate health risks.
"Dow has powerful sway in that area and in the state as a whole,"
said Dave Dempsey, a former Michigan activist who was environment adviser in
the 1980s to then-Gov. James Blanchard. "But with all of the information
out there about dioxin, it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to avoid
doing something."
At the center of the latest dispute was Gade, who as a corporate attorney had
represented big companies like Dow against environmental regulators. Her aggressive
action against Dow surprised the company, local activists and her Washington
bosses. But she still won high marks from EPA officials during her last performance
evaluation.
The steps Gade took were influenced in part by her experience as an EPA staffer
during the early 1980s, when the agency's top official in Washington was forced
to resign after he allowed Dow to censor an EPA study documenting dioxin's dangers.
"We have a responsibility to make sure people are living in a healthy
and safe environment," Gade said. "This problem has been out there
for more than 30 years, and it's unconscionable that action hasn't been taken."
"We know Dow is responsible," said Ralph Dollhopf, associate director
of the EPA's regional Superfund office. "The question now is when something
will finally be done about it."
In Saginaw, some are reluctant to question one of the area's biggest employers
and benefactors. They tout Dow's 3,100 manufacturing jobs and its donations
to community and arts groups, including its sponsorship of a struggling civic
arena, now known as the Dow Event Center.
Bob VanDeventer, president of the Saginaw County Chamber of Commerce, said
local leaders are trying to fight the perception that dioxin makes the area
unsafe. He argued "not one illness" can be attributed to dioxin and
insisted the only way someone could be exposed to dioxin is if they "eat
the dirt."
"Michigan is in the tank economically already," VanDeventer said.
"For us, this situation certainly creates more uncertainty as long as it
remains unresolved."
Others who were drawn to living along the picturesque Tittabawassee and Saginaw
Rivers fear the contamination will make it impossible to sell their homes or
will get them sick.
For more than 40 years, Lloyd and Joy Cooper have lived in a cottage near where
the tree-lined rivers meet. Contractors for the EPA and Dow have tested their
yard at least four times in two years.
In February Dow told federal regulators they had found dioxin levels of 5,900
parts per trillion in the Collins' neighborhood, above the federal cleanup standard
of 1,000 parts per trillion. Michigan's far more stringent limit is 90 parts
per trillion.
"It gets pretty frustrating," said Lloyd Cooper, a retired contractor.
"It seems like they're dragging this out as long as they can. If they're
going to do something, do it and get it over with for good."
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