~ittabawassee River Watch Updates Page 1 of27

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01/24/08 Lone Tree Council I TRW Dioxin Update

1.\ DEQ and EPA work'ing together

~ Freedom of information
m New York Times circa 1983 Dow memo· anxiety of dioxin in 1965
~ Fearless accountability - a statement from Dow's CEO
'II The DMDF (Saginaw River dredge disposal site)

Click here for all the details

01120/08 Lone Tree Council I TRW Dioxin Update

ill EPA hosts meeting on Saginaw Bay Env'ironmental Issues January 31, 2008
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office will host a meeting to update the public on
a variety of environmental issues affecting Michigan's Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. The meeting will be held from 7
to 9 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 31., at Saginaw Valley University's Curtiss Hall, Banquet Rooms A & B, 7400 Bay Rd.,
University Center, Mich.

Click here for all the details

01/23/08 43 years later: ????

Below are a few snippets from a New Your Times article published in 1983 discussing 1965 memos about Dow and the EPA's attempt
to downplay dioxin health hazards in the public arena. Currently, Dow and the EPA are going at it again, will history repeat itself?

e~t ~t\tr !Jork .~nle$

nytlmes.com
April 19, 1983

1965 MEMOS SHOW DOW'S ANXIETY ON DIOXIN

By DAVID BURNHAM, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

Almost 20 years ago, scientists from four rival chemical companies attended a closed meeting at the Dow Chemical
Company's headquarters. The subject was the health hazards of dioxin, a toxic contaminant found in a widely used
herbicide that the companies manufactured.

Shortly after the meeting, in Midland, Mich., on March 24, 1965, one of those attending wrote in a memorandum that
 tabawassee River Watch Updates Page 2 of27
DO;N did not want its findings about dioxin made public because the situation might "explode" and generate a new wave
of government regulation for the chemical industry.

"Initially," Dr. Legator went on, "Dow planned on comparing the birth defects among the wives of Dow dioxin workers
with two controls. First, a group of wives of Dow workers in Midland who had not been directly exposed to dioxin, and
second, some wives of workmen who lived outside the Midland area. This second control group was important because
the Midland area is quite polluted and the general population has a relatively high level of congenital abnormalities. But
when they published the study the second control group was not included." A 'Sampling Problem'

The company's repeated public statements about the comparative safety of dioxin, including testimony to Congressional
committees, press releases and scientific papers, have been accompanied by efforts on its part, particularly in the
Reagan Administration, to block the Government from collecting information about the contaminant.

Evidence of the repeated contacts between Dow and E.P.A. officials in Washington, if not of the subject of the meetings,
is contained in the calendars and travel records of these officials that have been obtained by the House subcommittees
investigating the agency.

Anne McGill Burford, for example, made at least two trips to Midland, Mich., in her 22 months as the head of the
Environmental' Protection Agency. Rita M. Lavelle, the former head of the Government program to clean up toxic waste '
dumps, met at least 14 times with Dow officials in the 11 months she held office.

Mrs. Burford, Miss Lavelle and 11 other political appointees recently resigned or were dismissed amid Congressional
inquiries on allegations that the agency's toxic waste program had been mishandled. According to the public testimony
of some officials of the agency, Dow used its connections with the top echelon of the agency's Washington officials to get
its wayan several important matters relating to the regulation of dioxin..

Three weeks ago, for example, agency officials in Chicago told the Investigations Subcommittee of the House
Committee on Energy and Commerce that their superiors in Washington ordered them to change an important report
on dioxin to comply with the wishes of Dow.

The key deletion from the report was the following central conclusion about Dow's Midland plant:
"Dow's discharge represented the major source, if not the only source, of TeDD contamination found
in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers and Saginaw Bay in Michigan.

Click here to view the entire article

01/18/08 Check out new FOIA document page

We just added a new Freedom Act (FOrA) document page to our website. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal law
that gives the public the right to make requests for federal agency records. All federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), are required to disclose records unless the records are protected from disclosure by certain exemptions.
The EPA FOrA Home page will guide you to information about the statute and give you information on submitting a request to the
Agency. For more information about FOIA, visit the EPA FOIA website. We will post relevant documents on this page as time
permits, check back often!

Click here to view

01/17/08 Tri-Counties Planning Program Suggestion

January 17, 2008

TRW Current News

Subject: Tri-Counties Planning Program

". ~ 1 ...
1n"nOf
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n vie.w'of...my "etter pUblished by the Midland Daily News (January 15, 2008), entitled "Practice environmental regionalism," I propose
hat the Saginaw Valley Tri-Counties conduct a comprehensive environmental management planning process for the Saginaw Valley
rr!-Coun~ies region. I described in the Midland Daily News the approach used by the Erie and Niagara Counties Regional Planning
30ard, New York, while addressing the international environmental needs of the Niagara River system, which involved a regional
:mvironmental framework. This approach has application to all the communities in the Saginaw Valley Tri-Counties region.

The "International Environmental Study," which included the "Niagara River Environmental Plan," emphasized the implications and
mpact of the Niagara River system on the larger regional framework in terms of tourist-oriented land use concentrations,
transportation, environmental health, parks and conservation areas, governmental management and coordination practices, air and
Hater pollution generators and vacant developable land adjacent to the Niagara River and Lakes Ontario and Erie.

The communities have a right to a clean a.nd ecologically balanced environment, free from pollution, degradation and conflicting land
and water uses. It is recommended that the environmental planning and management process suggested for the Tri-Counties region
include four phases 8S follows:

~ Phase I - Organize a planning body and develop a worl~ program for conducting a regional
environmental study and plan.
l~ Phase 1/ - Inventory and analyze the various elements directly related to the ecological and physical-
visual environment so as to determine the magnitude of the problem.
Vi!; Phase III - Develop and evaluate alternative solutions to environmental problems and select the most
suitable solution or plan.
Ii Phase IV - Develop an implementation program of action designed to carry out the selected solution or j
plan.· .,

R~chard A. Maltby

Midland

TRW note:

Mr. Maltby recently plJbl.ished Revival of the Tittabawassee, a collection of commentaries, warnings,
and actions - Part Two. As he states in the preface, the book is ~a sequel to both the second edition of
The Pollution Signature and the four episodes of The Dioxin Story:' All are available in local libraries.

01/10/08 Dow IEPA negotiations: The past, present, and future

""Defending Dow

The Midland Daily News is still defending Dow Chemical's recalcitrant behavior. Admonishing EPA for terminating
unproductive negotiations with Dow Chemical the MDN said:

Absent an explanation, we have to assume that the intent ofthe press release was public relations, an attempt to paint
Dow once again in a bad light.

1. Dow doesn't need any help looking bad. A company with their financial, legal and scientific resources has no excuse to
cop ignorance of regulatory obligations. They have no excuse to not meet deadlines time and time and time again. They
have no right to expect that time and again they can miss deadlines and expect to be granted more time.

2. EPA could take lessons from Dow in PRo For MDN to be critical of EPA's PR tactics after watching Dow use PR for
decades to gloss over their responsibility and contamination is a almost laughable.

The MDN also admonishes EPA for not being transparent. Fair enough but.......One would think it a contradiction in the
world ofjournalism for newspaper to call for transparency ONLY when the hometown corporation is being attacked. Shut
the public out, as we have been on so many occasions, and the MDN is silent. Why? Shutting out the public benefits Dow.
,.