5/14/2009 11:01 AM | Eartha Jane Melzer | Michigan Messenger
This satellite photo shows a plume of sediments entering the Saginaw Bay from the Saginaw River
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has started a project to remove contaminated sediments from the Saginaw River without safety measures requested by the state, a move that sparked worry because toxins such as dioxin could make their way into the water supplies for Saginaw and Bay City, which don’t test for the toxins.
Early Sunday morning, an Army Corps contractor began scooping up sediments from shallow areas in a lower Saginaw River navigational channel, sending them via pipeline to an unlined slurry pit that straddles rural Zilwaukee and Frankenlust townships. The dredging project, which will be expanded with $4 million in federal stimulus grants, is expected to remove 600,000 cubic yards of sediment from the river. Local officials say that over the next six weeks, work will focus on areas between the 6th Street turning basin in Saginaw and the mouth of the Saginaw River at Bay City.
The Saginaw River is an “area of concern” to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because it is contaminated with industrial chemicals including highly toxic dioxin which has migrated from Dow Chemical’s Midland plant through the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and into Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay.
The dredging project — deemed essential to freighter traffic and the jobs that depend on it — sparked a 2006 federal lawsuit by the Lone Tree Council and Environment Michigan which argued that the disposal facility for the dredged materials was not environmentally safe. They argued that flooding could spread dioxin onto neighboring property and that toxins could leach into the groundwater through lenses of sand under the pit. These groups were unsuccessful in arguing that an environmental impact statement should be prepared for the project.
The state Department of Environmental Quality also insisted that the dump needed a liner, but acquiesced to the Army Corps’ unlined design after intervention by Lt. Gov. John Cherry.
Dredged materials pour into the disposal site in rural Saginaw County. Photo courtesy Saginaw County public works commissioner Jim Koski
Although local, state and federal environmental officials agree that dredging will cause contamination to migrate downstream, DEQ officials have been unsuccessful in getting Dow Chemical to install sediment traps to limit the migration of toxins.
Dow Chemical is responsible for the dioxin in the Saginaw River watershed and signed a cleanup agreement with the state in 2003, but the state has been unable to hold the company to environmental and safety measures deemed necessary.
“We recognize the need to do navigational dredging,” said DEQ spokesman Bob McCann. “But we are doing it at a time when we are also undertaking remediation.”
“We want to minimize stirring up contamination in these sediments,” he said, but the agency has not been able to negotiate installation of containment measures.
The EPA, which oversees the state’s environmental enforcement dealings with Dow, has not required that the traps be installed.
Jim Koski, public works commissioner for Saginaw County, has been working to advance the dredging project for years.
Koski said sediment traps work: He said he’s used them and supports installing them if the state feels they are necessary.
“It is the job of state to monitor water quality. If they thought it was a problem then they should be monitoring.”
Unknown dangers for drinking water
Dioxin and other toxins dumped into the Saginaw River watershed have been shown to end up in Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay, where the cities of Bay City and Saginaw get their municipal drinking water.
An EPA report from 1978 states that migration of dioxin from Dow’s Midland plant may pose a risk to anyone who gets their water downstream from the plant.
According to the report:
The evidence of [dioxin] contamination in widely dispersed fish notwithstanding, perhaps the finding of most concern is that the caged trout held six miles downstream from the Dow outfall were found to have detectable levels of [dioxin] (whole fish analysis) following a mere 30 days of exposure. This is most distressing for several reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates that [dioxin] is being transported downstream in flowing water. This point offers clear refutation of any argument that the instances of [dioxin]-contaminated fish resulted from movement of the fish downstream and not the movement of the [dioxin] itself. In addition, this raises concern of [dioxin] exposure for any persons taking their drinking water from the Tittabawassee or Saginaw Rivers or the Saginaw Bay.
Despite the longstanding concerns about the possibility of dioxin contamination of water supplies connected to the Saginaw River watershed, and acknowledgment by public officials that dredging will send more contaminated sediments downstream, the water supplies for Saginaw and Bay City, drawn from the Saginaw Bay and near the mouth of the Saginaw River, are not tested for dioxin.
Jon Bloemker, district supervisor for the DEQ’s Saginaw Bay district office said that the water systems in Saginaw and Bay City are not tested for dioxin because of the expense involved with such testing.
Bloemker added that he feels the Saginaw and Bay City water supplies are safe from Saginaw River toxins because the river flows away from water supply intakes as it enters the bay and toxins tend to adhere to sediments which are filtered from drinking water.
But some want additional assurances that the new dredging activities are not accelerating the migration of toxins and endangering the pubic health.
One concerned resident, Kathy Henry, has requested that the EPA monitor these municipal water systems during the Saginaw dredging project.
In a letter sent to EPA and DEQ officials this week, Henry said:
Because of the method of dredging being done, and the community of Bay City drawing their drinking water from the mouth of the Saginaw River, and Saginaw residents from the Saginaw Bay, I am requesting the EPA to do municipal water testing for known contaminants of concern, such as dioxins, furans, hexachlorobenzene, parathion, dichlorobenzenes, etc. until the dredging is finished this season.
With the dredging underway, it appears that no agency has stepped forward with a plan to set up monitoring of area drinking water.
Wendy Carney, a manager with of EPA’s Superfund division, said that although the dredging will stir up contamination it will be beneficial overall in that it will remove a significant body of toxins from the river. She said that it is the responsibility of the Army Corps to monitor the effects of the dredging project.
Angie Mundell, Army Corps supervisor for the Saginaw River dredging project, said the levels of dioxin in the sediments being removing “do not require any special handling” and that her agency has no plans to monitor the downstream effects of the dredging project. “We have not been contacted by any other regulatory agency asking that we do this,” she said.