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Commissioners don’t speak for this resident

To the editor:
This is a letter to the editor in reply to "County backs 1,000 ppt dioxin standard" on June 2 by Angela E. Lackey of the MDN staff.
Midland County Department of Public Health Director Michael Krecek admits there are a lot of unknowns about dioxin, so how can he say that 1,000 ppt is a safe level? His top priority should be our physical health, not our financial implications. If Mr. Krecek is not willing to protect our health, unless we are smokers, then he is unfit to hold this job.
The way our elected officials have abandoned the public makes me wonder if the health records over the years were not kept and manage to benefit other interested parties. Mr. Krecek can talk about selected health statistics – they do not go to the issue at hand, which is, what is a safe level of dioxin?
It is our elected officials, from our commissioners to our state senator and state representative, who are not acting in the name of real science. It appears they think the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is trying to pick on Midland and The Dow Chemical Co. The MDEQ has no interest in this matter, other than protecting our physical health and our natural resources, something our elected officials should have been doing all along.
Local elected officials do not represent my interests. They do not understand that cleaning up the problem will benefit everyone. Covering up and denying the problem will only help Dow. Maybe some are willing to risk our health and lives in the name of a political cause. I am not.
So the band of seven county commissioners can make any proclamations they desire to protect themselves politically, but as far as I am concerned, this is just another reason, in a long list of reasons, to not re-elect them.
FRED STOLL
Midland

 

Name: Lauren Martin

Date: Jun, 30 2004 Way to go, Fred!

I was horrified when I saw our legislators trying to extort the MDEQ by taking funds. Dow pulls far too many strings if they can expose the environment - not locally, but STATEWIDE by altering funding through "our" politicians. I feel sorry for the people who feel the need to defend Dow at every turn. I'm thrilled there are people who have not (or at least not yet) suffered health effects, but the money is getting blown anyway. Have you totalled the $$ to be spent on studies? Have you considered the $$ to be spent on lawyers? Its already a big boiling money disaster, no matter the pretty executive bonuses paid off the backs of the unemployed. I just think the solutions would get simpler if Dow would come to the table with ideas instead of delays.

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