Tittabawassee River Watch Editorial
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Richard Maltby, 01/12/07, Letter to the editor, Midland Daily News
Where’s ‘human element’?
To the editor:
Interesting reading: "Dow’s new business model ‘defies gravity’" and "Dow
setting example inside and out" (Midland Daily News, Jan. 1, 2007). New Year’s
Day, 2007, brought no further word about Dow’s plans to revive the
Tittabawassee. Instead, Dow Chemical Co. Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris said
his first task was staying the course: Institutionalizing cost reductions,
reducing debt, improving earnings and cash flow. "Getting the company fit," but
no specific word on getting the Saginaw Bay watershed ecologically and humanely
fit.
Instead, Daily News reporter Kathie Marchlewski again reported on Dow’s "Human
Element" campaign and more of Dow’s non-committal goals and generalities of
becoming people-centered and environmentally committed without specifying any
actions to cleanup the dioxin contamination of Midland neighborhoods, Saginaw
Bay, and the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and floodplains.
Really, Dow’s "Human Element" means very little now to the residents of the
Saginaw Valley.
Richard A. Maltby
Midland