Company hired to map river's behavior
 Friday, May 12, 2006
 JEREMIAH STETTLER THE SAGINAW NEWS

Dow Chemical Co. wants to know everything about the Tittabawassee River: how it moves, where it flows and what landscape lies beneath the surface.

Officials say those kinds of details hold the answers to where dioxin migrated historically from Dow's Midland plant and where it drifts today.

Dow announced plans this week to map dioxin contamination downstream of its Midland operations. The company will focus on the first six miles this summer.

This is no simple sample-by-sample analysis of the Tittabawassee River, officials say. Rather, Dow has contracted with Ann Arbor Technical Services Inc. to examine everything about the river -- where it slows, where it bends, where it rushes over the banks when the water runs high -- to find out where dioxin levels are highest.

"Once you understand how the river behaves, you can start to understand where the materials are and where they are not," said Peter Simon, project manager for the Ann Arbor contractor.

The project is part of Dow's work plans for cleaning dioxin along the Tittabawassee River. The state Department of Environmental Quality requires the company to measure the scope of contamination downstream.

The concern is dioxin, a toxin too small to see that scientists have linked to birth defects, reproductive problems, weakened immune systems and some forms of cancer in laboratory animals.

Dow's approach to tracking the toxin isn't quite what the state envisioned, but DEQ Deputy Director Jim Sygo said his agency is "cautiously optimistic" that the technology will provide a complete picture of pollution along the river.

The initiative, dubbed GeoMorph, is designed to look at the Tittabawassee River's behavior. Researchers will map the river's landscape, analyze potential changes in water flow because of manmade and natural obstacles, and conduct intensive soil sampling.

Contractors estimate they will take about 2,500 samples in the six-mile stretch, although an exact number will have to wait until the company submits its official work plans in June.

Dow officials did not have a cost estimate on the project, but said this will make their work more efficient while providing extensive information about the path of pollution in the Tittabawassee River.

"Anyone can go out and take a soil sample and get an analytical result," Simon said. "The key is understanding the characteristics of the river and why (contaminants) are there."

Ann Arbor Technical Services is to finish work on the first six miles of the river by February. The company ultimately will map the entire 22-mile stretch of the Tittabawassee River and the first six miles of the Saginaw River, starting at its confluence with the Shiawassee and Tittabawassee rivers.

"This is going to help us immensely in determining where the concentrations are," said Dow spokesman John C. Musser. "It will allow us to predict more effectively where the chemicals are and whether they will stay there or become unstable and move around during a flood situation." v

Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.
 

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