State warns that Walleye Fest participants aren’t being properly warned of toxic dangers
While it's known that dioxin is present in the river, the fishing festival
is based in a park where unsafe levels of the toxic substance have been recorded
in the soil.
By Eartha Jane Melzer, Michigan Messenger, 4/23/09 8:17 PM
Tittabawassee Township Supervisor Rick Hayes, an active member of the
Freeland Lions Club, is busy preparing for this weekend’s Walleye Fest, the Dow
Chemical-sponsored community event that promotes sport fishing in a waterway
that also happens to be one of the region’s most contaminated.
Earlier this week, an organizer of the festival told Michigan Messenger that the
Lions Club would donate some river-caught walleye fillets to a local food bank.
While Hayes denied that the group is planning to donate fish to the needy, he
also indicated that he was unaware of the state’s restrictive walleye
consumption advisories issued for the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers last May.
According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, children under 15 and
pre-menopausal women should not eat walleye larger than 18 inches in size. A
previous advisory recommended this population group eat no more than one meal a
month from walleye larger than 22 inches.
Hayes may be typical of people in the region when it comes to knowledge of fish
advisories. A few years ago, Hayes was part of a committee that created a
popular unofficial walleye festival hat with the embroidered statement “Dioxins
My Ass.” But he may also be partly responsible for some people not knowing about
the risks of eating walleye.
According to state officials, Tittabawassee Township has resisted posting needed
fish advisory signs in Freeland Festival Park — ground zero for this weekend’s
walleye celebration.
Allan Taylor, a geologist with the Department of Environmental Quality’s waste
and hazardous materials division who has been working on dioxin contamination
issues in the area since 1991, told Michigan Messenger that he feels the current
level of signage is inadequate, especially since the posted signs have outdated
information about the risks associated with walleye consumption.
Officials say that under an agreement with the state, Dow Chemical, which is
responsible for the watershed’s dioxin contamination, promised to pay for fish
advisory signs but has balked at fulfilling this agreement and has refused to
provide necessary funds. Mary Draves, spokeswoman for Dow Chemical acknowledged
that the company has come to an impasse with the DEQ over funding for fish
advisory signs.
“I am not aware of anything further that we will be doing on this,” she said.
Currently, the signs are more or less the only official way to communicate the
dioxin danger to the public. Budget shortfalls in the late 1990s prompted the
state to end its policy of distributing fish advisory information to people who
buy fishing licenses.
In addition to concerns about fish consumption, people who visit Freeland
Festival Park for the weekend’s festivities — which features a Special Olympics
hot dog cook-out, a teen dance and battle of the bands, a rummage sale and beer
tent — could be exposed to dioxin present in the soil.
An expensive remediation project involving removal and replacement of topsoil
was completed in the park in 2005, but periodic river flooding means some areas
may be contaminated with dangerous levels of dioxin, as is the case with a
nearby park in Saginaw Township where the EPA is supervising removal of soil
that contained dioxin at concentrations as as high as 5,900 parts per trillion.
The state’s safe level for dioxin is 90 parts per trillion.
Visitors to the Freeland park “could potentially be exposed to dioxin levels in
excess of the state safety standards,” Taylor said. In a 2007 letter to
Tittabawassee Township officials, the DEQ urged additional signs and cleanup at
the park and noted a soil sample showed dioxin at 5,000 parts per trillion.
“Until we get entire river system addressed,“ he said, “there is never going to
be 100 percent certainly that areas have not been decontaminated. … That’s why
it’s important to have ongoing monitoring. We want to get in front of exposure.”
Groups call for state, federal action on Walleye Fest dangers
In response to Michigan Messenger’s earlier report on Walleye Fest, some are
asking the state and federal government and Dow Chemical to take steps to
prevent people from being harmed by contamination.
Dow is in the midst of a controversial process of negotiating its dioxin
clean-up responsibilities in the watershed and Michelle Hurd Riddick of the Lone
Tree Council said that company should not be allowed to sponsor a walleye
festival as it suggests that the river and fish are safe. “I want to ask EPA:
‘Are you going to set back and let the polluter frame the issue around the
safety of the fish?’ ”
Rita Jack of the Sierra Club appealed to Dow Chemical on a statewide
environmental message board: “[P]lease consider donating organic grass-fed
hamburgers, with all the fixings, to the food bank, instead of the tainted fish.
It would go a long way toward repairing the image that many people have gotten
about this.”
“Michigan must stop the contaminated walleye festival,” blogged environmental
writer Dave Dempsey. “[T]he State of Michigan has an affirmative duty to health
this attack on public health. If the tourney goes ahead, the state has a duty to
file a reckless endangerment charge.”
DEQ spokesman Bob McCann said that the options for his agency are limited.
“All we can do is provide information and recommend that people understand the
risks.”
Kory Groetsch, a MDCH toxicologist, said there is no certainty that walleye
festival participants will have access to information about the risks posed by
contamination of the river and the fish.
“We have some new fliers and we hope to have them up there with the folks who
are putting it on,“ but he added: “We’ve never had any collaboration will them
helping hand them out.”
Groetsch said that some community leaders in the Freeland area make light of
dioxin exposure.
“It’s not a situation where you get exposed today and tomorrow you have to run
to the hospital. Some folks just can’t get beyond that. They say that there is
no proof the dioxin has health effects. But we have never had a study done in
this area that would look for health outcomes.”
For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawassee River Watch web site www.trwnews.net for complete coverage of the Tittabawassee River Dow Chemical dioxin contamination saga. . The Newspaper / Media page of our site contains an extensive archive of media articles dating back to January 2002. The source organization's web site link is listed to the right of the article, visit often for other news in our area. The Newspaper / Media page may be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom of the CONTENTS section and clicking on the Newspaper/Media link.