The disclosure of the highest dioxin levels ever in the Great Lakes should come as no surprise; the only surprise is that the disclosure comes 20 or more years after Dow Chemical Company contributed the bulk of its chemical offal to the Saginaw River system. Had the company come clean in the 70s and 80s, this problem would not be posing health risks to fisheaters and generating rotten PR for Dow today. But a consistent corporate strategy of delay and deny has simply postponed the day of reckoning.
The "good guys" on this one are the folks at Region V, EPA, who have cut through years of happy talk between Michigan's DEQ and Dow to get some cleanup going.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071115/NEWS05/711150353#article_comments
A new Midwest regional renewable energy plan is getting ink today. Will it be implemented or not? Ay, that's the rub. (And why are we touting ethanol in this plan?)
— Reducing energy consumption by 2 percent, with a 2 percent reduction each year after that.
— Offering the ethanol-based gasoline known as E-85 at 15 percent of gas stations, up from the current 3 percent.
— Generating 10 percent of the region's electricity from renewable resources. By 2030, that portion should be 30 percent.
Other
governors in attendance Thursday were: Doyle, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver,
South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and
tentatively Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1552609.html
And finally, author Mel Visser tries to clear things up in the wake of a recent Lake Superior conference -- so-called 'banned' chemicals are still a problem for the world's biggest lake (by surface area anyway)...
PCBs in Lake Superior originate from afar
If I were to
believe the news that emanated from the “Making a Great Lake Superior
2007” conference in Duluth (“Scientists: Humans are biggest threat to
Lake Superior,” Oct. 30), I’d think Lake Superior is the least toxic of
the Great Lakes and that the most important priority is global warming.
In
two trips to the Canadian High Arctic, I saw the evidence of global
warming, but the purpose of my trip was to determine why the
concentration of PCBs in Lake Superior has remained constant for
decades.
I was successful in understanding that the reason for
constant levels of PCBs in the Arctic — and in Lake Superior — is
continuing activities in Russia, India, China, Africa and the
developing nations. More shocking, I found that continuing global use
of tens of thousands of tons per year of toxaphene is a large source of
PCB toxicity in Lake Superior. With respect to the “banned” persistent
organic pollutants, Lake Superior is now the most toxic of the Great
Lakes. This is a major fire that will not be put out by fiddling around
with sediment dredging, zero-discharge initiatives or banning backyard
burning.
I suggest Gov. Tim Pawlenty invite the governors of
Wisconsin and Michigan and the premier of Ontario to Duluth to develop
a strategy to appeal to Washington to ratify the Stockholm Agreement on
the global banning of persistent organic pollutants. Then use the
necessary diplomatic carrots or sticks to get our global trading
partners to stop poisoning us.
Mel Visser
Portage, Mich.
The writer is author of “Cold, Clear and Deadly.”
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=54199
