from yesterday's Dow Chemical Company shareholders' meeting

Good morning. My name is Pamela Pugh Smith and I am a board member of the Michigan Environmental Council, a coalition of 70 statewide watershed conservation, public health and environmental organizations. I appreciate the opportunity to address you today. My primary work with the MEC is centered on Environmental Justice.

As you know, dioxin contaminates 52 miles of river and the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron, our second largest Great Lake. The magnitude of this contamination cannot be understated because it truly impacts our communities. MDCH issued enhanced fish consumption advisories this past summer… augmenting the advisories in place since 1978 when dioxins were first found in Walleye. But walleye are not the only fish taken from these rivers. The MDCH fish survey found a disproportionate number of African Americans eating the most highly contaminated bottom eating fish, mainly cat fish and carp, from these rivers. Dioxin and furans are persistent organic pollutants whose impact on developing babies, children and women of childbearing age are well documented. In addition to families being exposed through eating this protein source, children are exposed to contaminated sediments as they fish from this God-given resource. In the summer you can find people fishing from the banks of the river, only yards away from the spot thought to contain the nation's highest levels of dioxin---1.6 million ppt.

This contamination demands that we honestly confront the substantive issue of people who eat these fish to subsist. This is a moral and ethical issue and there are huge public health and economic justifications for cleaning up our rivers. Until that time, it is a danger for the public to be subject to constant debate over the science provided by regulatory agencies which is aimed at protecting the health of vulnerable citizens.

Finally, Mr. Liveris I pose the question to you, is Dow Chemical of the belief that it is OK for children and women of childbearing age to consume fish contaminated with dioxin and furans?