Fish Stories and Empty Offices

Michigan and California firms feel pressure over pollution sites

It was a disturbing revelation. In testimony last month before a House subcommittee investigating mismanagement at the Environmental Protection Agency, Midwest Regional Director Valdas Adamkus accused John Hernandez, EPA's acting administrator until he resigned last month, of allowing Dow Chemical Co. to censor the agency's 1981 draft report on dioxin contamination in Michigan, including two rivers and a bay near Dow's Midland plant. Particularly alarming to Adamkus was the deletion of one of the draft's conclusions that "Dow's discharge represented the major source, if not the only source, of [dioxin] contamination" in the waterways.

Now, it seems, Adamkus may have the last word. The preliminary findings of a new EPA study of the site, released last week by the agency's Midwest office, indicate that more than 40 toxic chemicals, among them the most dangerous form of dioxin, are being released by Dow into the Tittabawassee River. The report estimates that there are up to 35 lbs. of toxic organic pollutants in the approximately 61.4 million gal. of waste water Dow discharges daily.

The study found 2,3,7,8T, a highly toxic form of dioxin, in the edible parts of fish in amounts twice as high as the level established by the Food and Drug Administration as a "level of concern." Environmental officials contend that the buildup of the poison in fish over time, a process known as bioaccumulation, poses a long-range, if not immediate, health hazard. Warned Adamkus: "This is going to be a ticking bomb for human beings if it is accumulated over the years." The sample fish in the study were bottom feeders, such as carp and catfish, which scavenge in slimy sediment, where dioxin tends to settle. Cautious environmental officials renewed warnings against eating fish from the Tittabawassee, though no outright ban has been declared. The exact health risk from dioxin absorbed by fish has not been determined.

Dow asserts that its responsibility for the contamination is limited because dioxin is coming not from its plant but from "normal combustion" sources, such as natural fires and furnaces. The health risks, says Dow, have been exaggerated. "You would have to eat more than 25 tons of fish per year," contended Company Spokeswoman Sarah Rowley, "to reach a level of dioxin that has been shown to cause cancer in animals."

Back in Washington, the Justice Department's Division of Land and Natural Resources revealed plans to sue some of the more than 200 companies responsible for dumping hazardous wastes from 1955 to 1972 at the 22-acre Stringfellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif. The aim: to recover cleanup costs, now calculated to run as high as $40 million.

The Stringfellow site has been at the center of charges, under investigation by the FBI and congressional subcommittees, that former EPA Administrator Anne Burford last year withheld federal cleanup funds from California for political reasons. Newly appointed EPA Head William Ruckelshaus is doing his own kind of tidying up: his aides are busy screening candidates for top EPA jobs, almost all of which are now vacant. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.