# Dioxin levels up in wildlife along river



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Two emails to HR: Article & Power Point presentation

Dioxin levels up in wildlife along river, study shows 

The Power Point presentation on the aquatic eco-study done on the Tittabawassee River Floodplain is available on the DEQ website. During his presentation to the Community Advisory Panel, Dr. Galbraith pointed out that all organisms studied exceeded safe levels. Merganser eggs 600 times higher than the safe level. In addition the dioxin contamination was found 9miles out in a Saginaw Bay shipping channel. Dow Chemical's public relations gurus came out spinning like tops but the science speaks clearly and profoundly about their (Dows) contamination of an entire watershed. Read it and weep!

Michelle Hurd Riddick
Lone Tree Council 

Tittabawassee River Flood Plain Contamination
http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3308_21234-43808--,00.html


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Feds agree with state wild game dioxin advisory

http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14481645&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6

The Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry says dioxins in the whitetailed deer and turkey that roam the Tittabawassee River flood plain pose a public health hazard. Along with the Michigan Department of Community Health, the federal agency advises that consumption of deer meat and squirrel meat from contaminated areas should be limited, and that deer liver and turkey not be eaten at all.

The information, which was detailed in a report dated April 29, has not been released to the public, MDCH staff said this morning. It was inadvertently posted on a state website Thursday, but the department is continuing a review and did not know it was there. It was not available this morning.

The report comes four years after Midland resident Diane Hebert and environmental groups under the umbrella organization Michigan Environmental Council petitioned ATSDR to conduct a public health assessment of dioxins and dioxinlike compound contamination in communities adjacent to Midland. 

"That request (by environmental groups) touched off a number of things," said MDCH spokesman T.J Bucholz. In a first review after the 2001 petition, ATSDR and MDCH noted that the data needed to measure risk were not available at that time and called the area an "indeterminate public health hazard." MDCH then suggested the MDEQ begin sampling to determine dioxin levels; those samples eventually turned up levels as high as 7,300 parts per trillion. 

The latest assessment on wild game is a continuation of efforts to fulfill the petitioners' request and follows a wild game advisory issued by state Departments of Agriculture, Community Health, Environmental Quality and Natural Resources last September. 

It says risks associated with eating turkey and deer liver are higher than 1 in 10,000 people. It does not say how much higher. "It doesn't say, because we don't know what the additional risk is," Bucholz said. 

Muscle meat should be limited, particularly by women of childbearing age and children under the age of 15. 

The Dow Chemical Co., which is blamed for contamination and is working with the state on remediation, provided data on wild game to the state and federal agencies after a study conducted last year. The company has not yet been notified of the ATSDR information, said spokesman John Musser. 

Dow agrees that deer liver should be avoided, he added, but not with the warning about deer and turkey meat. "The deer meat and turkey meat without skin is within the same range one might get eating a normal diet of food you might get out of the grocery store." 

ATSDR disagrees with Dow's comparison, and says in the report that dioxin levels in wild game found on the flood plain are consistently higher than those found in the U.S. food supply.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

DOW's Secret Data Collection Revealing 

As the result of a formal informational request filed by DEQ/EPA, Dow Chemical turned over the results of their behind the scenes testing to the DEQ which promptly placed it on the DEQ web site. Gary Henry, TRW, did a great job of breaking down the information on the Tittabawassee floodplain sampling. A summary of Dow's sampling on the floodplain below the Dow plant site are as follows:

100% of the 16 samples taken from the Tittabawassee River Floodplain down stream of the Dow plant exceeded the state standard of 90 ppt

75 % of the 16 samples taken exceed the ATSDR 1000 ppt action level. 

8,920 ppt found near Freeland Festival Park is to date the highest levels found in this floodplain. It is about twenty miles upriver from the 7,280 ppt found at the confluence with the Saginaw River.

3,867 ppt at Tittabawassee Twp Park 

Four samples taken at Imerman Park ranged from 2,157 ppt to 4,230 ppt. 

These results are consistent with Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 of sampling done by DEQ over the past three years. The conclusion has not changed. Dioxin is pervasive at high levels the entire length of the river. Dioxin will continue to move and be redistributed along this dynamic mobile river system. As it moves it will continue to be deposited and re-deposited in peoples' yards, homes, public parks and communities. Dioxin will continue to find its way into wildlife, fish and peoples' bodies. It will continue to migrate to the Saginaw River and to Lake Huron. 

Michelle Hurd Riddick
Lone Tree Council


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Food downstream more toxic for area songbirds

http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16589965&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6

05/05/2006 Mónica Guzmán, Midland Daily News

It might look like the same trees and shrubs from a birds-eye view, but whether an eastern bluebird, tree swallow or house wren builds its nest upstream or downstream of The Dow Chemical Co. could mean the difference between everyday flies and earthworms and slightly more contaminated grub. 
Thats the preliminary finding of a Dow-funded study on common songbirds living on the Tittabawassee River watershed.

The project, one of a group of contamination studies conducted by doctoral students at Michigan State University, is about one-third complete, said its lead researcher, Timothy B. Fredericks. 
But there are still plenty of measurements left to take  including tissue and behavioral data  before anything can be said about what the difference in diet means for the birds. 
"They are still here, so take that as you will," said Fredericks, who presented his findings to the public at the Chippewa Nature Center Thursday. "Its preliminary, but Im going to say theyre OK."
His was the last installment of a four-part weekly series at the nature center about chemical contamination and local wildlife. 
Songbirds living downstream from the Dow Chemical plant ate insects and worms with up to 55 times more toxins than birds nesting upstream, the study found. 
Ninety percent of the toxins are difurans, a compound related to dioxins, Fredericks said.
Sneaking a peek at the birds meals was not easy. First, the researchers had to carefully extract food from wide-mouthed nestlings after mom or dad delivered the feast. Then, they had to sort out the menu of spiders, mayflies, moths and earthworms  in various stages of digestion  from more than 1,000 collected samples, and tally each items predetermined toxicity. 
"You learn your bugs, thats for sure," Fredericks joked.
Earthworms living downstream picked up the most of the soil and sediment-bound toxins of all the critters in the birds diet. The worms  bluebirds favorite snack  showed 339 times more contaminants than those further upstream. Flies were 32 times more toxic downstream, and downstream moths  the house wrens preferred prey  had 20 times more contaminants. 
Still, the actual toxic content is at most a few hundred parts per billion, he said, and to what extent the birds are what they eat is a question that warrants more research.
"It will be interesting to see if the tissue concentrations match up with the dietary concentrations," Fredericks said.
Testing the birds bodies for the presence of toxins and looking for any changes in nesting and growth are the next steps in what might be a three- or four-year project. 
A similar Michigan State study presented last week found that owls are exposed to 100 times more contamination when they feed downstream of the company as when they feed upstream.
On Thursday, Fredericks said he had no expectations coming into the study, which kept him in the field as much as 18 hours a day while he gathered data between April and August last year, tagging nearly 900 birds for future observation in the process. 
"Ive always been attracted to birds, because theyre everywhere," said Fredericks, who is preparing for another summer of intense research. "No matter where you go, anywhere you go, you see a bird."


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

http://www.michigan.gov/mdch/0,1607,7-132-8347-191833--,00.html

The Michigan Departments of Community Health, Environmental Quality and Natural Resources said samples of wild game taken from the floodplains in 2007 confirm high levels of dioxin and dioxin like compounds in muscle meats, skin and other consumable portions of animals. High levels of dioxins previously found in game taken along the Tittabawassee River had prompted a 2004 Health Advisory for whitetail deer, turkey, and squirrel.

State of Michigan health assessors have reviewed the 2007 wild game data for the floodplains of the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers downstream of Midland. The results conclude that eating deer, turkey, squirrel, wood duck or Canada goose that contain dioxin at the levels found in the Dow wild game studies could result in adverse health effects. Eating cottontail rabbit is not likely to result in adverse health effects.


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