The Environmental Protection Agency has missed its own deadline to release a major report on the health effects of dioxins. Dioxins are a class of toxic chemicals.

The EPA says dioxins are likely to cause cancer in humans. Since the mid-1980’s, the EPA has been working to define just how toxic dioxins are. Over the years, the agency has released drafts of the report. These drafts have been picked apart by scientists and industry. Then, the EPA goes back to working on it.

Last year, the EPA decided to split its dioxin assessment into two parts. One part will look at cancer risks, the other part will look at non-cancer health risks. The agency had promised to release the report on non-cancer effects by the end of January. But they missed that deadline.

The EPA did not want to be recorded for this story. They would only say they’re “working to finalize the non-cancer health assessment for dioxin as expeditiously as possible.”

People in central Michigan have lived with dioxin pollution for more than three decades. The pollution is largely from a Dow Chemical plant in Midland. We’ve previously reported that EPA’s dioxin assessment could affect how much dioxin Dow might have to clean up.

Michelle Hurd Riddick is with the Lone Tree Council. It’s an environmental advocacy group based in Saginaw.

“We need our government to issue a clear scientific statement and report on the toxicity of this chemical. But unfortunately it appears it’s probably politics as usual. And the monied interests, the lobbyists, they have the access, they have the influence and public health be damned.”

The EPA has been under pressure from industry groups.

In December, the American Chemistry Council asked the EPA to withdraw the dioxin report from interagency review. In a statement emailed to The Environment Report yesterday, the ACC said a draft of the EPA’s dioxin assessment is flawed... and that the EPA has not considered the economic impact of the report.

Two years ago, The Environment Report produced an investigative series looking at why the dioxin cleanup in Michigan has been delayed for so long. The cleanup process has stopped and started for thirty years, with the federal and state governments passing the problem back and forth. In the series, former EPA Administrator Mary Gade said Dow has slowed down the cleanup.

“I think this corporation is hugely adept at playing the system and understanding how to build in delays and use the bureaucracy to their advantage and to use the political system to their advantage.”

In an email statement, a spokesperson for Dow said the company cannot speculate on how EPA’s dioxin assessment would affect their current work. The spokesperson noted that Dow signed a cleanup agreement with the EPA in January 2010, and said, “We are focused on implementing this agreement and working towards resolution.”

Dioxin Delays: A Special Series by The Environment Report

]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=609Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=608Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 A coalition of U.S. and Canadian mayors says the solution is to physically separate the Great Lakes basin from the Mississippi River system forever. In other words... they want to completely stop the flow of water between the two systems to permanently block carp from swimming up into Lake Michigan... and stop any kind of invaders from moving between the basins.

A new report out today outlines how that massive separation might happen.

Tim Eder is the executive director of the Great Lakes Commission. His group put out the report, along with the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. The report identifies three different places on the Chicago waterway system where a physical separation could be put in place.

“It’s just putting some sheet piling, some metal and earth and concrete in the river to make a dam, basically.”

But the manmade system of canals in the Chicago area has been in place for a century. Eder says there are a lot of people who depend on the waterway system as it is now.

“The river in Chicago now serves some really important purposes for managing floodwater, for dealing with wastewater, and for transportation. Commercial transportation depends on that waterway, so our options propose solutions to maintain and even enhance all of those existing important uses of the waterway.”

Physical separation would not be cheap. The report estimates the different options could cost between three billion and 9.5 billion dollars.

Tim Eder says construction of a barrier is at least ten years away. Some scientists worry Asian carp could be established in Lake Michigan by then.

Read the report: Restoring the Natural Divide

]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=608Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=607Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 “When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession the factory only made luxury yachts. Today it’s hiring workers like Bryan who said I’m proud to be working in the industry of the future.”

Last spring, Energetx Composites expected to increase its workforce from 40 employees to 300 sometime in 2012. We wanted to check in to see how things are going.

Chris Idema works in business development for the Holland-based company.

“You know, I can’t really comment on a specific number but we are definitely in growth mode right now, we are hiring and we expect to do so over the next several months.”

He says the biggest obstacle to his company’s growth is uncertainty in the market. Idema points to a federal tax credit that he says gives the wind industry some stability. That credit expires at the end of this year. It’s not clear what Congress will do about it.

(music bump)

This is the Environment Report.

There’s a fight brewing about whether Michigan’s Upper Peninsula needs two new power lines. The high voltage lines would cut through northern woodlands to bring electricity from Wisconsin to the U.P. Energy companies say the single existing line is maxed out. But, as Bob Allen reports, citizen groups say the power companies are jumping the gun:

An announcement by WE Energies of Milwaukee sparked this debate last fall. The company said it would phase out an old coal burning power plant in Marquette over the next five years. To keep the plant going would mean investing millions in new pollution controls.

People in the U.P. were worried about where their power would come from, and they were upset about the prospect of losing 170 jobs at the Presque Isle power plant.

WE Energies favors building new power lines to send electricity from Wisconsin to the U.P. That plan was put on a fast track for regulatory approval.

But then a couple of weeks ago, WE Energies and Wolverine Power based in northern lower Michigan announced a joint venture.

They’re now looking at upgrading the plant in Marquette to meet stricter pollution rules.

Brian Manthey of WE Energies says the decision hasn’t been made yet whether to keep the coal plant going. But he says that doesn’t really affect the plan for new transmission lines.

“With or without the future of the Presque Isle power plant being considered transmission is desperately needed in that area. And there does need to be transmission upgrades.”

But citizen groups say: not so fast.

New power lines would cut a swath for more than a hundred miles through northern forests, and they’d be expensive.

Howard Lerner with the Environmental Law and Policy Center says that decision ought to be carefully weighed, not rushed.

And he says at this point new transmission lines are overkill.

“If WE Energies and Wolverine Power Cooperative do the right thing and retrofit the plant up at Presque Isle in Marquette with modern pollution control equipment then don’t also at the same time try to force consumers to pay for a billion dollars of new transmission lines.”

WE Energies retrofitted a similar coal plant in Wisconsin at a cost of $900 million.

A decision by the Board that oversees transmission lines is expected in June.

Then the plan would need approval from utility regulators in Wisconsin and Michigan.

For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen. ]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=607Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=606Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 “We know through multiple studies that over 95% of scientists agree about this.”

But... he says his studies and others show the number of Americans who believe climate change is happening has declined.

Leiserowitz says there are a lot of reasons for that. A tough economy... declining media coverage...

“Then there’s actually been a very active campaign to discredit the science to put out disinformation about the science. And that really kicked into gear in 2008 and 2009 because Congress was about to pass climate legislation. Forces that are perfectly happy with the status quo worked very, very hard to stop that effort and they were successful.”

So as a result of these factors and others... he says many Americans are confused about what to believe... or downright skeptical.

This was the topic of a conference put on by the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and the Union of Concerned Scientists at the University of Michigan last week. There were social scientists and climate scientists, religious leaders and members of the business community. They were here to talk about how the public climate change debate has become more about personal values and how you see the world than about the science.

Reverend Richard Cizik is the president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. He says a decade ago... he just didn’t believe climate change was happening.

“I was dismissive and ridiculed, like millions of others did, Al Gore and his book Earth in the Balance. So I was a skeptic, a denial-ist, a scoffer if you will. But I changed.”

He says he changed his mind when he went to a conference at Oxford University and learned about the science.

“It was simply an exposure for the very first time to the facts of climate change and the reality which is that the earth will change as a result forever in ways we don’t even fully comprehend today.”

But Reverend Cizik says when he talks to young Evangelicals... he doesn’t use science as a starting point.

“My message really isn’t to persuade anybody of the science of climate change which I do believe. It’s rather to persuade them of their own biblical responsibility – if they call themselves a believer. There’s no way you can love God and your neighbor if you’re polluting his or her air.”

This idea... that you can’t talk to all Americans with the same message on climate change... was a main take-home message of the conference this past week.

Bob Inglis is a former Congressman from South Carolina. He describes himself as a conservative Republican.

He says for his first six years in Congress, he was an ardent denier of climate change. He was out of Congress for a while. Then he got re-elected.

“When I got back to Congress, I had the opportunity to be on the Science Committee and I went to Antarctica twice actually, and in those visits, saw the evidence. That evidence persuaded me and so the result is I decided I really needed to act and I needed to be involved.”

But he says this position cost him his job.

“The most enduring heresy I committed against the Republican orthodoxy was saying climate change is real and let’s do something about it. That actually got me in the most hot water of anything I did, and I would say it’s the largest reason I lost the primary in June 2010.”

Lately, Bob Inglis has been going around, talking to groups like the College Republicans. He says he’s trying to persuade them that there are conservative solutions to our climate problems.

That’s the Environment Report for today. I’m Rebecca Williams. ]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=606Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=605Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 He also talked about his push to overhaul the state’s regulatory system.

“So far we’ve rescinded nearly 400 obsolete, confusing and burdensome regulations.”

Now... those 400 regulations are not all environmental. But Governor Snyder did call out one set of rules that was on the books.

“The Department of Environmental Quality has 28 separate requirements for outhouses, including a requirement that the seat not be left up.” (laughter)

That was the best punch line of the evening. But of course, there’s a serious undertone to the Governor’s plans for overhauling the way the state regulates businesses.

Jason Geer is with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. He says the Chamber would like to see some limits on the ability of state agencies to make new rules.

“You know, put some limits on how those rules come out. Just to make sure the business community has a little bit of a bigger seat at the table on how those rules come out at the end of the day.”

Geer says he’d like to see state agencies speed up the process of issuing environmental permits.

James Clift is the policy director of the Michigan Environmental Council. He’s been part of a committee advising the Governor on changes to state regulations.

“Some regulation is needed to protect public health and the environment – make sure we’re moving forward, but making sure that it’s done in an area that’s smart and gets solutions to some of the problems we see out there.”

Clift says his committee has submitted a report to the Governor... so we’ll be hearing about those regulatory changes any day now.

(music bump)

This is the Environment Report.

Consumers Energy is wrapping up the initial phase of its first wind farm. Construction of the 100 mega-watt farm began last fall. Lindsey Smith reports Consumers plans to have the wind farm operating by the end of this year:

The project is known as the Lake Winds Energy Park. Since construction began last fall, workers have built about half of the large bases for 58 utility sized wind turbines.

Dennis Marvin is a spokesman for the New Generation Group at Consumers Energy. He says Lake Winds Energy Park is not really a park… the project spans 30 square miles in rural Mason County…about 90 miles north of Grand Rapids.

“Some of the wind projects that you might see on television or on the web where all the turbines line up next to each other – it doesn’t work that way.”

Marvin says the area has enough wind to support a farm. But he says the availability of transmission lines there made all the difference in choosing that location. Transmission lines can get the power from turbines into the electrical grid.

“The best wind in Michigan is in the thumb area and that’s why most of the wind development is occurring in the thumb but what they lack is adequate transmission capacity to support all the wind development.”

Consumers is building an even bigger wind farm in the thumb area. That wind farm is supposed to come online in three years. And Consumers is planning a third wind farm too – they plan to have that one up and running in ten years.

Meanwhile, a court battle over the Lake Winds Energy Park is not over. Earlier this month a Mason County Circuit Court judge heard arguments in a case filed against Consumers Energy and Mason County.

A group of citizens claim there wasn’t enough notice to the public about the project. They also raise legal concerns about special zoning permits authorizing the wind farm.

It’s unclear when the judge will rule in the case. The group has filed an injunction to stop construction of the farm…but that decision is also pending.

For the Environment Report, I’m Lindsey Smith.

Meanwhile, in northern Michigan, Duke Energy says it’s scrapping its plans for a wind farm in Benzie and Manistee counties. The company says it doesn’t have a buyer for the electricity.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams. ]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=605Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=604Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 There’s been a lot of focus on keeping carp out of Lake Michigan.

But a new study finds carp might do well in Lake Erie and some of the rivers that feed the lake.

Patrick Kocovsky is a research fishery biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He says it’s believed Asian carp need specific conditions to make babies.

“What’s currently believed is Asian carp require some kind of flood event in a tributary.”

He says the carp need just the right temperature... a river that’s flowing fast enough and a stretch of river long enough to reproduce.

Kocovsky and his team studied the major tributaries of Lake Erie. They found that the Maumee River is highly suitable for Asian carp to lay eggs.

The researchers found the Sandusky and Grand Rivers to be moderately suitable for carp.

Patrick Kocovsky says if carp can get into Lake Erie, the western side of the lake is likely to be the most hospitable.

Bighead and silver carp eat plankton. Kocovsky says this could be bad news for other fish that eat plankton.

“The primary concern is if Asian carp become established in Lake Erie, they will exert pressure on the plankton food source and possibly have detrimental effects on other planktivores and that might cascade through the entire food web.”

And that could end up hurting the popular sportfish in Lake Erie – walleye and yellow perch.

There is some debate among scientists over how big of an impact Asian carp might have on the Great Lakes.

“I would agree there is still debate but more and more, I think people are coming to believe that Asian carp do pose a threat and that we should be concerned.”

But he says there’s not nearly as much attention on keeping carp out of Lake Erie as there is on keeping them out of Lake Michigan.

(music bump)

This is the Environment Report.

The arrival of winter in Michigan is not supposed to last long. The cold snap earlier this week is expected to give way early next week to temperatures back in the forties. The lack of snow is taking a toll on some parts of the state’s tourism economy. Peter Payette reports:

Forecaster Mike Boguth says northern Michigan might set a record this year for the least amount of snowfall ever. Boguth works at the National Weather Service office in Gaylord. He says what little snow there is now could melt next week when temperatures rise.

“We don’t see any signs of cold weather coming back after we get by this week.”

Most ski resorts up north opened in December. That’s because nighttime temperatures have been cold enough to make snow.

But for businesses that depend on snowmobile traffic this time of year, things couldn’t be much worse. They’ve had just one weekend of business all winter. That was this past weekend which included the Martin Luther King holiday.

Dave Ramsey owns Beaver Creek Resort near Gaylord. He says just enough snow fell late last week to open the trails.

Still, more than half his cabins were empty this weekend when he would usually have a waiting list.

“Every hotel in Gaylord every motel and little cabin cluster will just about fill to capacity on every major holiday if we have good snow.”

The weather could also create problems for the North America Vasa. The cross-country ski race near Traverse City could draw 1,000 racers and the second weekend in February.

The VASA trail has three inches of base but no snow-making capacity.

For the Environment Report, I’m Peter Payette.

And that’s the Environment Report for today. I’m Rebecca Williams. ]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=604Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=603Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 The hearing was about two separate incidents at the plant last year. The more serious was a week-long shut-down of the power plant last September. It went offline because of an electrical outage at the plant that happened because a worker didn’t follow proper procedures during routine maintenance. David Hamilton is General Manager of Plant Operations. He says the company, Entergy Corporation, “concurs” with the NRC’s findings.

“We’ve lost the trust of our neighbors. We’ve lost the trust of our corporation and we’re going to fix that.”

But company officials don’t think the incident was as much of a risk as the NRC does. The NRC says the event was of “substantial safety significance.” The NRC will issue their final report within 60 days.

For the Environment Report, I’m Lindsey Smith.

(music bump)

This is the Environment Report.

The Dow Chemical Company is the second-largest producer of toxic chemical waste in the nation. That’s according to a new report by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The report shows that Dow produced more than 600 million pounds of toxic chemical waste in the reporting year 2010.

Ben Morlock is a spokesperson for Dow.

Morlock says 97 % of that toxic chemical waste was treated, recycled or reused.

“We have on-site wastewater treatment plants, we have air pollution control equipment that incinerates contaminants so they’re not released into the air, we have equipment used in our manufacturing processes that captures chemicals and recycles them back into the process for reuse.”

He says the rest of that waste – the remaining three percent – was disposed of in accordance with the company’s state and federal permits.

“It is safe to say that most of that three percent is handled through land disposal, so for instance, it might go to a licensed secured landfill that is equipped to properly handle certain types of waste. So, I can tell you we audit the facilities we use for disposal and we make sure our waste is being handled properly if it leaves the site.”

He says Dow’s ranking on the EPA list reflects the size of the company. Dow is the nation’s largest chemical manufacturer.

The EPA's 2010 Toxics Release Inventory National Analysis

An in-depth Environment Report series on Dow & dioxin cleanup delays

]]>http://www.environmentreport.org/show.php?showID=603Daily Showhttp://www.environmentreport.org/story.php?story_id=5039Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400http://www.environmentreport.org/story.php?story_id=5039News Storyhttp://www.environmentreport.org/story.php?story_id=5038Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400http://www.environmentreport.org/story.php?story_id=5038News Story