The next quarterly Midland/Saginaw/Bay City (Tri-Cities) Dioxin Community Meeting will be held on Thursday, August 7, at the Horizons Conference Center, 6200 State Street, Saginaw. The meeting is open to the public and will run from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Staff from the Department Environmental Quality, Department of Community Health, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Dow, with their consultants will be available one-half hour before the meeting and one-half hour after the formal portion of the meeting at open house stations for individual discussion with the public. Maps and other handout materials will be available for viewing and discussion.

Agenda items for the August 7 meeting include an update on the DEQ's Notice to Dow requiring 2008 interim response activities/pilot corrective action plans for the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers and the DEQ's review of Dow's Saginaw River and Bay Remedial Investigation Work Plan; an overview of the 2008 GeoMorph™ sampling of the lower Tittabawassee River Floodplain and middle/lower Tittabawassee River sediments; an update on residential assessment sampling activities and cleanup work; and a summary of Dow's former 47 Building/Tittabawassee riverbank historical waste removal.

Following the presentations, 50 minutes of the meeting are set aside for public questions and discussion. After the formal portion of the meeting ends, presenters and other agency and company representatives will be available for one-half hour at a number of stations for one on one discussion using an open house format.

The meeting agenda and related documents will be posted to the DEQ Web site prior to the community meeting at http://www.michigan.gov/deqdioxin and may be accessed by clicking on the "DEQ/Dow Community Involvement" and "Dow Off-site Corrective Action" Quick Links in the right navigation column. The next quarterly community meeting is scheduled to be held on November 6.

Editor's note: DEQ news releases are available on the department's Internet home page at www.michigan.gov/deq.

 "Protecting Michigan's Environment, Ensuring Michigan's Future"

Revised July 28, 2008 by Rosemarie Olszewski