Public Participation
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN HOLDING DOW ACCOUNTABLE
FUTILITY OR FINALITY – A Retrospective
In the mid-eighties, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the midst of completing one of its ongoing investigations of the Dow Chemical Company. In this instance it was the fate of incinerator emissions that poisoned wide swaths of corporate and private properties as well as Tittabawassee River fish. Remedial efforts were required of Dow, which both citizens and professionals within the EPA felt were inadequate – but this was Dow Chemical. (recently I retrieved a place-mat from a northern Michigan restaurant that labeled Midland as “Home of Dow’s Chemical Empire”).
EPA Midland Community Advisory
The EPA organized a community group to evaluate the success of remediation. It met a few times, provided critical commentary, and was dropped as Dow completed its EPA required action. Over the years, this would be a familiar model of public participation. If the panel was critical, its life was usually brief. Citizen oversight of one of Michigan’s most powerful Fortune 500 companies would not be popular with regulatory authorities, elected officials or more importantly, the Dow Chemical Company.
Dow CAP
Dow itself had (has) a community advisory panel. Its goal was (is) to get honest feedback from the community as to how it was performing as a corporate citizen. Mary Sinclair, Midland citizen, science and communication adviser to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, didn’t last a year on the panel. She recognized that the company was not forthcoming in information requests or responsive to suggestions – she left.
Tittabawassee River Contamination: the Bazaar
In 2001, the environmental community heard of serious dioxin contamination in the Tittabawassee River. After efforts to conceal this information by the existing director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), Russell Harding, a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) disclosed sampling results showing levels of dioxin thousands of times higher than Michigan’s dioxin standard for human exposure. The contamination was from Dow. Public participation in the emerging story would evolve in interesting ways. Under governor John Engler, the state’s reaction would be periodic “Town Hall Meetings”, many of which channeled citizens like shoppers at a bazaar into competing “Information Tables” thereby diffusing any collective knowledge and discouraging questions and answers that all attendees could hear. The environmental community frequently sponsored parallel meetings hosting health specialists and clean-up experts.
Tittabawassee River Contamination: the Greek Model
As state government came under the direction of a Democratic governor, and complaints from citizens and environmentalists grew, a new model emerged — anyone interested in a Dow clean-up update could show up at a Greek model of participatory democracy. This eclectic group was loosely chaired by a DEQ official, and representatives from nearly every community sector, from the Chamber of Commerce and Dow retirees, to river residents and environmentalists, and the responsible party – Dow Chemical. Frequently Dow was put on the spot and was found repeatedly to be unable or unwilling to respond to public questioning about a delayed clean up. The state terminated this model, many suspect by the governor herself, after Dow complaints – Dow was very unhappy with the format. The state also slipped behind closed doors to negotiate with Dow while clean up activities ground to a halt.
Tittabawassee River Contamination: The Assembly
After debate with state officials on the next iteration of public participation, with the state desiring an elected panel and the community more access, a new “Town Hall” was established. A quarterly meeting, facilitated by an MSU contract professional, and equal participation by the responsible party, the state, and, again, anyone interested in attending. These were to be held at the Horizon’s Conference Center, and paid for by Dow. This iteration saw generally one side of the room occupied by the state’s regulatory staff, DEQ and MDPH, and the other, Dow staff, Dow medical employees, contract employees and surrogates often in greater number than the regulators. Equal time was provided with both, and frequently Dow used its time to claim dioxin was not as toxic as the regulatory community claimed, and generally defended its slow, gradual approach to a clean up and frequently the State response was muted.
Tittabawassee River Contamination: Assembly and CAG
As the clean-up dragged on into its seventh year with very little substantial action to remove contaminants, an aggressive EPA Region 5 administrator, Mary Gade, stepped in and demanded that Dow remove certain highly contaminated areas in the river. This led to her removal by then President Bush. Ultimately the U.S. EPA under the Obama administration became involved, assuming responsibility for negotiating and/or supervising a clean up of the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers. The state maintains control of the city of Midland and Dow’s manufacturing site itself.
The state says that it intends to continue the quarterly meetings, but the EPA has introduced the latest version of public participation, the ‘Community Advisory Group’. This is far and away the most structured of all the organized efforts to control and/or facilitate public participation. It calls for a selection committee — five community members that will create an application, solicit membership, and select a 15 to 25-member community group (the selection committee can’t be on it). Membership is supposed to be reflective of the varied interests of the community from high school students, Native Americans, river and bay residents, environmentalists, and the business community. The group is to operate by consensus, and is to play a role in determining the nature of the cleanup. It has been promised training and technical assistance by the EPA, and has been touted in other cleanups as playing a significant role.
Is this yet another exercise in futility or is it the finality so many of us hope has arrived?
Do we participate in good faith? Eight years of Dow’s tactics of denial and delay, eight years of frustration at the state’s impotence. Can the federal government succeed? Can
the CAG succeed? Each individual active in this clean up will have to answer these questions for themselves. I for one am not prepared to let any opportunity to hold Dow and the EPA accountable slip away.
Terry Miller, Chairman Lone Tree Council