The next quarterly Midland/Saginaw/Bay City (Tri-Cities) Dioxin Community Meeting will be held on Thursday, November 6, 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 of Environmental Quality, Department of Community Health, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and The Dow Chemical Company, 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 November 6 meeting include an update by the DEQ on Dow's 2008 activities for the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers, including the 2008 Tittabawassee River GeoMorph Investigation, the Reach D area, the former 47 Building area, the outfall investigation in the vicinity of the Dow Midland Plant site, the Riverbank Stabilization Pilot, the Tittabawassee River In-Channel Deposits (Reach J), the work plan to address the disturbance and management of soils in areas with potential dioxin/furan contamination (notification to Miss Dig), and the Saginaw River Sediment Trap Pilot; an update by the U.S. EPA on the Riverside Boulevard cleanup work; and an update by the DEQ on the status of the Site-wide Management Strategy.

Following the presentations, the last hour of the meeting is set aside for public questions and discussion, including a discussion of the 2009 community meetings.

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 date for the next quarterly community meeting has not yet been scheduled.

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 October 30, 2008 by Pat Watson