Leading citizens and environmental groups criticized an agreement between Dow Chemical Company and the Granholm Administration, saying it fails to deliver a cleanup of dioxin contamination in the Saginaw Bay basin.

The agreement allows Dow to proceed with a variety of interim measures at the toxic hot spots. Those measures, such as house cleaning and topsoil cover, are designed to reduce the exposure of area residents to the dioxin but do nothing to permanently eliminate the risk.

"At those areas identified as toxic hot spots, Dow should be required to immediately remove the soils and isolate them in their landfill," said MEC Policy Director James Clift. "Not acting now means the next flood will take those toxic chemicals and drop them in somebody else's backyard. Dow knows the soils are contaminated; they know where they are-clean them up," said Clift.

"This agreement is a failure," said Michelle Hurd Riddick, a Lone Tree Council member who lives in the basin. "It's promoted as results-oriented, but the only result will be further delays, more studies and little to protect the health of residents."

Dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals know to humans, has been discovered in the Saginaw Bay watershed in numbers as much as 80 to 800 times the level deemed safe for Michigan families. Yet families in Saginaw Bay watershed who live in three counties along the 58 miles of dioxin-contaminated rivers leading to Lake Huron are once again told by state officials that they must wait for cleanup.

While the Granholm-Dow agreement confirms Dow's responsibility for the contamination, cleanup implementation will continue to languish unless the state forces Dow to move more quickly to protect public health.