oEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
For more information
You can view documents related to
the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw
River & Bay Contamination site in
information repositories set up by
EPA and MDEQ. The repositories
are located in the Grace A. Dow
Memorial Library, 1710 W. Saint
Andrews St., Midland; the Hoyt
Main Library, 505 Janes Ave.,
Saginaw; and the Alice and Jack
Wirt Public Library, 500 Center
Ave., Bay City.
Information office
EPA has opened a community
information office in the Saginaw
County Courthouse, 111 S.
Michigan Ave., Saginaw. Or call
989-790-5215.
On the Web
EPA dioxin investigation:
http://www.epa.gov/region5/sites/
dowchemical
Michigan dioxin information:
http://www.michigan.gov/deqdioxin
Sign up for the listserv
If you would like to be e-mailed site
updates, send a blank message to:
dow_dioxin-subscribe@lists.epa.gov
Contacts
These EPA community involvement
coordinators can answer questions:
Patricia Krause
312-886-9506
krause.patricia@epa.gov
Don de Blasio
312-886-4360
deblasio.don@epa.gov
Region 5 toll free:
800-621-8431, 9:30 a.m. - 5:30
p.m., weekdays
At MDEQ contact:
Cheryl Howe
517-373-9881
howec@michigan.gov
Proposed Settlement for
Superfund Cleanup Process
Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River & Bay Contamination Site
Midland/Saginaw/Bay City Region, Michigan	October 2009
Since June 2009, EPA and Michigan DEQ have been negotiating with The
Dow Chemical Co. the terms of how to proceed with a Superfund evaluation
of the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River, Saginaw Bay and their floodplains.
This process would ultimately lead to a comprehensive cleanup of dioxin
contamination originating at Dow's Midland plant.
In late September, the negotiators agreed on a proposed settlement, contained
in a legal document called an "administrative order on consent," or AOC.
EPA and MDEQ will use the established Superfund processes and Dow will be
required to meet the same obligations as at any Superfund site. EPA follows
an established step-by-step process to determine the best way to clean up a
Superfund site. EPA prefers that the companies considered responsible for the
contamination (the potentially responsible party, or PRP) clean up a site. EPA
ensures this by negotiating binding and enforceable settlement agreements
with the PRP Under the proposed agreement, Dow would conduct the following
work:
Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study
The RI/FS phase of the process determines the nature and extent of
contamination at the site, develops cleanup options—such as dredging,
capping, etc.—for addressing the contamination, and evaluates and
compares the performance and costs of the various cleanup options.
Remedial Design
The RD phase of the process includes preparing for the cleanup at the
site. It is during this phase that the engineering plans are developed for
implementing the cleanup option EPA selected.
In addition to the AOC, the parties negotiated a "statement of work" that details
the specific tasks that the company will perform. Each of these documents is
about 75 pages long and is available on EPA's Web site (see box to the left). This
fact sheet highlights some of the key provisions.
Public review and comment
Dow has signed the AOC and will be bound by its terms once it is signed by EPA
and MDEQ. But, EPA and MDEQ have not signed the AOC—and will not sign
it until after a thorough review by the public. Only then, after considering the
comments received from the public, will EPA and MDEQ decide if they will sign
the AOC as currently written. Alternatively, EPA and MDEQ may elect to reopen
negotiations to address significant public concerns.
A 30-day public comment period will begin Oct. 19, 2009, for the community
to review and comment on the proposed settlement. On Nov. 5, 2009, there
will be a public meeting where people can learn more about the settlement, ask
questions and make oral comments. Comments can also be made in writing
(see the box on P. 5 for detailed information about how to comment).
The agencies realize that the proposed settlement is a complex technical
and legal document. This fact sheet is one effort to explain the agreement
in plain language and the Nov. 5 meeting will be an opportunity to get

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questions answered. In addition, EPA has agreed to
provide independent 3rd-party technical assistance to
the community to review the proposed settlement. This
assistance is provided by EPA's Technical Assistance
Services for Communities program (see http://epa.
gov/superfund/community/tasc/ for more information)
through The Lone Tree Council and Tittabawassee River
Watch.
Highlights of the proposed
settlement
The work that Dow will be required to
complete
The technical activities to be carried out under the
proposed settlement cover the Tittabawassee River (from
just upstream of Dow's Midland plant), Saginaw River
and Saginaw Bay. (See section IV of the proposed AOC
for the definition of the site.) The technical activities
outlined in the statement of work will help EPA and
MDEQ achieve their goal of a comprehensive cleanup
built upon existing information and the work already
completed or under way. More information on EPA and
MDEQ expectations with respect to technical activities is
in section I of the statement of work.
The technical activities for this site fall into three critical
categories:
•	Continuing to address high-use properties along
the rivers
•	Addressing erosion and movement of highly
contaminated soil and sediment
•	Identifying comprehensive cleanup options in an
upstream-to-downstream fashion
Figure 1 shows an approximate timeline of how work
would proceed.
High-use properties
Activities required to address "high-use" properties
along the rivers include gathering and assessing data,
developing options to reduce exposures and designing
the mitigation measures selected by EPA after an open
and transparent public participation process. These
activities would begin right away under the proposed
settlement and would build on work that is already

2007
2008
2009
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2014
2015
2016
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2018

Enforceable




Assumes an enforceable settlement



Agreements









































Addressing High-Use
Properties Along the
Rivers	Completed and
TIME-CRITICAL ACTIONS AS APPROPRIATE
Evaluation of Cleanup options and
ongoing IRAs properties begins activities as needed
I
I
Addressing Movement
of Highly
Contaminated
TIME-CRITICAL ACTIONS AS APPROPRIATE
Completed and Evaluation of Cleanup options and
Sediments	ongoing IRAs sediments begins activities as needed
Divide river into
5 to 7 segments

Addressing
Tittabawassee River
Cleanup
Segment 1
Options
Cleanup
Segment 2
Options
Cleanup
Segment 3 Options
Cleanup
Development of cleanup options
and cleanup activities continue.
Addressing Saginaw
River & Bay Cleanup
Initiation of evaluation will be based on results from any
early actions and/or upstream cleanup actions.
I	I	I
Figure 1. The proposed timeline for the cleanup.

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under way. See task 1 in the statement of work for a full
detailed description of these activities and exhibit B of
the statement of work for the schedule.
Contaminated soil and sediment
Activities required to address movement of highly
contaminated bank soil and sediments include gathering
and assessing data, developing options to reduce
movement of highly contaminated banks and sediments,
and designing the mitigation measures selected by
EPA after an open and transparent public participation
process. These activities would begin right away under
the proposed settlement and would build on work that is
already under way. See task 2 in the statement of work for
a full detailed description of these activities and exhibit B
of the statement of work for the schedule.
Comprehensive Cleanup
A number of activities outlined in the proposed
settlement provide the framework for developing
comprehensive cleanup options in an upstream-to-
downstream fashion for the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw
River and Saginaw Bay.
The first of these activities is dividing the river systems
and bay into manageable pieces. The plan is to separate
the site into two pieces called operable units (OU1
and OU2). The first operable unit would include the
Tittabawassee River and the Upper Saginaw River
including the 6th Street turning basin. The second
operable unit would be the Lower Saginaw River and
Saginaw Bay. Each operable unit may then be further
divided into smaller pieces called segments. The first
segment of the Tittabawassee River has already been
defined in the proposed settlement. For more detailed
information on how site work is being organized see
section IV, task 7.1 and task 12.2 of the statement of
work.
For OU1, the operable unit that includes the
Tittabawassee River and Upper Saginaw River, the
primary activities include assessing existing data and
gathering additional data as necessary, developing
segment-specific cleanup options and designing the
option selected by EPA after an open and transparent
public participation process, and evaluating the risk
remaining after cleanups have been implemented.
Activities in this operable unit will build upon the data,
investigations, cleanups and other work that have already
been completed or are currently under way. The activities
for this operable unit would begin right away under the
proposed settlement and the first set of segment-specific
cleanup options would likely be available to the public
within 15-18 months. For more detailed information on
the activities required for the first operable unit see tasks
8, 9 and 10 of the statement of work.
How to comment
EPA will receive all comments and share them with
MDEQ. There are several different ways to submit
comments on the proposed settlement:
•	Orally, at the Nov. 5 public meeting
•	On the Web, at www.epa.gov/region5/
publiccomment/
•	Fax to 312-697-2568
•	E-mail to krause.patricia@epa.gov
•	Mail to: Patricia Krause
Superfund Division (SI-7J)
U.S. EPA Region 5
77 W. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60604
All comments must be postmarked or submitted by
midnight Nov. 17.
For OU2, the operable unit that includes the Lower
Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, the primary activities
include gathering and assessing data, evaluating risk,
developing cleanup options and designing the option
selected by EPA after an open and transparent public
participation process. Since it is expected that conditions
will change in the Saginaw River and Bay as a result of
cleanup activities completed upstream, the activities for
this operable unit would not begin right away (other than
addressing high-use properties and contaminated banks
and sediment, as described above). For more detailed
information on the activities required for the second
operable unit see tasks 11,12,13,14,15,16 and 17 of the
statement of work.
How the Superfund process will be used
to meet Dow's investigation and clean-up
obligations under its RCRA license
Many of the activities to be completed under the proposed
settlement are expected to fulfill requirements under the
RCRA license that was issued to Dow by MDEQ. (RCRA is
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the federal
law that regulates the identification, transportation,
treatment, storage, and disposal of solid and hazardous
wastes.) As a part of the proposed settlement, MDEQ,
working as a partner with EPA, will review the activities
being completed in "real-time" to ensure that the
requirements of the license are met. If necessary, MDEQ
can require additional work beyond that identified in
the AOC to meet the license requirements. As part of
the AOC, MDEQ would propose a modification to the
license to clarify how the license and the proposed AOC
will work together. This modification will go through
the state's usual public comment and review procedures.
More details on MDEQ review and the proposed license
3

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modification can be found in section XI and appendix E
of the proposed AOC, respectively.
Appendix H of the proposed AOC is a "crosswalk"
that describes how work under the AOC corresponds
to the requirements of the license. For example, the
requirement for Dow to submit a remedial investigation
work plan for the Saginaw River, floodplains and bay are
addressed under statement of work tasks 11 and 12.
EPA and MDEQ also needed to ensure that activities
already started under the license do not stop and remain
under an enforceable agreement until that activity is fully
transitioned into the Superfund process. Exhibit A of
the statement of work is a chart that describes ongoing
license activities and how those activities will transition
into the proposed AOC. For example, flood response
activities for "priority 1 and 2" properties and parks
along the Tittabawassee River will continue under the
license until these activities are covered by an enforceable
agreement under the Superfund program.
There are defined processes for resolving
disputes in the order
The proposed settlement provides three distinct dispute
resolution processes. These are the processes that EPA,
MDEQ and Dow would use to resolve any disagreements
under the settlement. The processes are designed to
achieve quick resolution of disagreements so activities
can continue without significant delay. Depending on
the type of disagreement, EPA or MDEQ has primary
responsibility to decide how to resolve disagreements. For
further details on the dispute resolution processes see
sections XVI, XVII and XX of the proposed AOC.
Dow can be required to pay monetary fines
If EPA determines that Dow is not following the terms
of the proposed settlement, the Agency can require the
company to pay monetary penalties ranging from $500
to $2,500 per day. Also, EPA can require Dow to pay a
$600,000 penalty if the Agency needs to take over any of
the work. Further details on penalties can be found in
section XVIII of the proposed AOC.
Operable Unit 2
OU2 includes the Saginaw River
downstream of the 6th Street
Turning Basin and all of
Saginaw Bay.
Midland
Bay City
BAY CO.
Fre'eland
SAGINAW CO.
MIDLAND CO.
16th Street Turning Basin
Operable Unit 1
OU1 starts at the confluence of
the Chippewa and Tittabawassee
rivers and continues to, and
includes, the 6th Street
Turning Basin on the Saginaw
River.
Saginaw
Saginaw Bay
Dow Midland facility
Confluence of Chippewa
and Tittabawassee Rivers
Figure 2: This map shows the site and the proposed operable units.

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s
I
j Comment Sheet
i EPA and MDEQ are interested in your comments on the proposed settlement for the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw
jj River and Bay site. EPA and MDEQ will consider public comments before deciding if they will sign the AOC as currently
i written. Alternatively, EPA and MDEQ may elect to reopen negotiations to address significant public concerns.
8
J Please use the space below to write your comments, then fold and mail this form. Comments must be postmarked or
i submitted by Nov. 17, 2009. If you have any questions, please contact Patricia Krause at 312-886-9506. This sheet may
[ also be faxed to her at 312-697-2568. Or, submit comments through the Web at www.epa.gov/region5/publiccomment/.
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Detach this page, fold on dashed lines, staple, stamp and mail
Name 	
Address	
City
State	ZIP
Proper
Postage
Required
Patricia Krause
Community Involvement Coordinator
Superfund Division (SI-7J)
U.S. EPA legion 5
77 W Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60604

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EPA and MDEQ will be reimbursed for costs
Both EPA and MDEQ will be reimbursed for their costs
to oversee activities at the site. The agencies will receive
an initial sum of money to be used during the first year
of the project. After the first year, EPA and MDEQ will
bill Dow for their costs. Both EPA and MDEQ have agreed
to seek recovery for their past costs at a future date.
For further detail on the way EPA and MDEQ will be
reimbursed for overseeing the project, see section XX of
the proposed AOC.
EPA, MDEQ and Dow will retain certain legal
rights under the order
EPA and MDEQ will give to Dow certain "covenants
not to sue," which are basically agreements not to sue
the other party under certain circumstances. These
covenants are only for the activities completed by Dow
under the AOC and are contingent upon Dow complying
with the requirements of the AOC. The proposed
settlement also outlines the conditions under which EPA
and MDEQ will be able to pursue or sue Dow. These are
known as "reservations of rights." Because such things
as a final remedy and past costs are not a part of this
AOC, EPA and MDEQ are not giving Dow a covenant for
these matters and are reserving their rights. Additionally,
MDEQ is reserving it rights under the RCRA license.
Similarly, Dow will give to EPA and MDEQ certain
covenants and will reserve certain rights in the proposed
settlement. The detailed covenants and reservations of
rights are outlined in sections XXI, XXII, XXIII, XIV,
XXV and XXVI of the proposed AOC.
The community will be able to obtain
technical assistance
The proposed settlement provides funding for the
community to obtain technical assistance. A $50,000
fund will be set up to hire an independent technical
advisor to help interpret and comment on documents
developed under the proposed settlement. The
community will also be able to apply for additional
funding once the initial $50,000 is almost spent. Details
on technical assistance funding can be found in task 3 of
the statement of work.
The Natural Resource Trustees will be
engaged
In Superfund, responsibility for protection of natural
resources falls with federal, tribal and state trustees. This
is because no one individual "owns" a natural resource;
rather, they are held in trust for the public. The Natural
Resource Trustees will have opportunities to review
and comment on plans, reports and other documents
submitted under the proposed settlement. In addition,
the proposed settlement does not change the Trustees'
Comparing EPA's initial offer to the
proposed settlement
People comparing EPA's initial settlement offer to
Dow to the proposed settlement that was negotiated
between the parties will notice how a number of
important topics were handled. Some things did not
change from EPA's initial settlement offer. Some
topics were not in the initial offer and are not in the
proposed settlement because they will be considered
later, as part of an open and transparent public
process.
These are items that did not change from EPA's
initial settlement offer:
•	The geographic extent of the site (Dow will
investigate wherever contamination from the
Dow Midland plant has come to be located)
•	The scope of the work (the AOC must cover
remedial investigation, feasibility studies and
remedial design)
•	Public comment on the AOC prior to
signature by the Agencies
•	EPA's right to list the site on the NPL if it
chooses to do so
•	The evaluation of contamination on high-use
properties along the rivers
•	The evaluation of the movement of highly
contaminated sediments
•	A CERCLA order will not terminate Dow's
RCRA corrective action obligations
These items were not in the initial offer and are not
in the proposed settlement:
•	Cleanup options, including sediment disposal
locations, cleanup technologies such as
dredging, capping, etc., and relocation
•	Cleanup levels
These items will be considered later in an open and
transparent public process.
ability to continue their assessment of natural resource
damages or to hold Dow accountable for any damages.
Sections V and XXV of the proposed AOC have the details
regarding the Natural Resource Trustees.
7

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You're invited to a meeting about...
EPA's Proposed Settlement For The
Tittabawassee River And Saginaw River
And Bay Cleanup
7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009
Saginaw Valley State University
EPA will present details about the proposed settlement negotiated with The Dow Chemical Co. The
proposed settlement lays out a process for evaluating dioxin contamination in the Tittabawassee River,
Saginaw River, Saginaw Bay and their floodplains.
A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation and then attendees will be able to make
oral comments. The meeting will be at Saginaw Valley State University, Curtiss Hall, Banquet
Rooms A&B, 7400 Bay Road, Saginaw.
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