Dow Fined For Secret Dioxin Testing in Midland

State regulators have caught the Dow Chemical Co. violating their state license to operate their chemical plant in Midland and slapped a $70,000 fine on them for failure to comply with state regulations that requires the company to let state regulators know when and how they are running any tests to monitor pollutants from the plant.

The latest setback for Dow is the second in a recent weeks that also saw Gov. Granholm defeat a Republican measure that would have helped to get Dow off the hook for dioxin contamination along the river that runs into the Saginaw Bay.

The Midland Daily News reported Monday that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality had issued the fine because the company had secretly begun testing for dioxin without informing the DEQ as required by the license for the plant.

The huge chemical company that has spent millions on lobbying the state legislature to do its bidding claimed it didn't know its state license had such a requirement. Imagine that!!

This is the same company that also initially denied that the dioxin contamination along the Tittibawasee River came from the Midland plant and must have come from somebody else. It wasn't until the DEQ showed them the chemical fingerprints, that Dow finally agreed it must be from the Dow plant in recent decades. Surprisingly, Dow still has many supporters in Midland. I am guessing most of them make over $100,000 a year and work for Dow. When things get tough, they just might have to lay off one or more of those folks to pay for the next set of fines. You just know these won't be the last.