June 10, 2020
MIDLAND, Mich. — Rushing water from a record flood of the Tittabawassee River in Midland has mostly spared Dow Inc. of any serious harm to its Michigan Operations site, and the company — along with regulators and environmental organizations — continues to monitor the affect of the flood on the Superfund toxic-cleanup site downriver.
At the height of the flood event, water had reached retaining ponds at Dow, flowing into at least one. Dow spokesman Kyle Bandlow said that the on-site brine ponds are used for storm water and brine system and groundwater remediation.
“The material from the brine pond (essentially salt water) did not create any risk to residents or the environment,” Mr. Bandlow told the City Paper.
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Dow initiated a detailed flood preparedness plan after the Edenville Dam in Gladwin County failed, sending rushing water toward Sanford and Midland. Mr. Bandlow told The New York Times that only essential Dow staff were on site to monitor the situation at the time.
Mr. Bandlow told the City Paper that the company’s flood preparedness plan is comprehensive, spanning efforts including the safe shutdown of operations, activities to help prevent and mitigate flood damage, notifications to local authorities and regulators regarding the status of plant operations and activities.
As a part of that plan, Dow filed an ‘Unusual Event’ notice with the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission because the company has a small nuclear research reactor on site. The reactor, however, was already shut down to to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The next day, Dow terminated the notification of the Unusual Event, due to flood water receding.
“The flood water receded faster than was expected,” the termination filing said.
One of the primary concerns about the flood water rising near Dow was how it might affect the Superfund toxic-cleanup site downriver, a federally-funded site started in 2007 that was scheduled to end next year.
“You worry about the speed of the current, this wall of water coming down the river. It just has a huge amount of power,” Allen Burton, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, told The New York Times.
Mr. Bandlow told the City Paper that Dow will perform post-flood sampling in several downriver parks along the Tittabawassee.
“We will perform an inspection of each bank area that has received a remediation remedy to confirm the banks remain stable. The bank inspections are expected to be completed next week. Findings of all samplings and inspections will be reported to the EPA,” Mr. Bandlow told the City Paper.
The Lone Tree Council, a local environmental organization, chartered a plane to view flood damage from the air. Terry Miller, the group’s president, says that things looked positive.
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“They seem to be forthcoming,” Mr. Miller told the City Paper about Dow’s response to the flood. “At least from the air, [what Dow said] seemed to be accurate.”
Mr. Miller says that his organization has an adversarial relationship with Dow, but that they have worked together in the past.
“They have been very cooperative in the last 13 years or so, as they cleaned up the Tittabawassee River and acknowledged that contamination and have either removed it or stabilized the banks and sediment,” Mr. Miller told the City Paper.
“Our concern at this point, because of the flood, is whether their repair job holds. They did put in clean materials and they did plant native plants to keep those in place, but this is a 500-year flood and whether it scoured the repair job or not will remain to be seen.”
The status of the Superfund site remains unknown, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be involved in the area’s assessment.
“We’ve been told by the EPA team that that is going to be forthcoming,” Mr. Miller told the City Paper.