US environmental regulatory official forced out after dispute with Dow Chemical

For decades, Dow has dumped dioxina highly toxic byproduct of herbicides and chlorinated chemicalsinto local rivers, contaminating fish and wildlife and saturating the water and soil within 50 miles of its plants. Dioxin is known to cause cancer, mutations, and serious skin diseases. The EPA considers the chemical dangerous to public health and the environment even at very low levels because it bioaccumulates, or builds up in the environment and in the body much faster than it breaks down.

Last July, Gade invoked emergency powers to order Dow to immediately clean up three so-called hotspots of dioxin near its factories. At one test site near a park in Saginaw, Michigan in November, the EPA found dioxin levels of a staggering 1.6 million parts per trillion. The federal EPA limit for dioxin is 1,000 parts per trillion; Michigans state Department of Environmental Quality limit is only 90 parts per trillion. The chemical is measured in trillionths both because of its toxicity and its bioaccumulative property.