[RWebb]

well, guess what!

flooding triggered by dam failures in Michigan could potentially release toxic pollution from a site contaminated by the industrial giant Dow Chemical.

Dow’s facility in Midland, Michigan, where the company is headquartered along the Tittabawassee River, manufactured chlorine-based products beginning in the early 1900s. The company discharged dioxins, chemical compounds which can cause reproductive harm and cancer, into the river.

The pollution built up in sediment in and along the river and in its floodplains, extending 50 miles downstream through the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) superfund program has been overseeing Dow’s cleanup of the site since 2012, and the last portion of the project was expected to be completed in 2021.

Former EPA officials warned that the cleanup project probably was not engineered to protect against a flooding event of this scale and said high-velocity waters could damage the cap and release contaminated sediment back into the river.

Kyle Bandlow, a Dow spokesman, told the New York Times that the floodwaters had reached the facility’s outer boundaries and were entering ponds designed to hold runoff of water used on the site.