Although terms like “environment” and “pollution” were not used at the time, Dow Chemical had problems with noxious emissions from its operations in Midland, Michigan almost from the very beginning. Only much later did the issue move from one of the annoyance of local residents at offensive odors to charges of serious health hazards.
(In Vietnam) Although the main controversy over the use of Dow’s Agent Orange during the Vietnam War concerned the vast number of deaths and suffering it caused, there were also environmental issues. The deforestation upset the ecological balance of many areas, and the lingering dioxin in soil and water caused ongoing contamination of the food chain.
The use of Agent Orange also had repercussions back in the United States. The company also found itself the target of thousands of lawsuits filed by Vietnam veterans who charged that the dioxin in Agent Orange had caused liver damage, nervous disorders, birth defects, and other health problems. For a long time, Dow downplayed the risks of dioxin, but after the Agent Orange lawsuits were consolidated, documents were disclosed showing that the company was aware as early as 1965 that dioxin was exceptionally toxic. The case against Dow and other Agent Orange producers was settled out of court in 1984 with the creation of a $180 million fund.
During the early 1980s Dow led a campaign to reverse a ban on the production of an herbicide called 2,4,5-T—an ingredient in Agent Orange. Remaining stocks of the defoliant, which had been produced by Dow since 1948, continued to be used after the war to spray rice fields and range lands in the United States.
As concerns over dioxin exposure widened, Dow resisted giving the EPA some key documents about dioxin contamination at its plant in Midland. It also came to light that an EPA official had allowed Dow to edit an agency report on dioxin to remove references to the company’s contamination of waterways in Michigan. In 1983 Dow launched a $3 million campaign to persuade the public that dioxin was nothing to worry about. That campaign struggled to compete with news reports such as those that in the 1960s Dow tested dioxin on inmates at a prison in Pennsylvania.
Dow’s resistance to a dioxin clean-up in Midland continued for years. In 2004 an article in the Detroit Free Press headlined BATTLE RAGES OVER CLEANUP OF DOW’S TOXIC LEGACY stated: “For 16 years, since a federal study said Dow Chemical Co. dioxin posed substantial health risks, the state and Dow have bickered over how and when a cleanup should begin, amid charges of Dow foot-dragging and spotty state enforcement.”
In 2007 the Free Press obtained a confidential EPA report describing Dow’s efforts to delay a cleanup and mislead the public about the dangers of dioxin. The following year the EPA’s top administrator in the Midwest said she had been forced to resign by the Bush Administration because of her efforts to get Dow to finally start dealing with dioxin contamination. Finally, in 2009, Dow and the EPA announced an agreement on a cleanup plan. In July 2011 the Dow agreed to pay $2.5 million to the EPA to settle alleged violations of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act at its Midland operation.
From the WHO. When this administration shuts down the US EPA out of greed, there will always be other agencies throughout the world that will investigate and report when citizens are concerned. I might add, agencies in the Executive Branch require a vote by the legislature to end that agency.
Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).
Dioxins are found throughout the world in the environment and they accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals.
More than 90% of human exposure is through food, mainly meat and dairy products, fish and shellfish. Many national authorities have programmes in place to monitor the food supply.
Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer.
Due to the omnipresence of dioxins, all people have background exposure, which is not expected to affect human health. However, due to the highly toxic potential, efforts need to be undertaken to reduce current background exposure.
Prevention or reduction of human exposure is best done via source-directed measures, i.e. strict control of industrial processes to reduce formation of dioxins.
Dioxin was not Dow’s only environmental controversy. For example: In 2002 Dow Chemical agreed to spend $3 million on wetlands restoration in California to settle a lawsuit brought by the environmental group San Francisco BayKeeper charging that the company had unlawfully discharged contaminated water at its Pittsburg, California plant....
...When it acquired Union Carbide in 2001, Dow became embroiled in the controversy surrounding the Bhopal disaster, one of the worst industrial accidents of all time. In 1984 a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India released a vast quantity of the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate. More than 8,000 people died...
Union Carbide paid compensation of $470 million, far below what many advocates felt was necessary to care for the victims and their families. After the merger, Bhopal advocates began to pressure Dow to do more, but the company insisted that it had not assumed Union Carbide’s liabilities and thus had no responsibility to help.
On the 20th anniversary of the disaster in 2004, an activist-prankster impersonating a Dow spokesperson pretended to announce during an interview with the BBC that the company had decided to take financial responsibility. In 2012 Wikileaks disclosed documents indicating that Dow later hired a private intelligence group to monitor Bhopal activists. The announcement that Dow had been chosen to supply fabric used for the exterior of the stadium at the 2012 London Olympics set off international protests.
Legal actions continued to be brought against Dow in Indian courts. In 2012 the Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissed a petition filed by Dow, thus increasing the possibility that Bhopal victims may once again have their day in court.
