A Correction... and a comment.

..Yesterday I received an email from a person requesting I remove his name from any postings on TRVoice except any comments he personally left. I have honored his request. The article actually runs smoothly without his name. The fellow frequently comments on articles published in The Midland Daily News, so whenever the comment relates to the Tittabawassee River floodplain dioxin issue he opens himself up to further comments from those of us who actually have to live with the MDEQ's edicts concerning dioxin. Here, for your reading pleasure, is my response to the fellow's email:

Mon, 1 Aug 2005 19:51:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: "tittabawassee river voice"
Subject: Re: Comments
To: name deleted

(Name deleted per request), actually I am not a member of any environmental group either.

I just happen to be a citizen that got caught up in the middle of a battle between an environmental group and Dow Chemical. Since I've lived in the same place most of my life AND raised a family, as well as assorted dogs and cats, all along the Tittabawassee River floodplain with no signs of dioxin overload in any of us, I decided it was the environmental group that put me in the middle.

It sure wasn't Dow Chemical that decided an infinitesimal amount of a nasty chemical byproduct is in my backyard without even testing for it. It was a group of environmentalists on a mission. Some of that group are personal friends with some of the people who work for a giant bureaucracy - MDEQ. It was MDEQ that decided my neighbors and I are guilty of having a toxic waste facility in our backyards.

Nobody has proven anybody in the area has even gotten sick as a result of this infinitesimal amount of dioxin in our backyards.

The people who started lawsuits against Dow wanted to drag all of my neighbors and I into their fight by calling their lawsuits 'class action.' Although one of their lawsuits was thrown out by the Michigan Supreme Court, the other is still going forward. If Judge Borrello of Saginaw decides the remaining lawsuit is a class action, people along the Tittabawassee River floodplain who DO NOT want to be in the lawsuit will be required to sign a paper and mail it to the courts declaring we DO NOT want to be a part of the lawsuit.

Does this sound like democracy? Don't you think it's wrong for a group of bureaucrats to prey on the citizens of our state? Do you realize the DEQ preys on citizens throughout our state... in the sand dunes, the wetlands, and the floodplains and if they can't find a body of water to prove their authority they will say there is a ditch somewhere that gives them 'authority' over our private residential properties. They even declare properties floodplains where there have never been floods!!!

(Name deleted per request), you sound like a reasonable man. I will honor your request to remove reference to you in my website. Please in return will you do me a favor? Please do not encourage the environmentalists in their quest to make my property vulnerable to the whims of MDEQ. Please do what you can to defend the Consitution of the United States and the rights of all of us to own and protect our own property.

Thank you,
Shirley Salas

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Contact your Michigan Senator

Tell him/her that you support

the Homeowners' Rights Bill

Senate Bill 390

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