As they say in the movies, 'Pick your poison.'

This woman could just as well be standing by the Tittabawassee River, don't ya think? It's just something I dug out of my personal archives... a friend sent it to me a while back.

Don't forget the DEQ/Dow 'townhall' meeting in Saginaw at the Horizon's Conference Center this evening. It's from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. with a chance to talk with Dow and DEQ personnel a half hour before and a half hour after the meeting.

Michigan State University have reported back to participants in a study they recently completed. Quoting this report, 'The goal... was to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of using citizen issue forums to engage local citizens in an exploration of contamination cases such as the Tittabawassee dioxin issue.' MSU is currently completing the technical report which is expected to be issued by EPA early next year.

Although researchers originally knocked on 1,042 doors, 378 answered the survey. If they were not involved in groups already involved in the dioxin issue (like Tittabawassee River Voice or Lonetree), they were invited to be in the forum. 348 were invited to participate; 145 agreed to attend forums; and only 53 actually participated!

I mentioned this study last week and now I'm here to tell you it's really not all that bad! First of all, it would appear the small neighborhood forum type of meeting works pretty well. These people had some pretty good ideas! More later...