Redneck gets another petition going...

You'd think even the MDEQ bureaucrats would get tired of her ranting after a while, wouldn't you?

I just read an article in the Saginaw News - Groups seek dioxin tests downstream - and another in the Bay City Times - Concerned citizens fishing for help from Feds. It seems the Lone Tree Council has gathered up a few fishermen, residents and enviro-wackos from the Bay City area to petition the ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) to conduct a 'health consultation' to evaluate health impacts of eating fish from the Saginaw River. Is this another attempt at 'reinventing the wheel' or is Michelle Hard-Redneck just trying to scare another group of residents?

Hmmm - let's get this straight now.

First Ms. Heard-Rhetoric wanted to get lifetime health surveillance for litigants living along Tittabawassee River floodplain. What happened? Michigan Supreme Court said no to their class action status.

Herd-Retorik also wants class action for litigants along Tittabawassee River floodplain to make Dow pay them an overblown amount of money for their property. This case is currently sitting in wait in the Michigan Court system.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sam Shaheen, a prominent local physician and developer, has bought at least six properties along the river for a total of more than $800,000, and says he actually bought more than that... this in a time when house sales are DOWN across the nation! See Doctor follows through on offer to buy Tittabawassee River land.

Hurd-Rednek would really really like to make Dow Chemical do all sorts of expensive remediation and clean up along the Tittabawassee River floodplain quickly - before results of various tests (U of M dioxin in soil vs. dioxin in humans in area and assorted wildlife tests by MSU) are reported. Actually, based on her continual comments about the company, she would like to chase Dow Chemical right out of Michigan. After all, her group, the Lonetree Council, was created primarily to 'get Dow' - back in the 1970's.

She seems to think she knows more about dioxins than the scientists in Midland who worked with dioxins most of their lives and developed the means by which dioxins can be measured in tiny quantitites. She seems to think she knows more than Dr. Neill Varner, medical director for the Saginaw County Health Department, who is also quoted in the Saginaw News article. Dr. Varner was learning everything he could about dioxins back in the 1960's when Ms. Riddick was still just a tadpole in her local nursing school pond.

According to the Saginaw News she said 'Contamination now threatens anglers and subsistence fishermen who rely on the river for food. This God-given source of protein (fish) should be accessible to everyone.'

Is that a stretch... or what? We know dioxins do not float around in water... they are deposited in soil and in fat. I guess that means pretty much only bottom-feeders will carry any levels of dioxins in them. That would be primarily catfish, bullheads and carp. Take my word for it...

• Freshwater catfish aren't all that tasty (there's sort of a 'dirt' flavor in them). I've actually eaten them when friends caught them in the harbor.
• Bullheads have to be skinned and I don't know any fishermen who bother doing that.
• ...and carp? - Ever since I was a child nobody wanted to eat those. That was back when you could see human feces floating in the Saginaw River... and anyway, they are a really fatty fish! yuck!

For your convenience I've combined both of today's news articles and you can find them here in .PDF form.