...But the Environutz are More Interested in 'Get Dow!!' than they are in Clean Water!!!

Sunday's Bay City Times contains an editorial about cleaning up our watershed. It's from somebody who cares about the environment!

An FYI to the local environutz who are out to create even less jobs in the tri-city area and kick chemical industry butt, I have cared about the Great Lakes and especially the Saginaw Bay when many of you were still wearing diapers! My family have been boaters since the 1960s. Industry began creating non-phosphate cleaners way back then. We always made sure our cleaning products, dish soaps, etc. for use when we were boating contained no phosphates!!!

NOW... just want to share a 2004 photo album I created showing the Bay City State Park in mid-summer. All the other State Parks were already buzzing with activity. Here's the album: Beach

Here is the editorial for anybody who might not have read it:

Make 2008 the year we saved Saginaw Bay
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Saginaw Bay is sick.

Rotting muck has ruined sandy beaches.

Human fecal matter - yes, that! - and animal waste are in that mess.

Invasive phragmites are taking over our shorelines.

Accidentally imported animals are remaking our native waters into ecosystems we don't recognize.

Yet the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality didn't even list Saginaw Bay in the first draft of its ''impaired waters'' report this year.
The bay needs action, now.

It demands a comprehensive plan.

Yet, we see no outrage.

Where, for example, are the environmentalists?

Lately, they seem more attuned to chemicals in the bay than they are to what rots and stinks up the place.

Refocus, you guys and gals: We need your dedication and experience.
The few steps taken to turn the bay around are commendable. The Bay County Board of Commissioners has enacted a ban on phosphates in lawn fertilizers to stop the growth of algae that dies to become muck. The bay needs more help than that.

In the past year alone, municipal wastewater treatment plants in Saginaw, Saginaw Township, Bay City and Essexville dumped 388 million gallons of only partially treated sewage into the Saginaw River. That's enough to fill 456 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Shrugs all around. What can we do?

Stop it, that's what.

Build more retention basins used to hold combined sanitary sewage and storm runoff. Or separate sanitary sewage from storm water.
Yes, it will cost millions of dollars, even billions. The work will take years.

So we better start now.

Nobody knows how many rural homes and cabins send their raw sewage downstream through failed septic systems.

Nobody has looked in any comprehensive way.

Find them and fix them. Take the Bay County ban on phosphates in fertilizer to all 22 counties in our watershed. Ban phosphates in
dishwashing detergents.

When people became enraged about industrial pollutants, laws were written and the offenders were found and fined. That pollution stopped.
The same outcry and the same, strong government response is needed to stop the biological poisoning of Saginaw Bay.

The work won't end once we get a grip on wastewater and runoff.

What do we do about zebra mussels?

Nobody knows, because little is known about the tiny bivalves that took over the bay more than 18 years ago.

Even less is known about the other invaders.

Study continues at the pace of a snail.

Ramp it up, and find solutions.

Get angry, get involved and get that bay of ours clean.

We will not be ignored if we stand as a region.

Determined that, together, we will cure our sick Saginaw Bay.

Starting this year.

Where I Stand...

I stand in the middle of my backyard where we experience at least one flood per year, compliments of the dams further upstream that empty into the Tittabawassee River whenever the waters get too high... usually after the spring thaw. My property exists on one of the lowest areas along the Tittabawassee River floodplain.

I mow the lawn here - a whole acre. I still have asparagus we planted when we moved here 50 years ago. We had vegetable gardens for several years when my children were young..... and yes, this is also where our girls had their playground equipment.

Then... in the new millenium, a few environutz from a neighboring community started denigrating our property, saying it was contaminated by the big bad chemical company. They found a greedy few willing to sue Dow claiming their property is worthless because of the contamination.

In late 2003 or early 2004 I read in the newspapers that these Lonetree Council recruits were trying to sue Dow Chemical in a class action suit. This is the same bunch of weirdos that later told me to 'shut up' at a public meeting in June 2005! I guess they believe in freedom of speech for anybody who agrees with them.

These environutz DO NOT represent me nor my neighbors, many of whom have lived here even longer than I. We are the Tittabawassee River Voice and we are tired of special interest groups and bureaucrats defiling the environment along our river.

We DO NOT want to sue Dow. We want MDEQ and EPA to get out of our backyards! We want the environutz and bureaucrats to allow Dow Chemical to clean up their own mess!

Answer to Environutz... Where I Was in 2003

Some environutz have asked where I was in 2003 when the first dioxin/MDEQ meetings began.

It all started with a paper spitball blown across the room in a high school. That spitball resulted in an accusation by a Pakistani that one of my grandsons committed ethnic intimidation. The entire story is surreal, including police brutality and a misinformed district attorney.

My husband & I spent most of 2003 driving across the state to show our support. Some court appearances were cancelled without notice. We were convinced the delays were calculated for my grandson to plead guilty to something of which he was innocent.

Bottom line: In desperation my daughter sent a letter to her State Representative and I sent a letter to mine, explaining the problem. An assistant noted on my letter the incident was not within his district so he could do nothing. Wrong!

Rep. Moolenaar read my letter and responded that he would try to help. Finally our trial was not delayed again. The grandson was found not guilty.

Representative John Moolenaar may not even remember who I am but I will always remember him! He is my hero. His thoughtfulness taught me that there is such a thing as an honest politician.

Now the Lonetree Council and their little group of litigants in the dioxin case started catching my attention. They did not represent me and I knew most of my Freeland neighbors felt the same. I made noise at some of the Dow informational meetings... I started this blog... and I met Leonard & Cheryl Heinzman... kindred souls. They kicked things into high gear and the Tittabawassee River had a Voice.

Get the Latest Info on Dioxin/Body Burden...

...from one of our most prestigious professors Dr. David Garabrant, with one of the most prestigious medical training facilities in the world, the University of Michigan. Dr. Garabrant will bring us up to date on the study by the team he headed up. Here are meeting details:

• Horizons Conference Center, 6200 State Street, in Saginaw Michigan
• Tuesday, June 5, 2007
• 6:00 pm -8:00 pm

Let's get over there and give him the full support he deserves. At the last public meeting presented by Dow Chemical and MDEQ on Thursday, May 3, the Lonetree Gang's own leader, Terry Miller, struck out at Dr. Garabrant verbally, showing an unexpected mean streak. Such behavior seems to be a recurring event with Lonetree Council and their pack mentality.

Click here to read the U/M Press Release in it's entirety.

I went to a meeting Thursday...

My friends & I call them 'dioxin meetings'. The chemical company and the state government regulatory people are working together to clean up a chemical they couldn't even find in such tiny amounts a century ago when it all started. I don't attend those meetings to make sure they're doing it right. They know what they are doing. I attend because I find it therapeutic! I attend because there's a gang of bullies who want to get something for nothing from the giant company. I attend because those bullies want to drag me and my neighbors along with them by claiming they represent all of us. I attend to represent me and the majority of my neighbors who feel like I do although they prefer Len and I to represent them publicly.

Midland Daily News reporter, Kathie Marchlewski gives an accurate account of the May 3 quarterly meeting presented by Dow & MDEQ in her article - Prep for river cleanup to start. Read it to know all about the meeting.

Here's what I saw at that meeting:

• a fairly full room, mostly people directly involved in getting the work done,
• well done presentations - given by competent, well trained professionals,
• an angry extremist environmental activist who decided to be exceptionally rude that day, and as usual, making sure to monopolize the comments and questions portion of the agenda with his prewritten scripts in hand.
• the usual delicious cookies.

About the Tittabawassee River: Freeland's Walleye Festival, held annually on the last weekend of April, was once again a success! I'd like to share a couple of articles about fishing on the Tittabawassee from the Midland Daily News:

• Fine time fishing in Freeland by Steve Griffin - 04/30/2007
• and Photos: Easier from the shore - 05/03/2007
• and just for the fun of it, this photo taken from my back deck in March.

I like to call it 'Watering the Asparagus'

Addendum to my 4:30 pm blog...

... was so involved in the dissertation I forgot to tell why Barber's article in the Saginaw News motivated me. I haven't done much blogging lately because it really bothered me that I could dislike a whole group because I distrust their leadership.

I don't dislike the whole group. I do feel sorrow that they were caught in the trap set by such professional activists. It occurred to me that Miller & Riddick were both around to get sucked into the Greenpeace propaganda machine 'way back when.... Why else would a simple highschool teacher get so involved in a hate campaign against one successful local business? Henry Dow did start his little company right here in mid-Michigan. Why else would a simple nurse speak so venomously of Dow Chemical in particular? She's even against MDEQ now that the 'culprit' and the 'regulator' are working together. Ya know, I don't even dislike them... I think the word is more like..... pity.

It's not about DEQ... It's not about Dow...

...It's about me. You may have noticed less updates here at TRVoice lately. I thought it was just because I'm too busy, but truth is I didn't feel motivated; wasn't sure what I wanted to write - or why.

Thanks to Barrie Barber, reporter for The Saginaw News & his big frontpage spread in Sunday's paper yesterday - Group won't back down from Dow - I come back rejuvenated. Barrie's series of articles was well written but perhaps he didn't go back far enough.

Perhaps there is a core to Lonetree beyond the nuclear plant fiasco. I speak now to my contemporaries. Remember when an international bunch of gangsters visited Midland - attempting to make trouble in the Tittabawassee River in the vicinity of Dow Chemical? Don't remember? How about if I mention the name Greenpeace? Ah! Now you remember! What were they doing in the river? Why has Greenpeace become persona non grata in the United States?

Look at the collage below. This is the face of Lonetree. This is the face of Greenpeace. This is the face of a bully and terrorist, for is it not terrorism when a bully frightens people into following his lead? Is it not a bit weird that the huge international organization named Greenpeace compares Bhopal, India to Midland, Michigan? Read all about it here at their website!

Click on my little poster to see if you know anybody in the photos. Yup, that's right. Some of them are from right here in mid-Michigan.

Whoa! Now is that terrorist tactics - comparing dead babies with perfectly healthy American children? Recognize the little blonde poster child? Well, I don't but... That's right folks... Greenpeace's poster children in 2003 were little Ruby from Bhopal and little Paul from the Lonetree pack of litigants/terrorists right here in the good ol' U.S. of A! Watch out for the bullies, people... they wear many masks.