Dow Chemical - Issue Analysis
Dioxin

This resolution asks the company to:

• Account to investors for the array of costs and liabilities associated with dioxins and other persistent bioaccumulative toxics generated at Dow facilities and in Dow products.
• Report on its plans for remediation and for prevention of future risks.

The Dow opposition statement claims that its website on dioxin contains the needed information and the report requested in the resolution would be duplicative.

This is not the case.

The Dow website does:

• Contain information on Dow's ongoing dioxin emissions, and progress in reducing emissions.
• Contain very limited data on dioxin contamination in Midland, Michigan and New Plymouth, NZ

The Dow website does NOT:

• Provide projections, similar to Dow’s new asbestos calculations, on the largest potential dioxin liabilities and market risks.
• Inform investors on the extent of contamination at existing Dow facilities or quantify the associated long-term liabilities as requested in the resolution.

More specifically, the website fails to provide a report on the following as requested by the shareholder resolution:

• Remedial liabilities and plans: Summarizing the company's plans to remediate existing dioxin contamination sites including reasonable projections of any material liabilities for cleanup or otherwise related to the contamination. The company hasn't even acknowledged to investors that the Midland area could pose a material liability if the company is found responsible for it, nor even discussed the implications of the revocation of the company's 2002 settlement with the state.
• Dioxin sources: A list of current and future Dow Chemical products and waste treatment facilities creating or emitting dioxin or PBT's at any point in their life cycle. (The report only includes toxic release inventory data, not clarification of the products, waste treatment systems, etc. responsible for the dioxins.)
• Dioxin trends data: Annual expenditures for each year from 1995-2002 summarizing funds spent on attorney's fees, expert fees, lobbying, and public relations/media expenses relating to the potential health and environmental consequences of dioxin releases or exposures at all Dow sites, as well as actual expenditures on remediation of dioxin contaminated sites.
• Dioxin deposit sites: A list of the company's major reservoir sources of dioxin (concentrated deposits in the environment which may disperse into the ambient environment) at Dow-owned facilities in the US and globally. (The company website reports on current disposal to landfills, not on the extent of contaminated areas on Dow sites.)
• International Treaties: With regard to timetables and benchmarks to meet phase-out goals of the treaties, the Dow website indicates that the company does not plan to phase out products in response to international treaties, However, it does not address how it expects to avoid the related regulatory and market risks, given the priority given under those treaties to ending certain chlorine based industrial production practices and products that lead to dioxin generation throughout the supply chain.
• In addition the Dow website contains a misleading characterization of the health effects of Dioxin. It talks mostly about skin rashes (chloracne) while downplaying other risks. It neglects to report on some of the most significant developments, in the draft EPA dioxin reassessment, in which scientists are finding mounting evidence that dioxin is even more toxic than previously suspected. The biggest change in the new draft is that EPA has found that the cancer risk from exposure to dioxin is 10 times greater than reported in 1994. The new review also underscored concerns about the developmental and reproductive effects of dioxin exposure in children indicating that children, particularly developing infants, are highly sensitive and vulnerable to the toxic effects of dioxin

Just as Dow management put off calculating its asbestos liabilities at Union Carbide, it has failed to assess potential risks and disclose its long-term dioxin liabilities.

Click here for basic background information on dioxin and persistent toxics at Dow.

Click here for recent policy developments related to dioxin and persistent toxics.

Click here for the March 23, 2003 Class Action Law Suit against Dow Chemical for Dioxin Pollution in Saginaw County, Michigan

Click here for Excerpts from Dow Reports on Controversies Associated with Dow's Asbestos Liability