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"We are being portrayed as a heartless giant
which doesn't care about the 20,000 lives lost due to
Bhopal over the years," said Dow President and CEO Michael
D. Parker. "But this just isn't true. Many individuals
within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal
disaster, and many individuals within Dow would like the
corporation to admit its responsibility, so that the
public can then decide on the best course of action, as is
appropriate in any democracy.
December 3, 2002 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
press@dow-chemical.com
DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL
OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION Company responds to activist
concerns with concrete action points.
In response to
growing public outrage over its handling of the Bhopal
disaster's legacy, Dow Chemical http://www.dow-
chemical.com has issued a statement explaining why it is
unable to more actively address the problem.
"We are
being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about
the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years," said Dow
President and CEO Michael D. Parker. "But this just isn't
true. Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about
the Bhopal disaster, and many individuals within Dow would
like the corporation to admit its responsibility, so that
the public can then decide on the best course of action, as is
appropriate in any democracy.
"Unfortunately, we have
responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry
colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being
clear about this has been a very big step."
On
December 3, 1984, Union Carbide--now part of Dow--
accidentally killed 5,000 residents of Bhopal, India, when
its pesticide plant sprung a leak. It abandoned the plant
without cleaning it up, and since then, an estimated 15,000
more people have died from complications, most resulting from
chemicals released into the groundwater.
Although
legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union
Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to
publicly deny these findings. After the accident, Union
Carbide compensated victims' families between US$300 and
US$500 per victim.
"We understand the anger and hurt,"
said Dow Spokesperson Bob Questra. "But Dow does not and
cannot acknowledge responsibility. If we did, not only would
we be required to expend many billions of dollars on cleanup
and compensation--much worse, the public could then point to
Dow as a precedent in other big cases. 'They took
responsibility; why can't you?' Amoco, BP, Shell, and Exxon
all have ongoing problems that would just get much worse.
We are unable to set this precedent for ourselves and the
industry, much as we would like to see the issue resolved in a
humane and satisfying way."
Shareholders reacted to
the Dow statement with enthusiasm. "I'm happy that Dow is
being clear about its aims," said Panaline Boneril, who owns
10,000 shares, "because Bhopal is a recurrent problem that's
clogging our value chain and ultimately keeping the share
price from expressing its full potential. Although a real
solution is not immediately possible because of Dow's
commitments to the larger industry issues, there is new hope
in management's exceptional new clarity on the matter."
"It's a slow process," said Questra. "We must learn
bit by bit to meet this challenge head-on. For now, this means
acknowledging that much as it pains us, our prime
responsibilities are to the people who own Dow shares, and to
the industry as a whole. We simply cannot do anything at
this moment for the people of Bhopal."
Dow Chemical is
a chemical products and services company devoted to
bringing its customers a wide range of chemicals. It furnishes
solutions for the agriculture, electronics, manufacturing, and
oil and gas industries, including well-known products like
Styrofoam, DDT, and Agent Orange, as well as lesser-known
brands like Inspire, Retain, Eliminator, Quash, and
Woodstalk.
For more on the Bhopal catastrophe, please
visit Dow at http://www.dow-chemical.com/.
| |
From the
DOW website by Incredulous
2:16pm Wed Dec 4 '02 (Modified on 12:03pm Thu Dec 5
'02) |
comment#2196 |
|
Did you know? Dow is responsible for the birth of the
modern environmental movement. In 1969, Rachel Carson wrote
Silent Spring about the side-effects of a Dow product, DDT, on
North American bird populations. Her work created a
groundswell of concern, sparking the birth of many of today's
environmental action groups. Another example of Dow's
commitment to Living. Improved daily.
| |
Dow is
NEVER responsible, unless its for Murder by dk 2:35pm Thu Dec 5 '02 |
comment#2203 |
|
and they celebrated Rachaels book with Agent Oranges Sales
Screaming through the New Zealand roof!
fuck
dow | |
err, it's a
spoof by schizflux 3:40pm Thu
Dec 5 '02 |
comment#2204 |
|
Dow aint that dumb, or humorous :)
| |
schiz! I
thought the same! but,,, by dk
11:46pm Thu Dec 5 '02 |
comment#2207 |
|
http://www.dow.com/environment/debate.html
Learn more about what we are doing to work through these
complex issues: Bhopal
Climate Change
Biotechnology
Fatalities
Chlorine
Dioxin
Frequently Asked
Questions LEARN MORE
Our Commitment What
are Dioxins? Frequently Asked Questions 2000 TRI
Dioxin Reporting (U.S.) 2000 NPRI Dioxin Reporting
(Canada)
What is dioxin? Where does dioxin
come from? How much dioxin am I exposed to? What are
the possible health effects of exposure to dioxin? What
are companies and the government doing about dioxin? Is
dioxin from local companies creating a risk to my health?
Is there anything I can do to reduce my exposure to
dioxin? Why am I hearing about dioxins now? Why did
Dow set a dioxin reduction goal? Why was 1995 chosen as
the baseline? How did Dow determine its 1995 dioxin
emissions baseline and how much dioxin was Dow emitting to the
environment in 1995? How did Dow achieve its current 60
percent reductions from the 1995 dioxin emissions baseline?
Once the 90 percent dioxin reduction goal is reached, how
much dioxin will Dow be emitting to the environment? How
do Dow's dioxin emissions compare to the rest of the chemical
industry? What is the Toxics Reduction Inventory (TRI) and
when was dioxin added to the TRI? Dow says it has reduced
dioxin emissions by approximately 60 percent since 1995. Why,
then, are your TRI dioxin numbers higher than those you have
shown as part of your 2005 90 percent reduction goal? How
long has Dow known about its TRI dioxin numbers and why hasn't
the company made them public before? How will dioxin
affect me if I live near a Dow manufacturing site? Have
any Dow employees been exposed to dioxin and what is the
status of their health?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. What is dioxin? Dioxin is the name of a family of
chemical compounds that are unintentional byproducts of
certain industrial, non-industrial and natural processes,
usually involving combustion.
Different dioxin
compounds have different toxicities. Sometimes the term dioxin
is also used to refer to TCDD, the most well studied and most
toxic form of dioxin. The many different types of dioxin
actually vary greatly in toxicity -- some of them 10,000 times
less toxic than TCDD.
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2. Where does dioxin come from? No one makes dioxin on
purpose. Historically, incinerators, the manufacture of
certain herbicides, and pulp and paper bleaching were among
the largest industrial sources of dioxin. However, according
to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), regulations and
voluntary changes by industry have dramatically reduced dioxin
releases from these industrial sources by 80% between 1987 and
1995, with releases expected to drop by more than 90% within
the next few years as new regulations are fully implemented.
Today, EPA considers "uncontrolled combustion," including open
burning of household trash, agricultural burning and landfill
fires, to be the largest unaddressed sources of dioxin in the
environment, [1] accounting for an estimated 57% of total
releases. [2] Increasingly, natural sources, such as forest
fires and composting, are also being recognized as
contributors of dioxin to the environment. Because dioxin
occurs naturally in the environment, it can never be totally
eliminated.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. How much dioxin am I exposed to? Levels of dioxin
in food -- which account for 95 percent of our exposure to
dioxin -- have been cut in half over the past seven years. [3]
EPA has clearly emphasized that the U.S. food supply is among
the safest and most nutritious in the world. [4] The World
Health Organization sets its Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) at a
range of 1 to 4 pg/kg/bw/day (picograms per kilogram of body
weight per day) for adults. A picogram is one-trillionth of a
gram. EPA estimates that the average U.S. adult intake is 0.5
to 1 pg/kg/bw/day, clearly within, or below, that range.
People today are exposed to less dioxin than at any
time in the recent past. According to EPA, the amount of
dioxin in the average person's body has declined by more than
50% since the late 1980s. [5] Studies of levels of dioxin in
human breast milk, blood and fat tissue all show significant
declines -- with decreases ranging from 50 to 70 percent
between 1980 and 1996. [6]
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. What are the possible health effects of exposure to
dioxin? Over the past 30 years, researchers have conducted
many studies to investigate the potential for adverse health
effects from accumulated levels of dioxin in people's bodies.
According to EPA, "currently there is no clear indication of
increased disease in the general population attributable to
dioxin-like compounds." [8]
Adverse health effects
related to dioxin -- such as chloracne, a severe skin
condition -- have only been seen in people exposed to
extremely large quantities of dioxin. Extensive studies of
people exposed to relatively high levels of dioxin through
occupational exposures, accidents or military service do not
suggest that adverse effects to human health will occur at the
low levels in today's environment.
A large historical
study of workers showed increased rates of cancer, possibly
from dioxin. However, those rates were only seen in workers
exposed for many years at amounts 100 to 10,000 times more
than the general population. [9] Exposure to other chemicals
and cigarette smoking may also have affected the results of
the study, published in the May 1999 Journal of the National
Cancer Institute.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. What are companies and the government doing about
dioxin? Government and industry have worked together to
reduce dioxin emissions dramatically since the 1970s.
According to EPA, as a result of these efforts, known
industrial emissions in the United States will be reduced by
more than 90% from 1980 levels within the next few years. [10]
The chlor-alkali industry is not a significant source
of dioxin releases to the environment, accounting for less
that one percent of overall dioxin emissions.
As part
of its commitment to the principles of Responsible Care®, the
chlor-alkali industry is committed to working cooperatively
with the government to reduce releases and develop new methods
of cleaner production while continuing to create the many
products that help save lives everyday.
However,
because dioxins can come from natural and non-industrial
sources such as forest fires and open burning of garbage and
landfill fires, we will never be able to eliminate dioxin
completely from the environment.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Is dioxin from local companies creating a risk to my
health? Since 95% of human exposure to dioxin is through
the diet, exposure levels are generally more a function of
what we eat rather than where we live. Our food comes from a
wide range of sources throughout the world. Therefore, living
near an industrial facility does not necessarily mean that you
are exposed to higher levels of dioxin than the overall
population.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Is there anything I can do to reduce my exposure to
dioxin? The EPA, FDA and other agencies note that since
dioxin accumulates in animal fats, following normal dietary
recommendations for a healthy, low-fat diet is the best way to
reduce the potential for dioxin exposure.
"The best
strategy for lowering the risk of dioxins while maintaining
the benefits of a good diet, according to the agencies," is to
follow the recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines to choose
fish, lean meat, poultry, and low or fat-free (skim) dairy
products and to increase consumption of fruits, vegetables and
grain products. [12]
Yet while recognizing people's
concern over dioxin exposure, the Environmental Protection
Agency, Food and Drug Administration, and other federal
agencies stress that the U.S. food supply is among the safest
and most nutritious in the world. Neither agency recommends
avoiding specific foods or taking any special precautions to
avoid dioxin exposure.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Why am I hearing about dioxins now? EPA's Toxics
Release Inventory was established in 1986 to track information
on 650 chemical substances manufactured, processed or used by
U.S. production facilities each year. EPA may add or remove
chemicals to the TRI list based on their toxicity. Dioxin was
added to the TRI for reporting purposes beginning in the year
2000.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Why did Dow set a dioxin reduction goal? Dow takes
dioxin reduction seriously and we not only believe that dioxin
emissions to the environment need to be reduced, we continue
to work hard to make that happen.
In 1995, we enhanced
our dioxin reduction efforts by committing to reduce our
dioxin emissions to the air and water by 90 percent by the
year 2005. We are investing $250 million dollars in a wide
variety of projects to meet this goal. To date, our efforts
have resulted in more than a 60 percent reduction of our
dioxin emissions. This is two thirds of the way toward our
target.
It is also important to remember that dioxin
levels in the environment have declined significantly over the
past 30 years, and will continue to decrease as new
regulations and voluntary industry initiatives take effect.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Why was 1995 chosen as the baseline? 1995 marked
the year that Dow public announced aggressive, voluntary,
global EH&S goals for the year 2005. That same year, the
U.S. EPA completed its initial baseline inventory for dioxin
emissions.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. How did Dow determine its 1995 dioxin emissions
baseline and how much dioxin was Dow emitting to the
environment in 1995? In 1995, Dow committed to a
self-initiated goal to reduce dioxin emissions to air and
water globally by 90% by the year 2005. Because of the
complexity in analysis and the variation in chemical and
physical processes, the exact level of dioxin emissions from
our facilities was not known at the time. However, we had some
experience achieving reductions with our efforts on combustion
abatement and technology in Germany and felt we could apply
this knowledge to other facilities.
Using continued
monitoring data before completion of dioxin reduction projects
for sources allowed Dow three years to fully determine our
1995 air and water emissions baseline. Upon completion, Dow
determined its 1995 baseline of dioxin emissions to air and
water was at 40 grams (TEQ).
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12. How did Dow achieve its current 60 percent reductions
from the 1995 dioxin emissions baseline? Dow is two-thirds
of the way toward our 90% goal of reducing dioxin emissions to
air and water – achieving 60% emission reductions after
implementing a number of dioxin abatement and technology
projects. These projects included new incineration technology
and abatement, scrubbers to curtail stack emissions, filters
for water emissions and other post treatment and
source-reduction technologies such as recycling waste streams
for reuse.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13. Once the 90 percent dioxin reduction goal is reached,
how much dioxin will Dow be emitting to the environment?
Once our goal is achieved, Dow's total dioxin emissions to
air and water will be approximately four grams (TEQ).
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. How do Dow's dioxin emissions compare to the rest of
the chemical industry? We do not have comparative data
with the rest of the industry. We do know that Dow is unique
in terms of our size, in some areas of our chemistry, and our
number of combustion units.
However, regardless of
where we are in terms of comparative data, our dioxin
reduction goal is extremely clear and our commitment is solid.
We will continue to work toward the goal we set for ourselves
in 1995 – that is, to reduce dioxin emissions to air and water
by 90 percent by the year 2005 regardless of what the rest of
the chemical industry reports. We have been open with the
public about our commitment and we are determined to reach our
goals. To date, we are approximately 60 percent of the way
there.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15. What is the Toxics Reduction Inventory (TRI) and when
was dioxin added to the TRI? Each year, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires chemical
manufacturers and manufacturing facilities in many industries
to report emissions to air, water, and land for about 650
chemical substances. The EPA compiles the data in its annual
Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI was created in 1986 as
part of the agency's Emergency Planning and Community
Right-to-Know Act. Environment Canada has a very similar
requirement known as the National Pollutants Release
Inventory.
Periodically, both Environment Canada and
the EPA add chemicals to the reporting list. This year, both
EPA and Environment Canada included dioxin in their respective
TRI and NPRI reporting for the first time. As a result,
companies reported their dioxin releases or emissions under
NPRI to Environment Canada on June 1, 2001 and to the U.S. EPA
on July 1, 2001.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16. Dow says it has reduced dioxin emissions by
approximately 60 percent since 1995. Why, then, are your TRI
dioxin numbers higher than those you have shown as part of
your 2005 90 percent reduction goal? Dow has achieved
excellent results – a 60 percent reduction on our commitment
to reduce dioxin emissions to air and water.
However,
the TRI requires companies to report dioxin releases beyond
emissions to air and water. Air and water emissions are
extremely important numbers as these emissions have the
potential to increase human exposure.
The TRI also
require companies to report dioxins that are generated on site
and the ways these dioxins are treated, such as being
destroyed in highly efficient incinerators or disposed of in
regulatory-approved secure landfills or underground caverns.
These are dioxins that do not reach the open environment and
they do not create the potential for human exposure. These
additional numbers do not reflect more dioxins in the
environment, just more reporting.
*The U.S. EPA has
also required the use of a different measurement standard for
TRI than is commonly used for reporting dioxin emissions. See
Dow's web section on Toxicity vs. Mass: Two Ways to Measure
Dioxins.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17. How long has Dow known about its TRI dioxin numbers
and why hasn't the company made them public before? Since
Dow established its 1995 baseline on dioxin emissions to air
and water, we have learned a great deal about how to better
detect and reduce our dioxin emissions. The company's focus
has been heavily on dioxin emissions where there has been the
potential to create public exposure and we didn't have
information on some of our internal processes and waste
streams.
Dow has been sharing its 1995 dioxin
emissions baseline and our progress on dioxin emissions
reduction to air and water with our local communities and
other interested parties through our public report. Now that
we have this additional TRI information on dioxins, we are
also sharing it on our web site.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18. How will dioxin affect me if I live near a Dow
manufacturing site? According to the U.S. EPA, 95 percent
of human dioxin exposure is through our diet. Since diet is
the primary exposure pathway, exposure levels are generally
more a function of what we eat rather than where we live. Our
food comes from a wide range of sources throughout the world.
Therefore, living near an industrial facility with dioxin
emissions does not necessarily mean that you are exposed to
higher levels of dioxin than the overall population.
It is also important to know that people's risk from
dioxin is declining as environmental levels of dioxin decline.
According to the U.S. EPA, dioxin levels in the environment
have declined dramatically over the last 30 years. In
addition, Dow continues to decrease its own dioxin emissions.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19. Have any Dow employees been exposed to dioxin and what
is the status of their health? While there have been over
30 years of research and theories about dioxin and health
effects, there remains no scientific consensus that dioxin
causes health effects in people at today's environmental
levels. Dow has routinely monitored the health of our
employees, and all results indicate that the extremely low
levels dioxin they may have been exposed to have not had any
impact on their health.
More specifically, Dow
extensively studied a group of 2,187 male employees who were
potentially exposed to dioxins during their employment with
the company between 1937 and 1982. This study group provides a
particularly valuable assessment of potential risks related to
dioxins because it is exceptionally large, it has a long
follow-up time (averaging 30 years per employee), and it is
based on high quality industrial hygiene monitoring data. The
study shows that Dow employees who worked in plants where
dioxins were potentially present have lower overall mortality
rates than the general population.
While there is a
lack of scientific consensus on the risk of dioxin to human
health, everyone agrees that dioxin emissions to the
environment should be reduced.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Questions and Answers About Dioxins, Interagency
Working Group on Dioxin (representatives from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Health and
Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Department of
Veterans Affairs, Department of Commerce, Department of State,
and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy),
July 2000. [2] Draft Dioxin Reassessment, Part I:
Estimating Exposure to Dioxin-Like Compounds, Volume 2:
Sources of Dioxin-Like Compounds in the United States ,
Chapter 1, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, September
2000. [3] Assessment of the Health Risk of Dioxins:
Re-Evaluation of the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI), Executive
Summary, World Health Organization, 1998. [4] Questions
and Answers About Dioxins (see citation #1) [5] Draft
Dioxin Reassessment, Environmental Protection Agency,
September 2000. [6] Päpke, O., "PCDD/PCDF: Human
Background Data for Germany, a 10-Year Experience,"
Environmental Health Perspectives 106: 723-731, 1998. Stanley,
J.S., Ayling, R.E., Cramer, P.H., Thornburg, K.R., Remmers,
J.C., Breen, J.J., Schwemburger, J., Kang, H.K., and Watanabe,
K., "Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxin And Dibenzofuran
Concentration Levels in Human Adipose Tissue Samples From The
Continental United States Collected From 1971 Through 1987,"
Chemosphere 20: 895-901, 1998. [7] Pinsky, P. &
Lorber, M.N., "A model to evaluate past exposure to
2,3,7,8-TCDD," Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental
Epidemiology, 8, (2), 187-206, 1998. [8] Dioxin: Summary
of the Dioxin Reassessment, Information Sheet 1, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and
Development, June 12, 2000. [9] Steenland, K., Piacitelli,
L., Deddens, J., Fingerhut, M. and Chang, L.I., "Cancer, Heart
Disease and Diabetes in Workers Exposed to
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p- dioxin," Journal of the National
Cancer Institute 91:779-86, 1999. [10] Questions and
Answers About Dioxins (see citation #1) [11] Hagenmeier,
H. and Walczok, M., "Time Trends in Levels, Patterns and
Profiles for PCDD/PCDF in Sediment Cores of Lake Constance,"
Organohalogen Compounds 28: 101-104, 1996 (sediment).
Ferrario, J., Byrne, C., Dupuy, A.E., Winters, D.L., Lorber,
M., and Anderson, S., "Analytical Method and Results from the
Analyses of USEPA Historical Food Samples for
Dibenzo-p-Dioxins/-Furans/Coplanar PCBs," Organohalogen
Compounds 35: 29-32, 1998 [food]. Winters, D.L., Anderson, S.,
Lorber, M., Ferrario, J., and Byrne, C., "Trends in Dioxin and
PCB Concentrations in Meat Samples from Several Decades of the
20th Century," Organohalogen Compounds 38: 75-78, 1998 [food].
[12] Questions and Answers About Dioxins (see citation #1)
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New Links
for Dow Bhopal Spoof by Buster
9:18pm Mon Dec 9 '02 |
comment#2253 |
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