My intrepid colleague at the Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer, has a story out this morning about the big Tittabawassee River Walleye Festival in Michigan.
It's an annual event organized by the Lion's Club -- and sponsored by Dow Chemical. Thousands of anglers will wet their lines in the Tittabawassee, hoping catch the big one. The thing is, Dow Chemical's plant up river had been dumping Dioxin (the Love Canal super toxin) in the Tittabawassee for about a hundred years...
The state DNR says that if you are relatively healthy and must eat the Dioxin/PCB/Mercury laden fish, don't eat too much of it Ad if you are pregnant or young or otherwise fail, don't eat the fish at all.
So the plan is to give all the fish that dioxin-shy fisherman won't eat to the food bank!
Of course, in this economy -- especially in Michigan -- the hungry folks will probably be happy to go on Dow's Dioxin Diet. If Dow had taken all the money they spent fighting efforts to clean the river -- and actually cleaned the river -- there probably would be enough left over to treat everyone in the state to a week's worth of square meals at The Outback.
But as it is, next week at the food bank lucky consumers will be able to get a fillet or two of contaminated fish to go along with that government cheese and three-day-old french bread.