(MI) Booth Newspapers – The federal government will speed up a long-delayed assessment of how dioxins affect human health, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

Lisa Jackson promised the quickened timetable while announcing a revised strategy for planning the cleanup of one of the nation’s biggest dioxin pollution zones: a 50-mile section of Lake Huron watershed near a Dow Chemical Co. plant in Michigan. Dow has acknowledged responsibility for the pollution.

Dioxins are toxic byproducts from manufacturing chemicals. In a 2003 report, EPA labeled some dioxins as causing cancer and said virtually any level of exposure posed at least some danger. More