DREDGING THE FOX
Part 1 of 2

by Jeff Decker

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Government regulators are suggesting that Fox Valley paper mills pay for one of the largest dredging projects on record. But how exactly the seven-year clean-up project will be funded is up in the air. That means scrutiny and comments will bombard the $308 million proposal before a final course is decided, possibly by next year.

The mouth of Green Bay would not be touched, but monitored for 40 years, as would a stretch of river from Appleton to Little Rapids. The Wisconsin DNR concluded that dredging the entire bay could cost about $2.5 billion. Virtually the entire river from De Pere to the bay could be dredged for $169 million, as would spots in two other stretches.

Eleven million cubic yards of Fox River and Green Bay sediment are PCB-contaminated. The proposed plan would remove 7.25 million cubic yards along with 30,000 kilograms of PCBs to bring the river's average contamination level to 1 part per million. Areas contaminated with less than 1 PPM of PCBs will be monitored for up to 40 years.

Three times more sediment would be removed than is proposed for removal from the Hudson River in New York, and three times what was taken out for the Panama Canal.

"I think it's going to be do-able," said Rep. Judy Krawczyk, R-Green Bay, who added she would like the clean-up goal to be lower than 1 ppm. "We don't live in a perfect world."

Polychlorinated biphenyls were used in the Fox Valley as an agent in carbonless copy paper and were discharged into the river from the 1950s until the 1970s. They have been linked to neurological and developmental disorders in wildlife and humans. Compared to all other toxins in the Fox, the DNR considers PCBs to be the most dangerous.

Each mill is meeting with government and tribal negotiators to set a cost to the clean-up. Any deals with them would need approval of the state DNR, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Oneida and Menominee nations, the National Oceanic and Air Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The mills are: Georgia Pacific, P.H. Glatfelter Co., NCR Corp., Riverside Paper Corp., U.S. Paper Mills Corp., Appleton Papers and Wisconsin Tissue Mills, Inc. Collectively the mills employ more than 10,000 workers and are called the Fox River Group.

"The plan reflects several years of scientific studies and is based on sound science," said DNR Secretary Darrell Bazzell.

EPA Region 5 Administrator Tom Skinner said the plan is precisely what is needed to clean the river, which has the world's largest concentration of paper mills. "It's the sort of positive steps that President Bush and his administration have been talking about."

Skinner added the EPA will keep the Fox River on its proposed Superfund site list, and the government could force a clean-up if no deal is reached with the responsible paper mills. "That's why you've always got the threat of legal action," he said. "Willingness is relative."

Appleton Papers spokesman Dennis Hultgren said the mills favor capping contaminated sediment with clean soil as the best option, or letting the river clean itself. In the present economy, anything that reduces costs is welcome, he said. "American Tissue Mills has just shut the door on 250-some employees in Neenah. You may not have (mills) moving out of the state as much as companies shutting down or going bankrupt." Mills will definitely submit comments during the 60-day public comment period, he said.

While they negotiate payments, $40 million will be made available for preliminary clean-up and compensation work from Appleton Papers and NCR under an agreement reached in June. The comment period on that deal ended Sept. 13 and federal Judge Lynn Adelman is expected to announce his decision soon.

Bazzell said, "If everything goes smoothly, and that has not always been the record to this point, then we could actually be in the river in two summers."

Since demonstration projects showed that dredging could work on the Fox, the paper mills have curbed a public relations campaign that challenged the viability of dredging technology. General Electric currently is engaged in a public relations and legal war over the Hudson River clean-up in New York. If the GE lawsuit is victorious, the power of the Superfund law could be weakened, possibly affecting clean-up on the Fox.

Included in the proposal are seven different clean-up alternatives and detailed models of the river's behavior. Executive Director Rebecca Katers of the Clean Water Action Council said she was pleased the agencies selected the plan that called for the most dredging, but she wishes they went farther.

"There are several hot spots in the bay with more than 5 PPM that they could easily dredge," Katers said, adding the proposal is nearly two years behind schedule. Her group collected 10,672 signatures last year, all from people in the region who want the clean-up over with.

State Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, said he hopes the clean-up will help enrich the appeal of the region, help wildlife and spur re-population of the yellow perch. "We just passed language in the budget preserving the locks system with the hope of turning the Fox River into a historic site and tourist attraction," he said. "This clean-up can only help."

Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud, R-Eastman, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, praised Bazzell's cooperative ability. "A lot of people don't give him enough credit, myself included, but he's pretty shrewd about this," he said. "It's expensive for the paper mills, but what the heck. They put (the PCBs) in there."

Jeff Decker is a former staff writer for the Green Bay News Chronicle.

READ PART 2

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