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For immediate release 
Dec. 5, 2001

(Green Bay, WI)  The Fox River cleanup will not take 60 years, despite claims by a committee hired by Appleton Paper Company.

"Their report contains a fundamental flaw," stated Rebecca Katers, executive director of Clean Water Action Council. "This calls into question the reliability of the rest of their conclusions."

The panel claims that because the DNR has already issued pollution permits to wastewater dischargers along the Fox River, and has already allocated the maximum pollution "rights," this means the river has little additional pollution "assimilative capacity." 

They claim the wastewater treatment and discharges from dewatering the dredged sediments would exceed the remaining capacity of the river; therefore, the pace of the river cleanup would need to be slowed down dramatically in order to properly meter-out the dredging wastewater in diluted quantities.

"In other words, according to the panel, the 7 paper companies who dumped the PCBs (and other Fox River dischargers) are STILL polluting the river to point where there’s no room for wastewater from the cleanup effort," explained Katers.

"This would be ironic, especially given that the DNR gave Appleton Papers Inc. a 21% increase in their Fox River wastewater discharge allocation just a year ago," stated Katers. 

However, the panel’s basic argument is flawed, for the following reasons:

DNR staff have explained that most dischargers on the Fox are not using their full allocation, therefore a significant buffer remains before water quality standards would be violated in the river by an additional discharger.

 

The allocation system is based solely on BOD (biological oxygen demand) --- a form of non-persistent pollution primarily due to organic matter or nutrients in the wastewater (such as phosphorus  and nitrogen).  This pollution can be easily treated and reduced in the dredging water discharge. 

 

The 7 companies responsible for the PCB contamination can be required to each give up a portion of their allocation for the duration of the cleanup effort. 

The dredging timeline can be accelerated in many ways to clean both the river and bay hotspots in less than 10 years. By operating multiple dredging crews on several hotspots at once, the work can be fairly rapid. 

Just as fast, or faster than capping.

Contact: Rebecca Katers, 920-437-7304 work, 920-468-4243 home