The corporations are trying to dodge their responsibilities by frightening workers, the public, and elected officials, but this is pure politics, not reality.   They’ve delayed the cleanup for decades with such threats.  Consider the billions of dollars of interest the corporations and their shareholders have earned on money they should have provided right away for cleanup 30 years ago.   Delay has been profitable for them.   Meanwhile, the poison has spread far and wide.   They chose to dump their chemical wastes into our valuable public waters.   We must hold them accountable for the full damages, without further delay.

The NRDA is a separate effort that should stand on its own merits.   Are we supposed to ignore the government corruption that led up to the $7 million deal?  Let them get away with it because of a vague fear about public confusion?   The Northeast Wisconsin news media needs to do a better job of investigative journalism, with followup articles, to serve as a deterent to future corruption like this.   Whatever happened to “eternal vigilence?”

This is one of the biggest NRDA cases in the country, and especially complicated by the fact that 7 powerful companies are involved.  The feds had to take time to build their legal case --- so they conducted specific additional research on birds, fish, public attitudes, and shoreland habitat.   Detailed upfront preparation could convince the polluters to settle out of court quickly, saving litigation time.   Detailed preparation could also speed any trial. 

This NRDA case has been greatly complicated by disputes over computer models, dredging, multiple peer reviews, National Academy of Sciences involvement, and other delays.   Many of these disputes were out of the control of the federal NRDA planners, but delayed resolution of key parts of the NRDA documents. 

In any case, the NRDA can’t be finished until the cleanup plan is done, so now the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has to sit and wait several months. 

Also, look at the state’s actions.  The state has had official cleanup planning underway for 15 years now, and still produced extremely poor NRDA documentation, as well as no cleanup plan yet.   The state wasted YEARS on an obviously doomed “voluntary cooperative approach” with the polluters.   In comparison, the feds look speedy.

As to costs, a true NRDA costs big money, but this is recouped from the polluters at the end of the process.  The State of Montana spent $15 million on the Clark Fork River NRDA and got it all back, plus $120 million in compensation 
dollars for the public.

Why aren’t more people angry at the polluters for dragging their feet every step of the way?   This NRDA is much more complex, expensive and time-consuming because the companies refuse to take full responsibility for their actions.

Here’s another place where the “cooperative approach” was used, and DNR helped promote a circumstance where years were wasted while the polluter was allowed to write their own cleanup plan (which was later rejected.) 

We have never said we will agree with everything the federal government proposes, only that we appreciate the federal funding and leadership in getting the ball rolling.   Under DNR, we were getting nowhere, year after year.

Our group supports NRDA emphasis on protection and restoration of endangered wildlife and wetland habitats along the Fox River, and the entire shoreline of Green Bay (into Door County and the Upper Peninsula) whereever rare habitats are found.    We believe both cleanup and restoration funds should be provided, with equal importance.

Because of this documentation, the federal proposal to claim $176 to $333 million in compensation is a firm proposal, not a pie-in-the-sky figure.   The federal proposal doesn’t aim high with inflated numbers, instead they set an extremely conservative compensation goal that they could defend in court.

The Appleton hearing for U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service was scheduled last simply because that was the date that the meeting room was available in Appleton relative to the other 4 cities.  The Service doesn’t have any PR staff to make arrangements, so we offered to make all the calls to get them the dates and locations.   So you can blame us.   It’s just a matter of chance that Appleton was last.   (I offered the same organizing service to the DNR and they refused to hold any hearings --- probably because they can’t defend their actions in public and they know it.)

When you think about it, the Service was right to hold it’s main hearing and meetings in Green Bay, because we feel the PCB damages much more acutely that you do in Appleton. 

Clean Water Action Council
1270 Main Street, Suite 120, Green Bay, WI 54302 
Phone: 920-437-7304, Fax: 920-437-7326 
E-mail:  CleanWater@cwac.net