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It has become painfully obvious that the Sierra Club has abandoned basic environmental principles.   Recent news articles across the state show a stark contrast between their position and ours regarding the Fox River Record of Decision for PCB cleanup.  The following is a sample of media coverage which includes the conflict:
 

Reactions divided on Fox River cleanup plan - July 29, 2003 Green Bay News Chronicle $400 million plan drives PCB cleanup - July 29, 2003 Green Bay Press Gazette Fox River cleanup set for 2004 - July 28, 2003 Appleton Post-Crescent Doyle seeks $400 million cleanup of Fox River - July 28, 2003 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial: A river's end and beginning - July 28, 2003 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel(This last article shows the consequence of not expressing unified concern.)

Who is protecting public health?

Public health protection is a top priority for normal environmental groups like Clean Water Action Council, which means that we must be critical of the governments' plan to unnecessarily allow significant public health risks to persist for more than 55 years on the Fox River, and more than 100 years on Green Bay.   We have consistently said over the past 2 years that the sediments must be removed down to .25 ppm PCBs in order to reach average PCB levels low enough to eliminate the need for fish consumption warnings.  (see our news release)  Instead, the governments have chosen to dredge down to 1 ppm PCBs, a level which is 90 times higher than PCB sediment concentrations that are fully protective of human health.  The government policy will leave a large mass of PCBs behind in the river, which will continue to bleed toxic contamination for many decades into the future.   Roughly 40,000 people are currently eating unsafe quantities of fish from the Fox River and Green Bay.   We must take action to protect these people and future generations.

Nevertheless, the Sierra Club in its recent news release said, “The agencies have made the right call for the river.”   This one sentence was widely reported in direct conflict with our warnings about public health risks.  They neutralized our efforts. 

The Sierra Club issued a similar news release in January, undercutting our efforts to call attention to the public health problem when the first half of the Record of Decision was released at that time.   The news media chose not to focus any attention on the cleanup standard because the Sierra Club praised the DNR’s standard.  The Sierra Club said, “…the fundamental cleanup plan is solid…” and “We applaud the EPA and the DNR for developing a protective cleanup plan that is based on good science.”  Their news release focused only on criticizing the split ROD decision, secret decision-making, and on a loophole allowing alternative remedies such as capping.  They did not criticize the serious weakness of the cleanup standard, an extremely important component of the plan.

These Sierra Club statements have reached hundreds of thousands of people through the mass media across Wisconsin.  They have been very effective at stifling media interest in the debate over the cleanup standard.

The odd thing about the Sierra Club’s news releases is that they are inconsistent with the Sierra Club’s own position on the clean up standard.   Many times over the past 2 years, the Sierra Club has advocated for the same .25 ppm PCB cleanup target that we support.   Their testimony at the public hearings, their formal written comments to the agencies, and their action alerts for their members --- all promoted the .25 ppm standard.   For example, the local Fox Valley Sierra Club website still includes an old action alert where the .25 ppm standard was listed as their first concern.  The following is a quote from their website:

“The cleanup level guideline should be 0.25 PPM PCB's in sediment, not the 1 PPM as planned. The documentation provided in the Proposed Remedial Action Plan indicates the 1 PPM is not adequately protective of human health. We don't believe that using surface weighted averages to bring the numbers closer to the .25 level is sound science. However, even when this is done, the surface weighted average concentrations exceed the reasonable maximum exposure and the central tendency exposure for high-intake fish consumers.”  [emphasis added]

It seems that in recent years, the Sierra Club has had a policy compelling them to say something “nice” at the beginning of their news releases, even when it conflicts with their position statements and overall message.   It severely weakens the organization’s clarity and effectiveness.   It’s important for news releases to be focused on just 2 or 3 specific consistent  arguments, in order to focus media attention and build public awareness.   The Sierra Club seems to have forgotten this.  The first paragraph of a news release is supposed to summarize the group’s position, and Sierra Club’s introduction basically said the governments' cleanup plan was good.  Only later in the release were concerns raised, which seems half-hearted at best.   Here’s the first and third paragraph of their release (the second was just an explanation of the ROD), as well as the final concluding paragraph.

“Sierra Club welcomes the final Fox River cleanup decision released today by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  “This decision has been a long time coming,” notes Penny Bernard Schaber, Appleton resident and Chair of Sierra Club’s John Muir Chapter.  “The agencies have made the right call for the river.  Though the road to remediation has been rocky, and there are still pieces of this decision that could be strengthened, the light at the end of the tunnel began shining today.”

"Today’s landmark decision sets a precedent for cleanup at other sites,” notes Jennifer Feyerherm, Toxics Specialist for the Sierra Club’s Great Lakes Program.  The United States and Canada have identified the Fox River as one of 42 Areas of Concern around the Great Lakes.  Sediments at these sites are laden with poisons that do not break down and build up in our bodies. “Now we have the blueprint for the most comprehensive cleanup we have seen in the Great Lakes basin.  Removing these sediments will eliminate the largest water-borne source of PCBs to Lake Michigan.  We hope success here will set the stage for cleaning up the rest of the Areas of Concern.” 

"Overall, Lori Weyers of Sierra Club's Fox Valley Group is pleased with the decision.  "When I was a child growing up a half-mile from the Fox, it was a given that you didn't swim in or eat fish from the river.  The Fox River ROD has the potential for repairing and restoring an amazing resource that's right in our backyards.  Even if it costs us a little more now, it will really save us in the long run."   [emphasis added]

This is particularly irritating to Clean Water Action Council because we are a small, local group of volunteers working on a shoestring.  The Sierra Club is supposed to be staffed by skilled paid professionals, hired to represent one of the largest, wealthiest and most powerful environmental groups in the world.   They should be helping us.  Instead, the Sierra Club is squandering its resources and actively working against the local citizens along the Fox River and Green Bay who are most damaged by the PCB contamination.

This is not an isolated incident.   We have been undercut by Sierra Club for 8 years on the Fox River issue.   If we had followed the Sierra Club’s arrogant “lead” then, we would have settled for a paltry $30 million cleanup grant of taxpayers’ money from the federal government (compared to the $400 million cleanup now).  And there would be no $333 million additional compensation/restoration effort.  The paper companies would have escaped liability, and the Fox River cleanup would have died a quiet death.  The Sierra Club did not want to support Superfund or the Natural Resources Damage Assessment.   They did not want to push for the basic environmental principle of “the polluter pays.”   Only when we local citizens have succeeded in pushing the process along has the Sierra Club jumped on the bandwagon and grabbed media credit.

We have tried many times to reason with Sierra Club staff people and members, with no effect.   Part of the problem may be that Jennifer Feyerherm, the Sierra Club’s lead Midwest staff person on the Fox River issue, was hired by the Sierra Club directly from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR).  She still seems to work for the DNR and appears to be too close to DNR staff people.   In addition, the Fox Valley Sierra Group seems to be dominated by several paper industry employees.

(Sierra Club is also supporting the awful PCB landspreading rule recently proposed for Wisconsin, and they support incineration of Fox River sediments, in direct conflict with their national policy opposing waste incineration.   Something is seriously wrong.  We wonder what Sierra Club is doing to people working to clean up other contaminated areas of the country.)

Clean Water Action Council has chosen to fight for justice and public health in spite of the Sierra Club.   In the past, we have tried not to criticize the Sierra Club publicly, because it could hurt our collective environmental “image,” but this latest press release is the final straw.   It’s an outrage that they are conflicting with the unified position of the broader environmental community. 

The Sierra Club is badly damaging our highest priority efforts.

Please write a letter to the national office of the Sierra Club and tell them how you feel about their actions on the Fox River issue:

The Sierra Club
National Headquarters 
85 Second Street, 2nd Floor 
San Francisco, CA 94105 

Phone: 415-977-5500 
Fax: 415-977-5799

Also, you can e-mail the Sierra Club at:   environmental911@sierraclub.org