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• PCB Pollution Cleanup Plan Weakened in 

Final Record of Decision (details)

On October 2, 2001, the DNR and EPA proposed a final PCB cleanup plan for the Fox River, called the Remedial Investigation Feasibility Study (RIFS). This is part of the Superfund environment cleanup process, even though the Fox River is merely nominated and not formally designated as a Superfund site.  We have two separate, but parallel environmental projects to follow:  the cleanup plan and the compensation plan.  The Superfund RIFS is the cleanup plan.  (See the NRDA for the compensation plan.) Three years prior, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provided approximately $4 million in federal Superfund dollars to the State of Wisconsin to hire a consultant to write the cleanup plan. The first draft of the RIFS was released for public comment in 1999. It was highly criticized as incomplete; therefore, the EPA required the state to rewrite the cleanup plan with more documentation and research. It was delayed several times afterwards.  The final environment remediation proposal includes a mix of dredging, landfilling, possible treatment and no action at various stretches of the river, and no action at all in the bay.

See Maps of Proposed  PCB Cleanup Area

A 60 day written public comment period ended January 21, 2002.  (See Nutshell description)

Currently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin DNR are reviewing the industry and public comments.   They issued a partial Record of Decision (ROD) this January, and plan to issue the second half in June, 2003. 

Unfortunately, a major scientific conflict has occurred on the Bay, which prevents the agencies from making informed decisions about whether to cleanup there.

PCBs are not equally distributed in the river and bay bottom environment. Instead, they accumulated in "hotspots" in the sediments in more than 80 locations along 39 miles of the river, between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay.  Roughly 90% of the river PCBs are sitting in 7 miles of mud between the DePere Dam and the mouth of the river.  Another large environmental deposit of PCBs sits at the extreme southern end of the Bay.

Clean Water Action Council has submitted formal comments to the agencies about the plan, along with comments written by our Technical Advisors (a toxicologist, engineer, and geologist). (Also, see Cleanup Technologies).

What is Superfund?

In 1980, Congress established the Superfund Program to locate, investigate, and clean up the       worst hazardous waste sites nationwide. The full name of this law is "The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act" (CERCLA).  The EPA administers the Superfund program in cooperation with individual states and tribal governments. The office that oversees management of the program is the Office of Emergency and Remedial Response (OERR). 

This environmental law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided broad federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous wastes that may endanger public health or the environment. Over five years, $1.6 billion was collected and the tax went to an environmental trust fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. 

CERCLA established prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites; provided for liability of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these sites; and established a trust fund (the "Superfund") to provide for cleanup when no responsible party could be identified. 

The law authorizes two kinds of response actions: 

• Short-term environmental removals, where actions may be taken to address hazardous waste releases or threatened releases requiring prompt response. 

• Long-term remediation response actions, that permanently and significantly reduce the dangers associated with releases or threats of releases of hazardous substances that are serious, but not immediately life threatening. These actions can be conducted only at sites listed on EPA's National Priorities List (NPL).  The Fox River is NOT on this list yet, it is only nominated, because the State of Wisconsin under Tommy Thompson opposed Superfund listing.

Unfortunately, in the 1990's, the Republican majority in Congress let the surcharge tax on chemical feedstocks and petroleum companies lapse, which allowed the Superfund to run dry, which has become a major hindrance to the cleanup program.  Annual continuing appropriations of general public taxdollars are now used, but in a more limited fashion.  This has slowed the speed of cleanups across the country and weakened the position of federal negotiators anxious to settle with polluters in order to have working capital to complete cleanup work.  We feel the federal government settles for less than it should, just to get "something, anything" done quickly.

Governor Tommy Thompson and some local/state government leaders have opposed Superfund status for the Fox River for more than a decade, claiming the state could do a better remediation job and that Superfund would stigmatize the Fox Valley as a hazardous waste site.   In 1986, Clean Water Action Council Executive Director Rebecca Katers strongly urged the local Fox River Remedial Action Plan committees to propose Superfund status for the river, but committee members insisted that Superfund would result in years of delay due to litigation.  (Here we are 17 years later, and it's likely that we will still need to go to court in order to get the job done.)

Clean Water Action Council has been grateful to have the EPA's Superfund nominated status (over the state's objections), because it provided $4 million in federal dollars to research and write the proposed sediment cleanup plan.  (The State of Wisconsin was getting nowhere after decades of meetings.)   The EPA has also provided more incentive:  if the State can't get a reasonable environmental settlement and remediation from the paper industry on the Fox River, EPA can step in and formally designate the Fox River a Superfund site and initiate legal enforcement proceedings. 

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration recently cut the Superfund program's environmental funding by a disastrous 50%, and has shown major hostility to the program.  The actual clean-up Fund is virtually empty, because in 1994 the Republicans in Congress eliminated its source of funding, a surcharge on chemical and oil feedstocks. (This makes the government's cleanup negotiating position extremely weak.)  EPA and U.S. Justice Department enforcement staff numbers have also been slashed.  We've lost the federal leadership we've depended on.  (see The Federal Corporate Takeover)

Links to More Information

• PCB Cleanup Plan Weakened in Final Record of Decision  (details)
• Revelations from the ROD (details)
• Partial Record of Decision Fails to Protect Health
• Bay Samples Miss Key Targets
• The Bay Data Debate - An Investigation is Needed
• Engineer Questions Lack of Bay Cleanup
• Toxicologist Criticizes Cleanup Plan  (plus additional documents by Dr. Foran)

• Geologist Challenges Assumptions Used in Planning Fox River PCB Cleanup
• CWAC Citizens Comment Letter on Proposed Cleanup Plan
• The Proposed Fox River Cleanup --- in a Nutshell
• The Corporations Can Afford It
• Bush Administration Blocks Public Access  to Government's Fox River Website
• The $40 Million Deal with Appleton Paper and NCR Corporation --- (expired action alert)
• The Fox River Cleanup Page - Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources
• The Fox River & Green Bay Superfund Page --- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• The EPA's general Superfund Page

click here  for more Lahey cartoons on the Fox River and Green Bay cleanup