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The recent $1.5 million grant by Arjo Wiggins Appleton (formerly Appleton Paper) to the University of Wisconsin and other local institutions continues a disturbing trend --- major corporate PCB polluters of the Fox River and Lake Michigan appear to neutralize or prevent input by area scientists on the PCB cleanup issue.  (see UW news release)
 

“The DNR and EPA tend to listen to the opinions of University scientists. The public also trusts these scientists to give objective advice.  Unfortunately, it appears this advice is being directed or influenced by corporate donations,” warned Rebecca Katers, Executive Director of Clean Water Action Council. Over the past 10 years, the University of Wisconsin and its professors have received large grants from Fox River paper industries responsible for dumping PCBs.   The grants generally fund work on non-point pollution (land run-off pollution).

The "Fighting Phoenix" seems to be  on the side of corporate polluters.

"The University undoubtedly does good research on the non-point pollution issue, and this is valuable, but we are concerned that University scientists may be self-censoring their research or opinions on industrial pollution and PCBs, in order to receive such corporate grants, " added Katers.

"Private corporations should not control the direction of the University's research or community involvement."

How the Non-Point Issue Serves PCB Polluters

The recent Arjo Wiggins Appleton $1.5 million grant serves the paper corporations’ interests in several ways:

a. Non-point pollution has been redefined by these area scientists as “THE most important problem facing the Fox River and Green Bay.”   While Clean Water Action Council agrees non-point pollution is important and needs to be addressed, the resulting algae is not more important than protecting public health by cleaning up the PCBs.   The Fox River and Green Bay system is one of the largest and most serious PCB pollution sites in the world.   Several commercial fisheries have been closed, throwing hundreds of fishermen and processors out of work.   The sport-fishing and tourism industry have been badly damaged by fish-consumption warnings.  Roughly 40,000 people continue to eat unsafe quantities of PCB-contaminated fish, at a cancer risk equal to smoking 2 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day.  Non-cancer risks such as immune and thyroid system damage, diabetes, heart disease, neurological disorders, and learning disabilities in children are also high. (see PCB Health Effects)  Hundreds of millions of dollars must be spent to pipe community drinking water from Lake Michigan, 30 miles away.   Harbor dredging and disposal is much more costly due to contamination.   University of Wisconsin scientists have tended to ignore these high PCB costs, while focusing more attention on their own non-point research opportunities and funding.

b. Attention and blame is shifted to farmers or homeowners, and away from the paper corporations who dumped PCBs into the system.   It allows scientists to say “we’re all to blame for pollution” when this is not the case with PCBs.   Only 7 of Wisconsin’s paper companies dumped PCBs in the Fox River and Lake Michigan, and the general public and other businesses are not responsible for those corporate decisions. (see Sources)

c. Polluters receive unwarranted positive publicity.  The corporations appear generous by making grants for research, but this is an illusion.  Their seemingly large grants are small when compared to the funds needed for PCB cleanup and compensation for PCB damages to natural resources.  Arjo Wiggins Appleton, for instance, owes at least $123.2 million for PCB sediment cleanup and another $133.2 million for damage compensation and restoration projects. 

d. Polluters use grants as leverage for political sympathy.  Fox River polluters are lobbying heavily in Madison and Washington DC to undercut and block the proposed PCB cleanup efforts.   Research grants like this one help them look like “good corporate citizens” who deserve a break.  In reality, the polluters should be providing this research money, and much more, as part of their PCB cleanup and damage compensation plan.

Examples of Corporate Influence at the University

1.  $1.5 million grant by Arjo Wiggins Appleton.   This is a British holding company, owned by a French holding company, which in turn is controlled by an Italian holding company.   Why would these European companies care about land run-off pollution in the Fox River Valley, USA?

Two professors, at UW-Green Bay and UW-Milwaukee, will lead the Fox Valley non-point research effort for 4 years, but it will involve many others.   It represents a major coup for their careers.   The Green Bay professor, Dr. Kevin Fermanich, has served several years on the Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) for the Fox River and Green Bay Remedial Action Plan.   We’ve attended their meetings, and Dr. Fermanich has been very quiet, seldom raising concerns about PCB issues, and certainly not publicly.  His UW-Green Bay colleagues on the committee have been equally quiet and uninvolved in the community PCB debate.

It appears that the professors are helping Arjo Wiggins Appleton (AWA) bypass the public input process.  Dr. Harris and AWA had been told that their $1.5 million non-point monitoring project may not qualify as a PCB damage compensation project under their share of the $333 million Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA); however, they have said  they would like it to be considered as such.  Ordinarily, NRDA projects must be approved by the Inter-governmental Co-Trustee Council which is being created to review compensation proposals (.. the Council's first public meeting is coming in June).  The proposals are also subject to public comment at the Council meetings.  It seems that the professors who wanted this project are trying to finesse the process, bypass the public and governments, and get approval after-the-fact by creating a big publicity campaign in their favor.  They should have waited for approval, just like everyone else.

2.  The Appleton Paper Incorporated “Expert Panel.”  Two years ago, Appleton Paper Inc. (now Arjo Wiggens Appleton) formed a hand-picked committee of consultants to write their own version of a cleanup plan for the Fox River.  Not surprisingly, they proposed a vastly weaker plan which would cap roughly a third of the targeted PCB hotspots with a foot of sand and gravel, and let “natural recovery” handle the rest (see Capping).  To strengthen their publicity and lobbying plan, the company hired five University of Wisconsin professors (one from Green Bay, four from Milwaukee), for an undisclosed sum, to “review” the panel’s work and provide feedback.

One of these professors is Dr. H.J. (Bud) Harris, recently retired from UW-Green Bay.  Dr. Harris had been an active leader of the STAC for 17 years, and until hired by Appleton, had supported dredging and removal of PCBs from the River.   Now, he lobbies for Arjo Wiggins Appleton.

3.  The Fox/Wolf Watershed Alliance.  This is a corporate/government alliance formed in 1991 by Fort Howard Corporation and Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District.  (It had been called “Fox/Wolf Basin 2000,” “Northeast Wisconsin Waters for Tomorrow,” and “Green Bay Waters for Tomorrow.”)   Between 1991 and 1999, the Alliance received $617,026 from Fox River dischargers (Fort Howard/James River Corp., Menasha Corp., and Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District).  Fort Howard Corporation (now Georgia-Pacific Corp.), a major PCB polluter, provided a large percentage of these dollars.

The Alliance has been a problem for environmentalists and the Fox River PCB cleanup for more than 10 years. (see A Classic Front Group, a 1999 article)

The Alliance provided tens of thousands of dollars in grants to University of Wisconsin professors, primarily for work on non-point pollution problems.   Again, Dr. Harris received significant grants, as did Dr. Paul Sager and Dr. Robert Wenger of UW-Green Bay.   Dr. Harris and Dr. Sager both serve on the STAC.  Neither has been publicly vocal in support of Fox River PCB cleanup, and Dr. Harris now works against cleanup.

While non-point pollution has been the Alliance’s recent focus, it also played a active role in the mid-1990s in opposing Superfund and the Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) for the Fox River PCB cleanup.   None of the professors contradicted this activity in the 1990s, though they are now eager to propose how to spend the compensation dollars gained from the NRDA.

Last semester, several UW-Green Bay professors partnered with the Alliance to mentor a large graduate-level student study project on the environmental status of the Fox River watershed.  Not surprisingly, non-point pollution was heavily emphasized along with several other measures, but "public health" was not considered a factor.   As a result, the students concluded at their large public presentation that "the PCB issue is overblown" -- echoing the corporate/government Alliance's opinions.   None of the students or professors contacted Clean Water Action Council during the semester to ask for a citizen environmental perspective on the issue.

4.  Purchase of Point Au Sable.   In 1997, the Fox River Group (the 7 corporations who dumped PCBs) signed a contract with the state to purchase Point au Sable, to sweeten a terrible secret $10 million deal with the state.  $7 million from the deal was used for a deliberately botched PCB dredging demonstration at Site 56/57 next to Fort Howard Corporation.  Most of the rest of the money was used for a corrupt state/corporate NRDA which undercut the federal NRDA, leading to the recent low compensation settlement with Georgia-Pacific. 

The Fox River Group provided UW-Green Bay with $120,000 for a student research endowment at the Pt. Sauble Preserve.  The Nature Conservancy purchased the Point (partly with local corporate donations) and turned it over to UW-Green Bay for ownership.  Some of the land was donated by Jake Rose. 

UW-Green Bay helped provide the Fox River Group with major publicity and fanfare.  Several University professors praised the generosity of the polluters, and considered the project a plum for the University.  Few of the professors were critical of the $10 million deal, of course.

5.  The Cofrin Legacy.  The Cofrin Family, which founded and owned Fort Howard Corporation (now owned by Georgia-Pacific Corporation) until the 1980s, has been extremely generous to UW-Green Bay, donating tens of millions of dollars to the campus (at least).  This has undoubtedly influenced faculty behavior towards this major PCB polluting corporation.  The Cofrins have funded the Cofrin Library, the Cofrin Arboretum, the new Cofrin Science Hall, the Weidner Performing Arts Center, and numerous other large and small projects over the years.  The Cofrins controlled Fort Howard Corporation during the peak years of that company's PCB discharges into the Fox River. 

6. Collaborating with Polluters   For at least 15 years, UW-Green Bay professors on the Fox River and Green Bay "Remedial Action Plan" committees pushed for a "voluntary, cooperative approach" to encourage Fox River PCB polluters to come to the table, talk about the issue, and solve the problem.   It was an amazingly unrealistic effort, and failed miserably.  Why would corporations donate hundreds of millions of dollars to a clean-up that gave them nothing in return?   These paper companies exist to make profits, not to clean up rivers.  Corporate employees can justify the expense only if it is enforced or unavoidable.  In addition, the 7 polluting corporations are competitors with each other.  None of them will volunteer to pay millions for the clean-up if the others refuse, or if the companies think they can shift blame for PCB discharges to their competitors (or sewage treatment plants.) 

Delays are advantageous to the polluters and they've maximized every opportunity, with the assistance of UW-Green Bay professors. Decades of clean-up opportunities have been lost due to the endless committee meetings required by the professors' "cooperative approach," and every year a thousand more pounds of PCBs escaped the river into the bay.

At the same time, the professors used their stature and power to undercut Clean Water Action Council's work for a Superfund cleanup and Natural Resources Damage Assessment, which would have speeded the cleanup.  The professors served the polluters' interests, not the public's.  Even recently, they have continued to insist (at the International Association for Great Lakes Research) that planning and investigations needed to be "in collaboration with" the polluting corporations.

Are the professors being rewarded now with generous non-point pollution research grants?

7. What About the Bay?   Approximately 13 years ago, the EPA spent nearly $13 million on a PCB Mass Balance Study on the Bay, to track the location and movement of PCBs through the system, in cooperation with UW-Green Bay and several other research institutions.   Dr. H.J. "Bud" Harris was the local Field Supervisor for the project (... the same Harris who now lobbies for Arjo Wiggins Appleton.)  We have been shocked to discover that this monumental study took only one PCB core sample in the inner bay (south of Long-tail Point), when logically this area would be much more contaminated than the northern bay.  How did UW-Green Bay allow this to happen when the inner Bay is right on its doorstep?  Was it deliberate?  Last year, another faulty bay sampling occurred.  Again, how did UW-Green Bay allow this to happen?  (See Bay Samples Miss Key Targets)   The computer models of Green Bay PCB cycling are based on grossly incomplete PCB data. 

Keep in mind that UW-Green Bay was founded on and claims to still have an "environmental mission."

Inner bay data is desperately needed now, because it would define the level of PCB clean-up needed in the area.  The lack of data cripples any planning attempt, leaving PCB-exposed local residents helpless when arguing for clean-up.  The lack of data protects the 7 polluting corporations from requirements for bay cleanup, potentially saving them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Clean Water Action Council has attempted several times over the last year to convince UW-professors on the Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) to assertively call for immediate and thorough sampling of the inner Bay, only to be ignored or put down repeatedly.  One of the most vocal opponents of further sampling is Vicky Harris, of the UW-SeaGrant Institute at UW-Green Bay, who just happens to be married to Dr. Bud Harris, Arjo Wiggins Appleton lobbyist.

Again, are UW-Green Bay professors being rewarded now with generous non-point pollution research grants?

Just Scratching the Surface

These are only a few examples of local corporate funding of University programs and research, and apparent influence.   Undoubtedly, many other grants have been made in recent years, but are unknown to us.   Many professors maintain their own independent consulting businesses or research institutes for funneling grant dollars, such as Dr. Harris’ “Institute for Land and Water Studies.” 

“All this money is bound to influence the actions of scientists at the University.  It certainly appears to have stifled public involvement by professors, because they are seldom seen in public debates regarding the PCB cleanup of the Fox River and Green Bay,” noted Katers.  “It is unfortunate that a trusted, tax-payer funded University should be subject to such influence.   UW-Green Bay used to be called “Eco-U” in the 1970s, but clearly doesn’t fit the title.  Now, it’s just another institution for corporate hire.”

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