Decade Joins Green Bay Groups in Suit to Block Dump Expansion:

Kidney Island Throws a Stone

For a century and more the industries of the Fox Valley have been discharging pollutants of just about every imaginable kind into the Fox River/Lake Winnebago/Green Bay system. Much of that contamination has settled to the bottom sediments of the Fox River, Lake Winnebago and Green Bay leaving toxic hot spots of PCBs and other hazardous and toxic substances. But these hot spots aren't the whole story.

In some areas the sediments are not contaminated to the degree necessary to qualify as hazardous or toxic, but that doesn't mean they're harmless. Especially not when they are dredged up and dumped back in the water. When that happens, contaminants are resuspended and water circulation patterns are changed. And, when those dredge spoils are concentrated in one spot to create a huge, manmade island only a few hundred feet offshore from a popular park and beach, the issues of contaminated sediments and altered circulation patterns come together to create serious water quality problems.

That is the situation currently existing in the waters of Green Bay, and the reason why Wisconsin's Environmental Decade has joined with an alliance of Green Bay and Brown County environmental and conservation groups to challenge the proposal to expand the confined disposal facility (CDF) known as Kidney Island.

Named for its shape, Kidney Island was originally constructed in the early 1980s to hold dumpings dredged from the bottom of Green Bay and the Fox River as part of the Army Corps of Engineers' efforts to maintain a shipping channel for the Port of Green Bay. The original CDF is now full, and the Port and the Corps have requested permission from the Department of Natural Resources to triple its size, adding over 1300 acres to the dredge dump.

Some opponents question the very necessity for maintaining Green Bay as a viable port. That is not the basis of this challenge. Rather, we contend that the computer model relied on by the Corps to address the DNR's water quality concerns is not valid; it cannot accurately predict whether water quality will or will not be violated.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, there's a good reason. Nine and a half years ago the Office of the Public Intervenor challenged a similar proposal and stopped it.

This time around there is no Public Intervenor. Barely a month after the Governor killed the Intervenor's Office to the great delight of the Green Bay area industries that stand to benefit from this ill-advised and poorly studied plan, the Corps submitted a new request to the DNR for Water Quality Certification (approval to proceed with the project). The DNR gave the go-ahead.

This might seem like a done deal for the Corps, but for one thing. After they lost the first attempt years ago, they agreed to the formation of a Technical Review Panel - a collection of five experts assembled to provide input that would make the Corps' model reliably predictive. But a funny thing happened on the way to Kidney Island; the Corps chose to ignore the recommendations of two of the TRP's members who argued forcefully that the data being used to verify and calibrate the model was incomplete and outdated. Further, the Corps opted for mathematical sleight of hand rather than actual testing to estimate that the water coming out of the expanded island won't contain dangerous levels of toxic contaminants.

Our challenge followed.

During the last week of August both sides will present their sides to an Administrative Law Judge who will review the DNR's approval of the project. A decision will probably be made by the end of the year. Stay tuned for details.

- Larry Classen is WED's legal maestro.