Rebecca Leighton Katers  920-437-7304
Clean Water Action Council of N.E. Wisconsin

Green Bay, WI --- The equivalent of a major toxic PCB spill has occurred in the Fox River as the result of an incomplete dredging demonstration near the Fort James Corporation in Green Bay.

Citizens urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in immediately to clean up the problem to protect public health and wildlife.

Last fall's dredging demonstration at the worst Fox River PCB hotspot, known as "56/57," removed only a fourth of the 120,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediments identified in the hotspot.  Sampling results were finally publicized this past week showing the dredging cut into buried layers with more than 280 ppm PCBs and left them exposed to the river currents.  50 ppm PCBs are considered hazardous waste under state and federal laws.

"This hotspot exposure is the equivalent of open barrels of hazardous waste on the river bottom.   At any other time, this would be considered an emergency situation, but our government agencies have yet to take action," stated Rebecca Katers, of the Clean Water Action Council.

Clean Water Action Council has publicly opposed this project due to the deliberate poor design and lack of funding for proper remediation.  In addition, the state signed a contract last fall with Fort James Corporation relieving the company of further liability if they performed only a partial cleanup.

"We're calling on Frank Lyons, the Regional Administrator for EPA in Region V, to take action.  The federal government may now be the only agency able to quickly enforce an emergency cleanup at this hotspot," added Katers.  "The state has ignored our concerns, signed contracts limiting their enforcement ability, and allowed money rather than sound science to drive their decisions."

"This project is a fraud.  Polluters should not be allowed to use this badly designed project as a precedent for the rest of the Fox River cleanup, or as a nation-wide example of the failure of dredging," stated Katers.

This "demonstration" has been flawed since its inception in January 1997, when Governor Thompson arranged a surprise $10 million contract settlement between the state and the Fox River Group (seven paper Industries responsible for the PCB contamination).  The news media, public, federal agencies, and tribes were not informed or consulted until the contract was already signed.

$7 million of the settlement was earmarked for one Fox River dredging demonstration, and the 56/57 hotspot was chosen as the site.  The contract specified DNR would hire consultants and contractors nominated by the Fox River Group for the work.

When it became clear last year that $7 million was not enough, the DNR negotiated another surprise, secret contract which relieved Fort James Corporation of liability in exchange for an additional $2 million in cleanup funding.  Under the contract, Fort James was only responsible for removing 80,000 cubic yards of the 120,000 cubic yards at the site.

"This hotspot exposure is the equivalent of open barrels of hazardous waste on the river bottom." -  Rebecca Katers

But because the project was started too late in the year and several suspicious technical problems arose, only 30,000 cubic yards were removed.  (... note that most of the technical problems at 56/57 did not occur at the DNR/EPA controlled demonstration project near Little
Chute and Kimberly.)

For two years, Clean Water Action Council has warned this project would be a disaster, and felt it was deliberately promoted by the paper industry to portray dredging as a dangerous cleanup option for the Fox River, to build support for their "natural recovery" do-nothing option.  Recent publicity from the paper industry reinforces this belief, as they now claim the 56/57 project proves their concerns, they lay the blame on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and they deny responsibility for the choice of contractors at the site.

Many government agencies have already shown elsewhere that sediment dredging can be conducted safely and effectively, when proper procedures are used.  Clean Water Action Council supports the dredging, removal, and detoxification treatment of PCB hotspot sediments.

This project has been used to mislead the public, and to pretend that progress is being made. Yet, it was never a true "demonstration," as DNR staff have admitted many times.  No new technologies were used, though citizens had hoped innovative new PCB destruction technologies (such as gas-phase reduction, thermal desorption, etc.) would be used to destroy the PCBs rather than simply landfill them.  DNR staff have told Clean Water Action Council members they consider the project the beginning of the actual cleanup and they simply wanted to get started.

If this is the case, the project sets a bad example, and illustrates the failure of the state's emphasis on a "cooperative approach" with polluters.