The dredging of the hottest toxic pocket on the Fox River was left disastrously incomplete last fall.  Hazardous waste levels of toxic PCB chemicals have been left exposed on the surface for 10 months without emergency measures by the company or any level of government to mediate the problem.

The EPA is requiring the completion of the project originally allowed by DNR.  Only 80,000 cubic yards of the 120,000 cubic yard hotspot will be removed.  Last year, roughly 30,000 cubic yards were taken out, now another 50,000 will come out.  This leaves 40,000 contaminated cubic yards of PCB-laced sediments unaddressed.

This is the most concentrated PCB hotspot in the entire river (up to 700 ppm PCBs).  EPA is not requiring any detoxification of the sludge before it goes to a landfill on the Oneida Tribe's reservation.  EPA staff have said they "can't" require treatment because it's legal to dispose of this material in a landfill, due to an EPA exemption for the State of Wisconsin from the federal Toxic Substances Control Act which was quietly granted by EPA about 6 years ago --- allowing toxic waste levels of PCBs to be dumped in ordinary Wisconsin landfills.  Only Wisconsin has this exemption

Fort James Corp. completed a 6-hour pilot test of the dredging equipment on August 25, under the oversight of EPA and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR).  The work is proceeding under a Federal agreement between EPA, WDNR, and Fort James.  The clean-up project will proceed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is expected to be completed by the end of October.

The EPA's clean-up goal is a leftover concentration after dredging of no more than 1 ppm PCBs (parts per million).  This is 4 times higher than the .25 ppm goal proposed in last year's draft cleanup plan for the river.

The manufacture of PCBs in the U.S. was halted in 1977.   From the 1950s to the 1990s, two carbonless paper producers and several paper recycling companies (Fort James Corp., Riverside Paper, P.H. Glatfelter Co., Wisconsin Tissue Mills, and US Paper Mills Corp.) released more than 250,000 pounds of PCBs into the Fox River with wastewater and sludge.

Many of the PCBs flowed directly into Green Bay and Lake Michigan, but approximately 90,000 pounds settled into the sediments of the Fox River.  The sediments now release about 600 pounds of PCBs per year on a continuous basis, and the Fox River is the source of up to 70% of the PCBs which reach Lake Michigan.  Scientists fear a major storm could scour the bottom and move much larger masses of the remaining PCBs into the bay and Lake Michigan, where the PCBs become difficult, if not impossible, to remove.

According to an EPA fact sheet:

"PCBs have been shown to cause cancer in animals.  PCBs have also been shown to cause a number of serious noncancer health effects in animals, including effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system, and endocrine system.  Studies in humans provide supportive evidence for potential carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects of PCBs.  The different health effects of PCBs may be interrelated, as alterations in one system may have significant implications for the other systems of the body."

Copies of the agreement and other site-related information are available for review at  libraries throughout the Fox Valley, including the Brown County Library.  Lower Fox River information, including a July 2000 fact sheet about the clean-up project, is also posted on EPA Region 5's web site and on WDNR's web site.