Foxhearings

Can Your Presence At Just
One Hearing Be Worth Over
$300 Million For Wisconsin’s
Fish And Wildlife?

YES!

11/9/00

more on the Fox River PCB Problem

Four important public hearings are being held on the USF&WS’s just-released damage assessment for PCB contamination of the Fox River. Some thought this day would never come. Decades of debate. Years of testing. State and industry opposition. But now it’s here — the long-awaited U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) PCB damage compensation plan for Northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Don’t miss your chance to hear and support it.

Area residents have a one-time opportunity to require the companies that polluted the Fox River to do what’s right — pay more than $300 million as compensation for damages caused by toxic chemicals dumped into the Fox River, Green Bay, and Lake Michigan.

This is different than the clean-up plan to be released later. These four public hearings are on a compensation plan, not on the separate sediment clean-up plan to be proposed early next year.

Governor Thompson and the WDNR argue that the USF&WS compensation plan takes too much money away from PCB cleanup. They say that the paper companies cannot afford to pay for both clean-up and damages.

But the federal government has heard this before. They want you to know that it is not enough to just require polluters to clean up sediments when they’ve also caused decades of severe economic and social damage to our communities.

Last January the Wisconsin Stewardship Network’s Steering Committee voted to make Fox River PCB clean-up a “point of emphasis” for 2000.

The WSN recognizes that the years of struggle to remove PCBs from the Fox River is nearing its end.

The WSN supports a prompt and just conclusion to this process.

Attend one of these hearings to learn how the proposed damage compensation plan can improve the Fox River for generations to come. The Public Hearings are Scheduled for:

Oshkosh

Sturgeon Bay

Escanaba, MI

Appleton

Can’t attend? Then comment by email. Written comments also count. Comment deadline is Dec. 15. Send a letter expressing your views on this topic to:

Mr. David Allen
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
1015 Challenger Court
Green Bay, WI 54311

Key Points of the USF&WS Compensation Plan

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that Fox River paper companies should pay $176-333 million in damages for polluting area waters. This money would be used for:

Wetland conservation, restoration, and enhancement projects in Northeast Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan.

Reducing land run-off pollution to the Fox River through vegetated buffer strips along streams and farm conservation tillage.

Improvements to existing recreational sites along the waterfront.

The total dollar figures depend on whether the state and EPA sediment clean-up plan is able to meet goals in 20 or 40 years. If PCB damages last another 40 years, higher compensation is needed.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been joined by several co-trustees who are working together on this compensation plan: the U.S. Dept. of Interior, the U.S. Dept. of Justice, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Michigan Attorney General, the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, the Menominee Tribe, and the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians.

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