Fox River Cleanup Might Actually Happen…In 2009?

by Kerry Thomas

November 30, 2007

On November 14, the U.S. EPA and Wisconsin DNR issued orders to six Wisconsin paper companies with paper mills located along the Fox River to actually begin the process of cleaning up the PCB-contaminated river.

These companies have been ordered to site a sediment disposal landfill, on-shore treatment areas, and to obtain the equipment necessary to do all this next year. By 2009 these companies have been ordered to begin dredging the PCB-contaminated sediment from 7 miles of the Fox River, between the DePere Dam and the mouth of the river.

Apparently, PCB contamination of the Fox River has been a known problem for the past 35 years. I was first made aware of the problem in 1998, when I briefly entertained a run for Congress in Wisconsin’s 8^th Congressional District.

I was asked what I would do to address the problem. My answer then, as now, was to direct appropriate state and federal agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers to actually clean up the pollution, tally the expenses, and present the final bill to whoever the courts determined was responsible for the pollution in the first place.

If those who caused the contamination wouldn’t voluntarily clean up their mess, it would be done for them, and they would get the bill. Let the lawyers keep fighting it out, as the bill keeps rising, making the final cost even more expensive due to the needless legal delays of the cleanup. But, in the meantime, the contamination would have been cleaned up.

Instead, ethically-challenged public officials have continued to “study” the problem for 35 years. Meanwhile, the river is still contaminated. The contaminants keep flowing downstream and into Lake Michigan, threatening the water supplies of four states.

Clean up the river now, and tally the costs, with the bill being presented to whomever the courts decide is responsible for the pollution.