Table of Contents

What Does Clean Water Want for the Fox River?

Cancel Second Demo
Read the Report

STOP the Demo at Deposit 56-57
David Takes on Goliath
A Pesticide Database for Wisconsin?
What You Can Do

What Does Clean Water Want for the Fox River?

Clean Water Action Council supports a strong cleanup plan which meets
the following basic guidelines.

* We want a river clean up standard fully protective of public health and
wildlife.  (The DNR's best proposal does not meet this standard.)

* We want the highlevel PCBs to be detoxified using a safer technology such
as thermal desorption before upland landfilling the residue.  (DNR doesn't
consider this an option.)  Special measures to control leakage, gases and
volatilization into the air must be required at landfills accepting the
residue. Sediments must not be shipped to other areas of the state or
country.  Longterm liability must remain with the polluters, not taxpayers.

* We want polluters to pay the  costs, according to their portion of
responsibility for the PCB contamination.   The main polluters are
multinational corporations who can afford this cost.

* Federal and tribal government agencies must be full partners in decisions
about the Fox River.

* We would prefer a negotiated settlement with the polluters, but only if our other concerns listed above are met.

* If a good settlement can't be reached, we support EPA Superfund
enforcement actions.

* The Natural Resources Damage Assessment by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service must be continued and addressed fully.

Cancel Second Demo

Clean Water is calling on the DNR to cancel the second demo project
at Deposit 56/57 offshore from the Fort James Corporation Broadway Mill.
DNR admits this "demo" will demonstrate nothing new.   It has potential for
great harm, because the mills propose to dredge out only a portion of
contaminated material, leaving the surrounding muds to slump into the hole
and spread downstream.  We think the mills are pushing this to show what a
mess dredging can cause.  We are urging DNR to hold off until the ENTIRE
area can be properly dredged all at once.

Please help us by writing to the DNR and local leaders about this.

What You Can Do

Please write a letter!  The public has only until April 12 to
review and comment on the Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study
(RIFS) proposal for cleaning up the Fox River   (This is the draft RIFS,
the final RIFS will be released for comment this summer.)

After that second comment period, DNR plans to issue a final
cleanup plan called the Record of Decision.   That document will outline
the final plan and a time line for the project, and is expected to be out
by the end of the year.   This is the same process EPA uses under
Superfund, and the state hopes to prevent Superfund by successfully
completing all these steps.

Write a Letter to:

Lower Fox River Cleanup RR/3
Wisconsin DNR
101 S. Webster - P.O. Box 7921 (by the April 12 deadline)
Madison, WI  53707

Read the Report

You can view a copy of the RIFS at the main public libraries in
several Fox Valley communities (call first to be sure.)   The Door County
library in Sturgeon Bay also has a copy.   Otherwise the DNR has posted it
to the Internet at www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/wm/lowerfox.   The EPA's
site is at www.epa.gov/region5/foxriver.  For more information, call Irene
Sadowski at DNR's public affairs office at (608) 264-8952.

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STOP the Demo at Deposit 56-57

The Fox River polluters argue they should be given a chance to finish
their "demonstration project" offshore from the Fort James Broadway Mill
(old Fort Howard mill) in Green Bay and study the results before a clean-up
plan is written.  But we have several concerns:

1.  Delays Unwarranted --- They claim it's too soon for EPA to write a
comprehensive clean-up plan under Superfund, even though planning and over
$20 million in studies have already dragged for 13 long years.   The Fox
River is one of the most studied in the world.

2.  Nothing New --- The "demonstration project" will demonstrate nothing
new.   It's just another dredge and landfill proposal.  Dredging is a
well-studied activity in rivers around the world.   Several hydraulic
dredging techniques have already been proven to minimize downstream flow of
contaminants.   They function like vacuum cleaners and, if used thoroughly,
can be very effective.   We don't need to wait for research results from
polluters when a plan can be written based on current information.
This may end up being the largest sediment clean-up in the country, but
really it's just a series of smaller projects strung together -- and very
manageable.

3.  Cheap and Dirty? --- The project will cut a hole in a huge continuous
bed of contaminated sediments to try to remove the worst PCB hotspot
(called 56/57) in the river.   Even before they examined the technical
options for this hotspot, they limited themselves to only a  $7 million
effort, which may be drastically less than they need to do the project
correctly.   They will cut into a layer cake of contaminated sediments,
exposing deeper levels of contamination, but after exposing these layers,
they may not have enough money to remove all the toxics they should.  In
some areas they will be cutting 10 feet down into the sediments, leaving a
hole where the sides will slump and refill the hole.  This will allow
downstream PCB drift  and expose deeper, hotter PCB layers in the remaining
sediments at the edges of the hole.

4.  Deliberate Proof of Failure? --- Industry plans to sample the water and
fish afterwards, but how can they demonstrate anything but an increase in
PCBs, or at best no improvement, when most of the PCB sediments will still
be there, perhaps even more exposed when they're done?   This is not sound
science, nor is it honest.

5.  Strong Incentives to Fail ---  How can the public be sure they'll
implement the best dredging techniques or conduct fair tests, when the
polluters have a strong incentive to show negative results, a failure which
could help them argue against dredging and save them from up to $1 billion
in future clean-up costs?

6.  Deliberate Inflated Costs? --- They may also demonstrate inflated costs
with such a small limited effort --- another tool for frightening mill
workers and swaying public opinion.  They won't have the economy of scale
of a large project which drives down per-unit costs.

7.  Long Past Due --- They want another delay to conduct and analyze this
test.  An obvious question is,  "Why didn't they fund legitimate, independent studies 13 years ago when official clean-up planning began, so we could be further
along now?"   The obvious answer, "Because this demonstration is being used to
obstruct progress and develop ammunition for the polluters."

8.  Part of a Sweetheart Deal --- This project is part of Gov. Thompson's
secret $10 million settlement contract with the Fox River polluters on
January 30, 1997, which created many serious concerns related to Fox River
cleanup.  The contract favors the polluters and weakens DNR oversight and
enforcement ability.

9.  Polluter Liabilities Capped --- The agreement capped paper industry
liabilities at Deposit 56/57 at only  $7 million, before the site cleanup
options had been studied.   As a result, DNR staff proposed a project where
minimizing cost seems to be the prime goal, rather than public or wildlife
health.   If this site had been handled correctly, the DNR would have
studied and presented to the public several options for cleanup, and would
have chosen the most protective.   At that point, the responsible
industries should have paid the full cost for a much larger clean-up ---
probably costing much more than $7 million.

10.   No Detoxification ---This is the most concentrated PCB hotspot in the
river, and this project is supposed to be a "demonstration."   Logically,
the DNR should require the polluters to demonstrate several types of PCB
detoxification treatment technologies in a full-scale application, but the
Governor and Polluter agreement didn't provide enough money.  This sets a
bad precedent for the rest of the river.  If any site deserves
detoxification, it is this site.

11.  Misleading Presentations --- All last summer, the DNR and EPA showed
videos of hydraulic dredging at the Manistique Harbor dredging project,
with the implication that this technology would be used on the Fox River.
That dredging showed very little sediment stirring.    However, the DNR
hired a different contractor to perform dredging at Deposit N using a
"swinging ladder" style of hydraulic dredge which is significantly
different from the video --- a style which may have resulted in more
resuspension of sediments.

12.  No Public Involvement --- The key decision limiting this project to $7 million was made in January of 1997 at secret meetings arranged by Gov. Thompson (who has received enormous campaign contributions from the paper industry.)   The public was completely excluded from this decision.

13.  The First Demo was Mishandled For $4.5 million, the DNR only removed
38% of what they promised to remove at Deposit N near Kimberly and Little
Chute, yet they issued media statements claiming they removed 80%.  We
question DNR's honesty and competence in handling such a serious
responsibility without assistance from more experienced federal agencies.

This demo is a delaying tactic. It's DANGEROUS and must be stopped.

Up to Top

David Takes on Goliath

The tiny Town of Nashville is standing its ground against Nicolet Minerals Company, a subsidiary of the multinational, multibillion dollar Rio Algom mining company. The company wants to build an underground mine that would be partially within Nashville
and extract approximately 55 million tons of ore over the next 30 years.
Nashville is leading the fight in trying to prevent that from happening.

The current members of the Nashville Town Board were elected in
1997 in an election that had over 99% of its eligible voters participate,
with the promise they would undo an illegal Local Agreement signed by the
previous Town Board which opened the town to mining.

The previous Board had entered into a Local Agreement with the
mining company following a series of closed meetings, despite the fact that
at the public hearing local citizens opposed the Agreement by a four-to-one
margin.

Now, the Town is in litigation relating to the former Town Board's
closed meetings. The current Town Board stood up for the rights of its
citizens by rescinding the Local Agreement that resulted from all those
illegally closed meetings.  The current town Board also rescinded a lease that gave the mining company rights to any minerals under a Town road because the lease was created illegally.  As a result of those actions, the Town also faces a real threat of more litigation because of a "Notice of Claim" filed by Nicolet Minerals Company alleging that the Town's recisions of those agreements were illegal. In direct correspondence to Nashville citizens, Nicolet Minerals is implicitly threatening to
bankrupt the Town through litigation --- which is a real possibility unless
we all pitch in and help.

The Town simply refused to honor illegal contracts that would give
the mine company a green light to construct the mine.

The Nashville Town Board and a majority of its citizens are
committed to protecting the Town's environment and the health, safety and
welfare of its citizens by standing up to Nicolet Minerals and Rio Algom.
The Town has created a legal defense fund to help cover legal expenses for
defending itself.  The fund belongs to the Town, as a public entity, and it
will be used only for the public purpose of defending the Town against this
litigation.

Clean Water Action Council has begun collecting donations which we
will send to help with this important legal work.

We encourage those concerned about the environmental effects of
such a huge mine at the headwaters of the Wolf River, and those concerned
about the destructive behavior of multinational companies like Rio Algom,
to give what they can afford to this fund to help protect our state.

For more info. visit our homepage and look under Mining.

Please send Donations!

--- made out to "Clean Water Action Council," at the address above (in the
membership form) with a note that you want all the money earmarked for the
mining lawsuit.   Donations are tax-deductible. Please help!

Up to Top

A Pesticide Database for Wisconsin?

Wisconsin's Environmental Decade and Citizens for a Better
Environment have teamed up to hire former Public Intervenor Thomas Dawson
to spearhead a major  proposal to set up a new Pesticide Database system in
Wisconsin, similar to  ones in California, New York, Arizona, and New
Hampshire.  Dawson had experience monitoring and intervening in pesticide
problems, laws and regulations during his tenure as Intervenor.

The groups have proposed funding to set up a permanent database
system. Unfortunately, Governor Thompson is proposing only a feasibility
study on whether to establish a database.  (Thompson has received a LOT of
campaign money from agri-chemical industries.)

Some major arguments in support of the database?   It would ...

*  Allow people in Wisconsin to make more informed choices about the level
of pesticides they and their kids are exposed to.

* Help researchers establish important baselines for health studies and
draw comparisons between different regions, communities, schools, and other
settings.

* Give people concerned about pesticide impacts a way to educate themselves
and others, and to protect their families health, the water they drink, and
the environment.

*  Require annual pesticide use reporting of all commercial and
institutional applications of pesticides in Wisconsin to the Pesticide
Database System, including agriculture, schools and day care centers, lawn
care companies, along roads and utility lines, golf courses, and in
buildings.

*  Begin assessing household pesticide use by recording sales, developing
pesticide use surveys and studies, and conducting environmental monitoring.

* make this information accessible to the public, health and environmental
researchers, and others by posting it on the Internet.

*  For farmers, it is critical that government agencies use real-world
pesticide use data instead of theoretical estimates.  When agencies don't
have enough data on a certain chemical, they may make false and misleading assumptions.

Up to Top

What You Can Do

Contact Your Elected Officials

Contact Wisconsin Governor Thompson

Governor Tommy Thompson 
Room 115 East, State Capitol 
P.O. Box 7863 
Madison, WI 53707 
Ph: 608-266-1212 
FAX: 608-267-8983 
wisgov@mail.state.wi.us

Representatives: Email & Web Page Addresses and Toll-Free Numbers
Senators:  Email & Web Page Addresses

State Senator 
P.O. Box 7882 
Madison, WI  53707 

State Rep.    (Last Name, A thru L) 
P.O. Box 8952 
Madison, WI  53708 

State Rep.    (Last Name, Mc thru Z) 
P.O. Box 8953 
Madison, WI  53708 

(If you don’t know who your elected state representatives are, 
call the Legislative Hotline 1-800-362-9472  on weekdays.)