Lower Fox River Cleanup

Contact Information

Community Involvement Coordinator
Susan Pastor (pastor.susan@epa.gov)
312-353-1325 or 800-621-8431, ext. 31325

Remedial Project Manager
James Hahnenberg (hahnenberg.james@epa.gov) 312-353-4213 or 800-621-8431, ext. 34213

More government experts

Repositories

(where to view written records)

Appleton Public Library
225 N. Oneida Street
Appleton, WI

Brown County Library
515 Pine Street
Green Bay, WI

Door County Library
104 S. Fourth Ave.
Sturgeon Bay, WI

Oneida Community Library
201 Elm Street
Oneida, WI

Oshkosh Public Library
106 Washington Ave.
Oshkosh, WI

An Administrative Record, which contains detailed information upon which the selection of the cleanup plan was based, is available at:

DNR Lower Fox River Basin Team
801 E. Walnut Street
Green Bay, WI

Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources
Bureau of Watershed Management
101 S. Webster Street, 3rd Floor Madison, WI

EPA Record Center
77 W. Jackson Blvd., 7th Floor
Chicago, IL

Links

EPA Superfund Home Page
Region 5 Superfund
Superfund glossary
Superfund Frequent Questions:
Superfund Information Systems Frequent Questions

Glossary of Terms

Region 5 RCRA

Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry

Little Lake Cleanup Team

Fox River Phase 1 Remedial Action Project Website

Oneida Environmental Quality Department

Clean Water Action Council
The Clean Water Action Council was awarded an EPA Technical Assistance Grant to hire its own advisor to help interpret technical information contained in Lower Fox River-related documents.

EPA Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy
Workplan describing the Agency’s long-term approaches to assess, reduce and prevent further risks posed by contaminated sediments in many watersheds. The strategy does not discuss the cleanup of specific sites.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Great Lakes Contaminated Sediments Program

Video: Contaminated Sediments in our Waterways: Impacts and Solutions (28 min.)

Background

The Lower Fox River, located in northeastern Wisconsin, begins at the Menasha and Neenah channels leading from Lake Winnebago and flows northeast for 39 miles where it discharges into Green Bay and Lake Michigan. Approximately 270,000 people live in the communities along the river. The river has 12 dams and includes the highest concentration of pulp and paper mills in the world. During the 1950s and 1960s, these mills routinely used PCBs in their operations which ultimately contaminated the river.(more...)

You will need the free Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.

What are PCBs?

As a result of the recycling of PCB-containing carbonless copy paper, area mill operations discharged PCBs in waste streams, contaminating sediment in the Lower Fox River. The Lower Fox River is the largest source of PCBs to Lake Michigan in the basin. From 1957 to 1971, about 250,000 pounds of PCBs were released, contaminating 11 million tons of sediment. It is estimated that some 160,000 pounds of PCBs have already left the Fox River and entered Green Bay and Lake Michigan. On average, 300 to 500 additional pounds are flushed from the Lower Fox sediment each year. Floods would flush additional thousands of pounds into Green Bay. Once PCBs are released into the bay and Lake Michigan, they are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover.

Site Updates | Latest Update | News Releases | Fact Sheets || Technical Documents || Legal Documents || Public Meetings

Site Updates

Fox River Current Newsletter (PDF) (8pp, 954K) Spring 2009 (all issues of the Fox River Current)

October 2008

A status review of the cleanup to date is scheduled to start this fall. The Superfund law requires regular reviews of sites (at least every five years) -- where the cleanup is complete or where cleanup has been ongoing for at least five years -- but hazardous waste remains managed on-site. These reviews are done to ensure that the cleanup continues to protect people and the environment. In particular, EPA will be looking at the cleanup of Little Lake Butte des Morts (also referred to as Operable Unit 1). In 2004, EPA began cleaning up PCB-contaminated sediment in the lake. The cleanup consists of dredging higher levels of PCBs and placing caps and sand covers over sediment with lower levels. This is the first five-year review for the Lower Fox River/Green Bay site. A "five-year review report" will be completed by May 2009. Contact the site community involvement coordinator and/or the remedial project manager (links provided in Contact Information box at right) to provide public input on the review process.

A proposed Amended Consent Decree (PDF) (197pp, 2.0MB) was entered (Judge's Order Granting Motion to Enter the Amended Consent Decree, August 13, 2008 (PDF) (2pp, 30K)) on Aug. 13, 2008 with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. This legal document concerns the cleanup of PCB-contaminated sediment in Little Lake Butte des Morts (also known as Operable Unit 1).

In June 2008, EPA and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources revised the cleanup plan for areas of Little Lake Butte des Morts. The new plan involves combining capping with dredging. New information shows that dredging alone would be less effective, more difficult to accomplish and more expensive than anticipated when the original cleanup plan was approved in 2002. The final plan is referred to as the amended Record of Decision (PDF) (48pp, 4.5MB).

EPA and Wisconsin DNR made changes in June 2007 to another cleanup plan in the Lower Fox River from Appleton to Green Bay to include more capping and less dredging. That amended record of decision replaces the original cleanup plan approved by the agencies in 2003. Dredging will still be used to clean up PCB-contaminated sediment in about half of the areas in the river from Appleton to Green Bay. However, capping alone and capping combined with dredging or sand covers will allow the cleanup to be completed where dredging by itself would not be possible or practical and other approaches would not protect the environment. This new plan will clean up the river much more quickly than the original plan.

Meanwhile, work continues in other areas of the river. Cleanup of highly contaminated sediment in the area of the Lower Fox River just below the DePere Dam began this spring (2008). The area, or "hotspot," to be cleaned up near the dam has PCBs as high as 3,000 parts per million. Although this area contains the highest levels of PCBs in the river, it represents only about two percent of all of the contaminated sediment that needs to be cleaned up, but nearly 10 percent of the total PCB "mass."

This cleanup, which will involve the removal of about 150,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment, is being done under a federal agreement EPA and Wisconsin DNR reached with two paper companies in April 2006. The companies, NCR Corp. and Sonoco--U.S. Mills, will spend about $30 million on this project.

Upriver in Little Lake Butte des Morts, the fourth season of cleanup work started in early April. It calls for removing approximately 380,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment. Two dredges will be operating in several different locations. After PCB-contaminated sediment is dredged from the lake, it is put into large plastic tubes nearby. Once the water is squeezed out, it is cleaned on site and returned to the river. Contaminated sediment is taken to a nearby landfill for proper disposal. Dredging is expected to be completed by the end of June. Remaining areas of the lake with lower levels of PCBs will be covered with gravel and sand caps.

Cleanup in Little Lake Butte des Morts began in fall 2004 and was the first of five portions of the Lower Fox River site to be addressed. Work stops in the winter and resumes in the spring. EPA expects to complete the entire cleanup in Little Lake Butte des Morts in 2009.

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