1 
 2       UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
 3 
 4              LOWER FOX RIVER/GREEN BAY SITE
 5                   PROPOSED PLAN MEETING
 6 
 7                      PUBLIC MEETING
 8                   BROWN COUNTY LIBRARY
 9                      515 Pine Street
10                      Green Bay, WI 
11 
12                 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2006
13                         7:00 p.m.
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 

                                             1

 1                         I N D E X
 2                                                PAGE
 3 PRESENTATION                                     4
 4 QUESTION AND ANSWER                             23
 5 COMMENTS                                        61
 6      SPEAKER:
 7      PAUL JADIN                                 61
 8      CURT ANDERSON                              64
 9      JOSIE GARRELS                              66
10      KIM DIAZ                                   69
11      GEORGE HOWLETT                             69
12      REBECCA KATERS                             73
13      GEORGE HICKS                               76
14      ZALMAN SAPPERSTEIN                         80
15      KELLY WOLFF                                83
16      DON GARARDI                                85
17      CHARLES FRISK                              85
18      PATTY BERNARD SCHAEFER                     87
19      LAWRENCE KRANING                           88
20      CAROLYN SKVARA                             89
21      LARRY HARKNESS                             91
22      CHRISTINE FOSSEN-RADES                     92
23      KEN GRAVES                                 93
24      ED WILUSZ                                  95
25      DICK SAMPSON                               96

                                             2

 1                                                PAGE
 2      JANET MOLDENHAUER                          97
 3      TAKU RONSMAN                               98
 4      KATHY EFEBVRE                             100
 5      MARK MAHONEY                              103
 6      RON VANDERLOOP                            106
 7      BEN RUSS                                  107
 8      GUSTA HELGESEN                            108
 9      RICH KRIEG                                110
10      RYAN GLEASON                              112
11      MARK SCHALLER                             113
12      DENISE DELACRUZ                           114
13      JIM REIGEL                                114
14      RANDY HARBATH                             116
15      FRED CRADLER                              117
16      JOHN HERMANSON                            118
17      JAMES SERVAIS                             118
18      RANDY WESTBERG                            121
19      LOUIS WANG                                121
20      ALLEN LAURENT                             124
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 

                                             3

 1                MS. PASTOR:  Hi, everyone.  Thanks for 
 2      coming.  Thanks for finding a seat and helping 
 3      things start on time.  I am Sue Pastor.  I work for 
 4      USEPA.  I'm what's called the Community Involvement 
 5      Coordinator.  I have been working for the Fox River 
 6      project since about 1998.  I have been working on 
 7      that project with Jim Hahnenberg.  He's the Project 
 8      Manager with EPA.  And next to him is Greg Hill.  
 9      He's with the Wisconsin DNR.
10                And tonight we want to explain to you our 
11      proposed changes to the decision that we made 
12      pertaining to the lower Fox River clean-up.  We made 
13      this decision a few years ago, and now we see the 
14      need to perhaps make a few modifications, and Jim 
15      will tell you about that.  So I hope you all picked 
16      up an agenda in the back there.  Because we are a 
17      little tight on time, I want to stick to the agenda.  
18      The library is a nice place to hold a meeting and 
19      they are nice enough to let us have it, but I kind 
20      of want to play by their rules, too.  We do need to 
21      be out of here by ten.  We paid a little extra 
22      tonight to have the room for an extra hour.  
23      Normally they are asking us to be out by nine, but 
24      because I knew we would have a good turnout I wanted 
25      to make sure that we had enough time.

                                             4

 1                So, after I give you a few of the 
 2      logistics and the ground rules, Jim will have a 
 3      Power Point presentation that he will zip through.  
 4      And bear with us, because then we will take your 
 5      questions.  And we have two microphones up here so 
 6      that we can hear you and our court reporter can also 
 7      hear you.  We prefer that you use the mike, and if 
 8      you can't get out because you are stuck in the 
 9      middle, we will get someone to maybe pass the 
10      microphone if that works better for you.
11                The court reporter is taking down all the 
12      minutes of the meeting, and that will be available 
13      in a transcript that will be put together and we 
14      will put that on line.  It will be housed here at 
15      the library and four other libraries in the area.  
16      It will be on CD or hard copy, whatever the 
17      libraries' patrons prefer.  So try to speak clearly 
18      for her when the time comes to state your name later 
19      on in the comment portion of the meeting, because 
20      it's important that we have your name and correctly 
21      spelled.  She would appreciate it if you spell that 
22      for her if it's a name that needs to be spelled.  
23      And then we will try to wrap up.
24                So a little bit about the question and 
25      answer.  That's basically you have some questions 

                                             5

 1      you want to ask, and Greg and Jim will do their best 
 2      to answer them for you.  We will try to get through 
 3      that oh, I'm hoping loosely by eight-fifteen we'll 
 4      see where we are at, and then we can move into the 
 5      comment portion of the meeting, which I know a lot 
 6      of you are here for that.  You would like to make a 
 7      comment pertaining to our plan for the record in 
 8      front of the roomful of people.  And for that we 
 9      will make sure you get a microphone either up here 
10      or pass it to you.  And we can maybe do that until 
11      around nine-thirty or so and maybe start to wrap up, 
12      because we need to be really out of here, cleaned up 
13      and out, us included, by ten.  So we want to make 
14      sure that we do that.  
15                Just a reminder, too, that all the 
16      documents that you picked up back there, they are on 
17      line, they are at the library, they are here and at 
18      the four other libraries in the area.  If you need 
19      something in the way of assistance pertaining to 
20      questions after the meeting, the document The Basis 
21      of Design Report, it's a rather thick document, it's 
22      here; and if you come to the library or you read it 
23      on line and you are a little stumped as to where to 
24      go, give Jim or Greg a call or shoot them an e-mail, 
25      because they can probably point you in the right 

                                             6

 1      direction instead of floundering around in a thick 
 2      document.  They can probably at least tell you what 
 3      section or chapter to look through and help you 
 4      through that.  
 5                Same thing with the proposed plan, the 
 6      fact sheet.  We have a pretty comprehensive website.  
 7      It's a technical memorandum, it's all on line, so if 
 8      you didn't get a copy, if we ran out or you decided 
 9      you didn't want one and change your mind later, it's 
10      all on line.  If you want it sent to you, let me 
11      know and I can still mail you a hard copy.
12                Remember, also, that the comment period 
13      does run through January 11, so if you want to just 
14      listen tonight, that's why you came, hear the 
15      questions and answers, hear the comments and then go 
16      through some of the materials and mail us your 
17      comments, you can do that via postal mail, you can 
18      do that via fax, or you can do that on line from our 
19      Fox River web page.  There is a form that you can 
20      fill out and push the "submit" button and it will 
21      come directly to Jim and I.  And all those comments 
22      will be compiled in what's called a Responsiveness 
23      Summary, and that will be attached to our Record of 
24      Decision for this particular project that we are 
25      working on tonight that we are going to tell you 

                                             7

 1      about.
 2                So we don't respond to comments tonight.  
 3      We will let you go ahead and say them for the 
 4      record, but then they will all be compiled and 
 5      addressed in the summary later on.  But we will try 
 6      to answer your questions.  So if that's why you are 
 7      here, then we will help you through that as well.
 8                There's still more seats up here, so 
 9      please don't stand and block the aisles.  Come on 
10      down.  Right up here in the front.  We won't pick on 
11      you, unless you want us to.   We will let them get 
12      settled and then we'll have Jim come up here and go 
13      through his Power Point presentation.  And then, 
14      when we get to the questions, you'll raise your hand 
15      and I'll call on you.  We'll try and give everybody 
16      a chance to ask one question, see how it goes.  If 
17      we have round two that we can have time for.  Jim.  
18                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Thank you, Sue.
19                We do appreciate your interest and your 
20      coming out tonight.  It's cold out there, but thank 
21      you for coming.  This process is important to us in 
22      that we do really welcome input from people in terms 
23      of what they may think is the right thing to do, 
24      have information that may help us have a better 
25      decision.  That helps us in the process, so we 

                                             8

 1      appreciate your assistance, and thank you for coming 
 2      out.
 3                So tonight I will talk about the proposal 
 4      that we have before you which would modify the 
 5      original decision which was done in June of 2003.  
 6      This is not uncommon for the Super Fund when we get 
 7      new information or a new evaluation that may inform 
 8      us that we should have, perhaps have a change of 
 9      course for the decision.  Then we, sometimes we go 
10      back to the drawing board and come up with a 
11      proposal that may suggest that we modify that 
12      original decision.
13                In the Super Fund program, over the course 
14      of the program, we have had over three thousand of 
15      these types of decisions, and of those three 
16      thousand we have had about two hundred twenty where 
17      we have gone in with a record of decision amendment.  
18      There are other kinds of modifications that we have 
19      done as well, but that's the most fundamental change 
20      to the project.
21                So, with that, I will go into this.  I'll 
22      try and keep it short.  The less I talk, the more 
23      time we get to hear from you people, which is really 
24      why we are here.  So to first talk about the current 
25      remedy, the original decision is that we would plan 

                                             9

 1      to dispose, dredge and dispose 7.6 million cubic 
 2      yards.  Since there are PCB's in the river, the 
 3      actual level for taking action in this (inaudible) 
 4      is one part per million.  In this project we do have 
 5      PCB's as high as 2,000 parts per million that we 
 6      have discovered during our design efforts and 
 7      different sampling efforts, and there are typically 
 8      10 parts per million and into the hundreds now.
 9                We also plan to use a pipeline to settling 
10      basins and then put the PCB's in a landfill.  The 
11      original plan did have a possibility of capping.  
12      That's what we call a capping contingency, where if 
13      capping was shown to be protective and 
14      cost-effective, then we would go to some capping.  
15      So, as I indicated, the reason that we revisited the 
16      original decision is because we did have new 
17      information that we did obtain in the last couple of 
18      years.  Part of that information was additional 
19      sampling in the river where the companies went in 
20      and did a lot more sampling in the river.
21                And in these maps you can see little dots.  
22      Each of those dots represent a core.  There are 
23      1,300 locations where a core was taken, and the core 
24      was divided into six-inch zones, for a total of 
25      10,000 samples, new samples in the river.  This gave 

                                             10

 1      us a much better definition of the problem, and with 
 2      that we did find that we had more -- the PCB's were 
 3      more spread out in a larger volume of sediment.  So 
 4      now we know that we have 7.6 million cubic yards, 
 5      whereas previously we thought we had about six and a 
 6      half million.
 7                We also discovered there was a new hot 
 8      spot down here.  Just downstream of the DePere dam 
 9      there is a hot spot where we discovered 
10      concentrations as high as three thousand parts per 
11      million.  And that is work in an area that will be 
12      done, will be dredged next year as part of the 
13      overall project.  That work will be consistent with 
14      the original remedy.  
15                Some other additional new information we 
16      found is that we did have more contamination 
17      relatively deep in the sediment.  We found deposits 
18      as deep as 15 feet.  We have PCB's in the central 
19      part of the river that were very deep.  We also 
20      found we had more areas that were relatively low, 
21      that is just above a level of one, still above the 
22      action level, and is relatively thin, about six 
23      inches thick or less.  We also discovered as part of 
24      our design efforts, given the new volume of 
25      sediments, that you would not have enough capacity 

                                             11

 1      in a single landfill to take all the sediments in if 
 2      they were dredged as originally planned.
 3                Finally, we also found that there were 
 4      areas along the riverbank where, if we did dredge 
 5      them, because of the deep contamination and the deep 
 6      banks, that would actually create instabilities 
 7      along the banks.
 8                Things in the plan that are not changing.  
 9      One, the action level of one part per million does 
10      not change.  Anyplace there is a concentration of 
11      one part per million or more, we will take some 
12      action, be it dredging or capping or what have you.  
13      We would still have a clean-up goal 0.25.  The 
14      difference between the action level and the clean-up 
15      goal is the action level is where we would actually 
16      do something above a level of one, but the 0.25 is 
17      what we would have as a goal to achieve as an 
18      overall average in that part of the river.  The 
19      surface concentrations that would be 0.25 parts per 
20      million are once we are done, on average, for that 
21      portion of the river.
22                We would also be relying on natural 
23      recovery to achieve a final protective goal that 
24      would be adequate to be protective for people 
25      consuming fish and for the wildlife.  And we would 

                                             12

 1      also be using in the dredge areas a post-dredging 
 2      sand cover.  Given the limitation of dredging, that 
 3      you are not going to get everything out with the 
 4      dredging project based on the most current 
 5      technology, we would plan to put on a sand cover in 
 6      the areas that we dredge.
 7                Other things that are the same is that   
 8      we would still have long-term monitoring and 
 9      maintenance for whatever we would be doing.  We 
10      would still have landfill disposal of the dredge 
11      sediment.  And the phase one clean-up I mentioned, 
12      the hot spots just downstream of the DePere dam, 
13      that is consistent with the original plan.  That 
14      doesn't change.  That would be done the same under 
15      the old plan or the new plan.
16                The main changes in the new plan.  First 
17      of all, this plan would be done sooner.  It would 
18      take nine years for the construction part of the 
19      project versus fifteen years or longer under the 
20      original dredging -- total dredging project.  We 
21      would not be using the pipeline in this plan.  
22      Instead, we would use various mechanical devices 
23      along the river to separate the water from the 
24      sediment and then truck it to a landfill.
25                We would have less dredging in this 

                                             13

 1      proposal; whereas, the original plan would dredge 
 2      7.1 million cubic yards.  I mentioned that 7.6 
 3      million total.  The original plan would actually 
 4      have to cap -- even on the original plan, would have 
 5      to cap about half a million cubic yards, mainly 
 6      because those areas along the bank we really 
 7      couldn't dredge; otherwise, we would create problems 
 8      along the shoreline there.  This would have more 
 9      capping and replacement of some of the dredging.  
10      And I'll talk about exactly what that capping 
11      consists of in a minute, but, just to tell you what 
12      it is, we would plan to put some sand down and some 
13      armor stone on top of that sand as a cap that would 
14      be stable over the long-term.  
15                And we would plan to put a sand cover down 
16      in areas where we have pretty thin contamination in 
17      the sediment, that is, six inches or less, and the 
18      concentrations would be above our action level of 
19      one but still below two.  So between one and two we 
20      would plan to put six inches of sand in those areas.
21                Now, specifically, a little bit about the 
22      capping.  In some areas we would first dredge and 
23      then cap.  We would do this in areas such as when 
24      you have very deep contamination, rather than dredge 
25      very deep.  And, therefore, in those areas you have 

                                             14

 1      to dredge a long ways horizontally from the dredge 
 2      area, because in order to keep the cable close to 
 3      the river bottom you would have to go a long way 
 4      toward the edge of the bank in order to keep the 
 5      cable close to the river bottom.  When you do that, 
 6      you end up dredging up a lot of clean sediment that 
 7      really would not need to be dredged otherwise.  So 
 8      it becomes a situation where you end up taking out a 
 9      lot of clean sediment that would end up using 
10      landfill capacity but it's really not contaminated.  
11      And that would be in the navigational channel and 
12      along the riverbank.
13                We would also have some dredging in 
14      shallow water areas, and we have relatively low 
15      concentrations.  And, in order to maintain the water 
16      depth we would require for any type of a capping 
17      project, which would be at least three feet or more 
18      wherever you would do the capping, we would first 
19      dredge and then cap in those areas.  And, as I 
20      mentioned, the capping and sand covering will be 
21      only in low concentration, thin sediment, and then 
22      in some areas we would do capping only where we 
23      would have relatively lower concentrations.
24                For the most part, we would plan to dredge 
25      in areas that we have higher concentrations.  So the 

                                             15

 1      higher concentration sediments would be dredged.  
 2      Certain areas they wouldn't be just because they are 
 3      very deep, and in those areas we would plan to 
 4      dredge and cap in those areas.
 5                There's been some discussion in terms of 
 6      the permanence of these caps, their stability over 
 7      the long term, and we have looked at that issue to a 
 8      large degree in our evaluations.  We looked at other 
 9      capping projects.  We looked at the actual results 
10      of dredging projects to be able to evaluate what 
11      kind of results we would have in dredging projects 
12      and what kind of results we could expect for a 
13      capping project in terms of the long-term stability 
14      and the effectiveness of containing PCB's.
15                An important question, of course, for our 
16      cap is would it stay there long-term, would it be 
17      stable.  And we looked at a number of factors that 
18      would potentially influence a cap in terms of its 
19      long-term stability.  One is, of course, erosion 
20      potential from storms.  We looked at hundred year 
21      storms to determine how large an event that would 
22      be, what kind of erosion potential it would have, 
23      and, therefore, what kind of a cap design we would 
24      need to have in order to make sure that it stayed 
25      there in that kind of event.

                                             16

 1                In making those considerations, we arrived 
 2      at the conclusion that we could have, at a minimum, 
 3      a coarse sand and we would expect it to stay there 
 4      in a storm.  But, in order to maintain the natural 
 5      level of conservatism and the extra safety margin, 
 6      we, in fact, would put down some stone and armor 
 7      stone, gravel or armor stone, in certain areas in 
 8      order to make sure that the cap would not move even 
 9      during large events.
10                We also looked at things like ice scour.  
11      And in areas where you have potential, the river 
12      bottom sometimes you have ice accumulate, like 
13      frazil ice accumulates on the water bottom and can 
14      pull up the sediment, pull up the cap potentially, 
15      in those areas we decided we would not cap, we would 
16      dredge because of the concern that it could cause 
17      potential erosion of the water bottom.  We also 
18      looked at things such as ice jams and that kind of 
19      thing.  Ice jams could cause erosion there.  And so 
20      we looked at all those issues to try and make sure 
21      that that would not be an erosive feature that would 
22      damage the cap and cause it to be eroded away.
23                We looked at what's called bioturbation.  
24      What that means is you have a burrowing organism, so 
25      you have worms, burrowing insects, clams, that kind 

                                             17

 1      of thing in the water bottom, and those can disrupt 
 2      the sediment, so we bring an extra layer of sand to 
 3      take care of those.  
 4                Design and engineering.  Even though we 
 5      believe the engineering tells us that these caps 
 6      would remain stable over the long-term, kind of a 
 7      belt and suspenders approach, we don't take that 
 8      absolutely for granted.  So we would have a 
 9      monitoring program where we would go in on a regular 
10      basis, at least every five years, more often the 
11      first few years, to do a water bottom survey, to do 
12      cores, to make sure the caps are in tact and 
13      continuing to function.  We would also do that if 
14      there was a major storm or some other event, if you 
15      will.  Could be a main event, maybe a boat comes in 
16      and potentially could scour the bottom.  That or a 
17      storm or something like that happens, then we would 
18      go in with an extra monitoring event to make sure 
19      that the cap was still there and still effective.  
20      If it wasn't, then we would go in and do repair as 
21      needed.
22                We would also have an ongoing water 
23      monitoring program, biological monitoring to see 
24      what the results are on our project to see what the 
25      actual environmental results were over the long run.

                                             18

 1                As far as what's tied in to our monitoring 
 2      program, of course the monitoring program doesn't do 
 3      you any good if you don't have some sort of response 
 4      to it that tells you there is a problem.  So, to go 
 5      hand in hand with that, we would have a maintenance 
 6      program where, if we did see a problem that resulted 
 7      from one of these events or one of our regular 
 8      monitoring events, we would go in and reinforce the 
 9      cap, add some additional sand, additional armor 
10      stone, a larger armor stone, whatever we thought 
11      would be appropriate to make sure that that cap was, 
12      in fact, improved if it needed to be.  We might 
13      increase monitoring if we felt that was important.  
14      If we had a major concern in certain areas or the 
15      river in general, we might increase our monitoring 
16      program.
17                Finally, if we decided the cap really 
18      wasn't working in certain areas or we had a concern 
19      for those areas, we might actually remove the cap 
20      and dredge that.  
21                So, to wrap up in terms of the cap, we do 
22      believe that the engineering and modeling tell us 
23      that the caps would remain stable over the long 
24      term.  We do have an extra safety margin designed 
25      into the cap that would ensure that they would 

                                             19

 1      remain stable over the long term as well.  This 
 2      would be in the form of gravel and armor stone.
 3                Finally, we are continuing to refine the 
 4      plan and, assuming we go forward with this, we 
 5      wouldn't anticipate to have major changes in the 
 6      plan, but we would refine in certain areas.  We 
 7      would be talking to people who live and work on the 
 8      river, along the river, to make sure that what we 
 9      are doing in those areas are not going to interfere 
10      with the uses of the river in those areas.  And 
11      there could be other considerations as well.  So we 
12      would modify the details of the plan as we continue.  
13      So it's not cast in stone in terms of what we are 
14      thinking about right now.
15                Finally, I mentioned there would be a 
16      monitoring and maintenance program that would go 
17      hand in hand with the designing of the cap.  
18                So, to summarize, the proposed plan, they 
19      would be protective, be constantly protective, in 
20      some ways better, in some ways not as good, but 
21      overall we believe as least as good as the original 
22      plan.  It would be done soon.  It would take about 
23      nine years of construction versus fifteen years or 
24      longer with a hundred percent dredging project.  We 
25      would have actually lower surface concentrations 

                                             20

 1      when we are done.  The reason for that is the cap 
 2      surfaces would be cleaner than they would be in 
 3      dredged areas.  Dredges with the current technology 
 4      cannot get everything out.  It just isn't possible 
 5      with the current technology of dredging.  It can do 
 6      pretty good at getting a lot of it out, but not 
 7      everything.
 8                So, given that, the concentrations after 
 9      that kind of a project would actually be a little 
10      bit higher than a partial capping project that we 
11      are proposing.  Under this plan, too, keep in mind 
12      that we will still be removing about 74 percent of 
13      the PCB's relative to the original plan, so about 
14      three-quarters of the PCB's would still be coming 
15      out.  The remaining would be, of course, contained 
16      under a cap.
17                And, finally, this plan would use only 
18      about half of the landfill capacity versus the 
19      original plan.  And a lot of that sediment under the 
20      original plan, as I mentioned, would have to -- 
21      would require actually dredging relatively cleaner 
22      sediment and, therefore, would end up using the 
23      landfill capacity that really would be better used 
24      for other purposes.  
25                And I may have mentioned this plan was 

                                             21

 1      developed out of new information and new 
 2      evaluations.  As I mentioned, clean-up at specific 
 3      areas in the river will be refined during the 
 4      design.  And, finally, given all those other 
 5      considerations in terms of effectiveness and 
 6      long-term stability, and we looked at 
 7      cost-effectiveness, which is part of the evaluation 
 8      if we consider something to be protective and 
 9      comparable in these other areas, then we do look at 
10      cost-effectiveness.  And this project would be less.  
11      It would be $390 million for this proposal versus 
12      $580 million for the original remedy.
13                I should mention, too, the original 
14      estimate for the record of decision for this remedy 
15      was $334 million, so the new remedy would actually 
16      still be more than the original estimate that we did 
17      have.  So don't think this is a remedy on the cheap.  
18      It isn't at all.  It is still a substantial amount 
19      of money, it still would be a very substantial 
20      dredging project.  In fact, this project would still 
21      be the largest dredging project that probably will 
22      have been done in this country and even bigger than 
23      the Hudson River project, if you've heard of that, 
24      which is about 2.6 million cubic yards.  We would 
25      still be dredging about 3.7 million cubic yards 

                                             22

 1      here.  
 2                And, finally, the people who earned the 
 3      bid get more information on this.  We have lots more 
 4      information for you if you really want to dig into 
 5      it.  We have the Proposed Plan Fact Sheet, which is 
 6      a simpler version of the overall plan.  We have a 
 7      Technical Memorandum, which there are copies at the 
 8      front desk, which has more details on some of the 
 9      technical aspects of that plan.  And then there is a 
10      Basis of Design Report, which is a real thick thing, 
11      about that thick (indicating), if you really want to 
12      dig into it.  We have that on line on the website 
13      and in the libraries in the information 
14      repositories.  We have some posters out front.  
15                And, finally, our website addresses are 
16      listed here.  DNR has a real good website with a lot 
17      of the documents on there.  EPA has a website with 
18      information on it as well.
19                MS. PASTOR:  All right.  This will be the 
20      question and answer portion of the meeting, so if 
21      you have a question you can raise your hand.  We 
22      will call on you one at a time.  We want to make 
23      sure that everybody can ask at least one question, 
24      so before we see what the time is like and other 
25      people want to ask a second question, let's give 

                                             23

 1      everyone a chance to ask one.  If you can make your 
 2      way down here to ask it, the court reporter can hear 
 3      you better and we can all hear you better.  If you 
 4      can't, let's see if we can get this microphone to 
 5      you.
 6                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  My name is Zalman T. 
 7      Sapperstein.  I currently live in Fish Creek, 
 8      Wisconsin, having grown up in southern California.  
 9      I have one pertinent question.  The speaker, Mr. 
10      Barker, is that his name?  Is that your name?  
11                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Jim Hahnenberg.
12                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  I'm sorry.  Used the 
13      words "we believe" over and over and over again, 
14      indicating that belief is all it takes to assure 
15      everybody in this room that this new approach will 
16      work.  The actual research, as I understand it, for 
17      example, as done by Carnegie Melon (phonetic), as 
18      done by Alcoa independently, with different capping 
19      methods, have proven that the known technology does 
20      not work.  And, in fact, sediment concentrations can 
21      increase rather than decrease in terms of PCB's 
22      because of turbulence and leakage through these caps 
23      that causes high velocity flow of water.
24                And, unless, sir, you have experimental 
25      long-term verification of what you believe, I think 

                                             24

 1      the method is totally unacceptable.  Do you have 
 2      long-term experimental verification?
 3                MR. HAHNENBERG:  There are (inaudible).  
 4      We have monitoring data on capping.  They have been 
 5      done in a variety of different environments, mostly 
 6      on the west coast in terms of environmental kinds of 
 7      projects.  There is a number of projects where there 
 8      is actual monitoring data that they have gone in and 
 9      evaluated the performance of the caps and in caps 
10      that have been actually as far back as 1978 have 
11      been in place in some Army Corps projects.
12                In environmental projects more recently,  
13      I believe the most recent project is I am going to 
14      say the early or late eighties, I believe.  There is 
15      data on those projects showing that the caps have 
16      been effective in maintaining themselves and, in 
17      fact, containing contaminants there.  So there is 
18      data on other capping projects that do show they are 
19      effective.
20                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  Differentiate between 
21      landfill caps, which --
22                MR. HAHNENBERG:  I'm talking about 
23      in-water caps on sediments.
24                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  Please show us the data.  
25      Show us that long-term data.  Please.  I mean you 

                                             25

 1      are talking about telling us to accept something.  
 2      Shows us that the data is there to prove that it 
 3      will work.   
 4                MR. HAHNENBERG:  That's a good comment, 
 5      and we can get that kind of information for you.  We 
 6      will respond to that.
 7                MS. PASTOR:  Another question.
 8                MR. DELSART:  I my name is Tom Delsart.   
 9      I live in Allouez on the Fox River.  I have a 
10      concern that in the next fifty years or a hundred 
11      years from now one of these dams between Green Bay 
12      and Oshkosh might break.  That does not seem that 
13      unreasonable to me that something like that would 
14      happen.  How would that affect this minimum amount 
15      of capping that you plan on putting on top of the 
16      PCB's?  
17                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, it would depend on, 
18      of course, which dam would be gone.  But, generally, 
19      the effects of that kind of failure would be 
20      somewhat localized.  And, for instance, the DePere 
21      dam, we are dredging a hot spot just downstream of 
22      the DePere dam, and that is an area -- that's the 
23      part of the river that has the greatest amount of 
24      PCB's in it.  Downstream from that, there would be 
25      some effects, but they really would not be much of  

                                             26

 1      a major erosive effect for the caps.
 2                But it wouldn't have as large an effect as 
 3      you might think for a single dam if it were removed.  
 4      Also, most dams probably would not fail 
 5      catastrophically.  Most commonly, dams, if they are 
 6      near their life end, they are monitored by the Army 
 7      Corps and others to make sure that that doesn't fail 
 8      catastrophically in an unforeseen event.  And so 
 9      oftentimes what will happen when a dam nears the end 
10      of its life, it will be removed in a much more 
11      careful way if it's deemed that it should be 
12      removed.  So in that situation, then, it would be a 
13      much more controlled kind of a situation and would 
14      be a lot less likely in that event to actually cause 
15      catastrophic effects.  But we have looked at this in 
16      some detail to make sure that if that kind of thing 
17      did happen it would not have a catastrophic effect 
18      on the cap.
19                MS. PASTOR:  Someone else have a question 
20      for Jim or Greg or both?
21                MS. SCHAEFER:  I'm Patty Bernard Schaefer, 
22      and the question I have is:  When you put these caps 
23      in the river, have you considered how they change 
24      the ecology of the river, how they change the water 
25      levels, how they change the riparian areas, how they 

                                             27

 1      change the riverbed, and how they change everything 
 2      in the river and change how the birds, the fish and 
 3      the worms and the clams that you talked about who 
 4      use those areas to burrow?
 5                MR. HILL:  The answer to that is, just as 
 6      dredging would upset the environment to some degree 
 7      in the short term, the belief is that, number one, 
 8      there is more dredging that would occur than filling 
 9      with this alternative.  So there would be a net 
10      deepening of the river throughout the system.  And, 
11      according to our fish managers, addition of some 
12      large cobble would actually be a benefit to the 
13      burrowing organisms and habitat for fish and 
14      wildlife.  So there is certainly some short-term 
15      negative aspect in disturbing any eco-system, but by 
16      capping it may, in fact, be a benefit to some of 
17      these that inhabit it.
18                MS. PASTOR:  All right.  Who else has a 
19      question?  Come on down.
20                MR. LEEP (phonetic):  I'm Dan Leep from 
21      Little Chute, Wisconsin.  And I always understood 
22      that once an aquifer is contaminated it can't be 
23      cleaned up.  
24                MR. HAHNENBERG:  The Fox River is not an 
25      aquifer.  It's not groundwater.  There are 

                                             28

 1      technologies that do clean up aquifers, but we are 
 2      not talking about that here.  We are talking about, 
 3      really, the river, and so it's surface water.  And 
 4      the way you clean up the surface water is, really, 
 5      to clean up the sediment in this case.  If you clean 
 6      up the sediment, the surface water will be a lot 
 7      cleaner relative to the PCB contamination.  
 8                MS. SUNDANCE:  My name is Jennifer 
 9      Sundance.  I'm from Abrams, Wisconsin, and I have a 
10      question about your process about sediment dewater 
11      and desanding.  What PCB level would be left in the 
12      water that you are squeezing out, or what -- in the 
13      sand you are going to leave behind?  
14                MR. HAHNENBERG:  The process would be you 
15      would have a hydraulic dredge, you pump it to your 
16      area that we call a dewatering facility.  That means 
17      that you just separate the mud from the water.  
18      There are different mechanical devices that can do 
19      that.  Whatever device we use, the water that's 
20      separated out from that would be treated for the 
21      PCB's or the contaminants that would be in there, 
22      and it would be treated to state standards to make 
23      sure it was clean before it was discharged back to 
24      the river.  So the water would be treated and it 
25      would be cleaned up before we were done with the 

                                             29

 1      process.
 2                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  From the 
 3      (inaudible), it seems that the original plan for the 
 4      dredging is going -- you originally thought it was 
 5      going to cost the same as the proposed plan, and now 
 6      it's costing a great deal more.  Do you think that 
 7      in the future, bringing it into perspective, that 
 8      your research has shown that it's good for 20 years?  
 9      And 20 years really isn't that long of a time, when 
10      it comes down to it.  And, also, the fact that you 
11      did bring up that it possibly could fail, and then 
12      you would have to go back, dredge it.  And don't you 
13      think that the cost could actually end up being far 
14      more than the dredging plan right now?  
15                MR. HAHNENBERG:  We think our cost 
16      estimates now are more accurate than the original 
17      because we did look at this in a lot more detail and 
18      we also have new information from our additional 
19      sampling.  And the plan is such that we do believe 
20      it would really address the contamination and that, 
21      therefore, the contamination would be able to be 
22      contained or removed from the river.  And, 
23      therefore, once you are done with the clean-up part 
24      of it, you would really be done with the 
25      construction.  Unless the cap or whatever needs some 

                                             30

 1      repair, we expect we would be done with that and the 
 2      cost then would be essentially done with other than 
 3      monitoring and maintenance.  So we think the 
 4      estimates are relatively accurate.  There are 
 5      certainly uncertainties still, but we believe that 
 6      these estimates are sound engineering, very detailed 
 7      estimates, which we think are accurate.  
 8                MR. RUSS:  I'm Ben Russ.  I'm a student at 
 9      East High School.  I think, on behalf of all the 
10      other students that are here, it's my understanding 
11      that it will be forty years of cap monitoring is 
12      planned, and I was told that these caps are supposed 
13      to last two hundred years.  How are you accounting 
14      for not monitoring the caps for 160 years?  Because, 
15      as a student, I'm concerned about the future of the 
16      environment, and I don't know if these caps would 
17      fail and us to be placed with the cost.
18                MR. HAHNENBERG:  There would be continued 
19      monitoring and maintenance as long as necessary, 
20      whether it be 30 years, 40 years, or longer.  And 
21      the Super Fund, as long as there is contamination 
22      remaining on the site, then there is an obligation 
23      to do continued monitoring of that project.  We have 
24      a five-year project review cycle, at a minimum, that 
25      we go in and take a look at how the remedy is doing.  

                                             31

 1      And, if there are problems with things that need to 
 2      be repaired or improved or if the remedy isn't 
 3      working, then we address those issues at that time.  
 4      And there is no time limitation on that.
 5                MR. O'HERN:  Pat O'Hern from Green Bay, 
 6      Wisconsin.  I just have two questions, and one is:  
 7      As far as with PCB's, now, how far are they out in 
 8      the bay and how concentrated are they out in the bay 
 9      of Green Bay?  And then, number two, we are talking 
10      about the capping and dredging issue.  The dredging 
11      goes to a landfill.  And how are the landfills going 
12      to be monitored on a long-term basis to make sure 
13      that those aren't leaching back out into aquifers 
14      and on and on and on?  
15                MR. HAHNENBERG:  As far as Green Bay, 
16      there is some dredging that will go into the bay 
17      near the mouth of the river.  Not very far, but 
18      there will be some dredging into the bay into areas 
19      that we know have the highest concentrations in the 
20      bay.  Beyond that area near the mouth of the river, 
21      the concentrations for the most part are less than 
22      the actual one part per million action level.  So, 
23      really, out in the bay, the vast majority of the 
24      area, very few areas are even above the one part per 
25      million.  So in the bay, has gone out probably a 

                                             32

 1      fairly good distance in the bay, but they are 
 2      greatly diminishing concentrations in the bay.  
 3                Greg Hill might address this better, but I 
 4      will just start and give a shot at this.  The good 
 5      thing with Wisconsin landfills is they are designed 
 6      to very rigorous standards.  The EPA program that 
 7      regulates PCB's, in fact, a few years back took a 
 8      look at the state program, state design criteria and 
 9      monitoring criteria, and they made a determination 
10      that, actually, the state landfills are effectively 
11      equivalent to an EPA PCB disposal facility.  The 
12      facility is designed specifically to work with 
13      standards of containing PCB's.
14                So the state licensed landfills are 
15      actually a very high quality landfill and would be 
16      monitored extensively.  I mean you would have 
17      leachate collection, you would have liners, you 
18      would have monitoring around the landfill.  So the 
19      landfills are designed to be effective and contain 
20      the PCB's over a long period.
21                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  You say you're 
22      going to monitor the capping every five years.  How 
23      can you prove that something might not slip past you 
24      about an accident that happens and the capping 
25      doesn't work and PCB's leak out and causes 

                                             33

 1      contamination?  How can you prove that that's not 
 2      going to happen?  Because if you are only dredging 
 3      every five years, something can slip past and make 
 4      it worse.  
 5                MR. HAHNENBERG:  For the first initial 
 6      monitoring period we would do it more often than 
 7      every five-year period, maybe two or three times 
 8      during the first five years.  And then after that  
 9      it would be every five years, but we would have 
10      triggering events.  There are some events that 
11      happen, such as a large storm comes through or some 
12      other event, maybe a big ice flow or something like 
13      that or maybe a scour, possibly, from a boat, we 
14      would go in and do a special monitoring event to 
15      make sure that there wasn't damage from those kinds 
16      of events.  So we would have more than just the five 
17      years if we felt it was called for.
18                MR. HILL:  Under both the original plan 
19      and this proposed change, there is long-term 
20      monitoring not just of the cap, but there is 
21      monitoring of both the water and the fish that live 
22      in the river and the bay as a long-term monitoring 
23      scheme to make sure that the PCB concentrations in 
24      the environment are being reduced at the rate that 
25      we expect them to after the remedy is implemented.  

                                             34

 1      So, if there was a catastrophic effect or impact to 
 2      the cap or if all of the dredging did not prove to 
 3      be as effective as we thought, the monitoring plan 
 4      of both the water and the fish would also indicate 
 5      whether or not we needed to do something else.     
 6      So that's two levels of monitoring to assure that 
 7      the remedy that is implemented is going to be 
 8      effective.
 9                MR. SAMPSON:  My name is Dick Sampson from 
10      Appleton.  I'm concerned about two things.  One was 
11      alluded to.  That is the area in the mouth of the -- 
12      at the mouth of the river, such as Renard Island, 
13      and, also, there are shoreland, shoreline landfills 
14      that are leaking that no one has mentioned so far.  
15      So that's my question.  Double question, if you 
16      will.  And first, also, what does -- what do the 
17      letters SWAC stand for?  
18                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Sorry about that.  We 
19      apologize for that acronym.  We lapse into those.  
20      That stands for Surface Weight Average 
21      Concentration.  In other words, what the average 
22      concentration is in that surface layer on average 
23      for that particular portion of the river.
24                To answer your question about leaky 
25      landfills, as far as we know, we have eliminated all 

                                             35

 1      the sources of PCB's along the river.  If actually 
 2      people are aware of particular possible sources, we 
 3      would like to hear about it.  That's part of the 
 4      reason for this kind of a comment period is if 
 5      people are aware of potential sources and have data 
 6      that tells us these things are leaking, then we 
 7      certainly want to know about that.
 8                As far as I know right now, we don't think 
 9      there are those kinds of facilities along the river, 
10      as far as we know.  But if people know about some 
11      that are there, we certainly want to know about it 
12      and would welcome that information.
13                MR. VERHASSEL (phonetic):  My name is Bill 
14      Verhassel from Green Bay.  Going back to what a lady 
15      said earlier, are you figuring this cost estimate at 
16      the price of stone and sand at today's prices, or 
17      are you figuring to add what it's going to be nine 
18      years from now when your job is finally completed?  
19      In your cost estimate.
20                MR. HILL:  The cost estimates are all done 
21      on a similar basis.  They are equalized down to this 
22      year's costs.  It doesn't mean -- the absolute cost 
23      of the remedy isn't that important right now as far 
24      as this decision goes.  The relative cost between 
25      capping and dredging is being done on the same 

                                             36

 1      engineering cost evaluation between the remedies.  
 2      So it's 2006 dollars that are being compared for 
 3      both remedies.
 4                MR. VERHASSEL:  I just thought this 
 5      capping might create such a demand for sand and 
 6      gravel, the price of sand and rock and the like, 
 7      that the dredging might actually be more 
 8      cost-effective in the long haul.
 9                MR. HILL:  We had an engineering 
10      evaluation of all the costs, projecting over the 
11      period of time for construction.  Just as the cost 
12      of materials may be going up, the cost of energy and 
13      the cost of labor may be going up as well.  And so, 
14      if we are capping and dredging in a nine-year time 
15      frame for the proposed plan, the variation will be 
16      different than if we go through a 15-year dredging 
17      operation where there is more chance for incremental 
18      costs.  That's how the evaluation was done.
19                MR. VERHASSEL:   I have one more question 
20      and then I will leave you alone.  When you lay that 
21      sand down, how do you lay it dowm?  Let's say a 
22      six-inch blanket depth.  How is that done?  
23                MR. HILL:  Number one, there is experience 
24      in different places, mostly out on the west coast 
25      where this has been done successfully.  The closest 

                                             37

 1      place, though, is up in the St. Louis River, up in 
 2      the Duluth Superior harbor where a cap was placed on 
 3      a Super Fund site in the Duluth harbor.  I don't 
 4      know the technology.  The design and the selection 
 5      of the equipment is yet to be done.  That's part of 
 6      -- after the plan is adopted, then the engineering 
 7      design that goes for 30, 60, 90 percent, and then 
 8      the actual bid allows for the specific design --
 9                MR. VERHASSEL:  How can you come up with 
10      an accurate cost if you don't know how you are going 
11      to do it?  
12                MR. HILL:  Like I said, sir, the actual 
13      cost is not important to make sure that you get the 
14      most effective remedy.  
15                MR. HAHNENBERG:  They have another capping 
16      project, but the technology has been used in quite a 
17      number of projects.  We know there is technology out 
18      there.  There are different types of techniques in 
19      terms of how you place it down.  There are a number 
20      of options available to us.  We can pick any one of 
21      those.  But there are certainly choices out there 
22      that it has been done, has been done successfully on 
23      quite a number of projects.  So it's not like it's 
24      something that hasn't been done before.  It has been 
25      done.  We do know it's doable.  The details of 

                                             38

 1      exactly how we do it, we haven't worked that out 
 2      yet, but it certainly is possible.  There are 
 3      placement methods out there that have been used 
 4      successfully, and we know that it is very doable.
 5                MR. SEZINSKI (phonetic):  Hi.  My name is 
 6      Jeff Sezinski from Shawano, Wisconsin.  A common 
 7      question would be that commercial shipping is very 
 8      important to the Green Bay area.  I guess does this 
 9      plan impact the access of freighters into the port 
10      of Green Bay?
11                MR. HAHNENBERG:  No, it doesn't.  The 
12      navigation, authorized navigation depth would not be 
13      changed.  Where there would be capping in the 
14      navigation channel, the cap would be at least two 
15      feet below the authorized navigation depth.  So it 
16      would be a two-foot buffer.  If you needed to dredge 
17      that area, you can dredge and still have a two-foot 
18      buffer between that elevation and the actual cap.  
19      And in those areas we -- you saw the models in the 
20      lobby.  The particular model that has big stone, 
21      that would be the type of design, something like 
22      that, that would be used in the navigation channel.
23                And one reason we have those rather large 
24      stones in that particular instance is because it is 
25      in the navigational channel.  That way it would be 

                                             39

 1      sure that it could resist even the propeller wash 
 2      and would not be a problem if you have a dredger 
 3      going down and wanting to go a little too deep.  If 
 4      it bumped into that stone, they wouldn't get very 
 5      far.  They would know that they bumped into it and 
 6      so it really wouldn't be a problem.  So, to answer 
 7      your question, the navigational depths really would 
 8      still remain the same and would not be affected by 
 9      the cap.
10                MR. SEZINSKI:  So then, during the capping 
11      process, normal boat traffic, normal freighter 
12      traffic can continue?
13                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, for both the 
14      capping and the dredging project there would be a 
15      temporary, perhaps, limitation of portions of the 
16      river as we proceeded down the river.  So there 
17      would be some limitation for both the dredging and 
18      the capping project for a short period of time in 
19      small areas in the river during the construction 
20      phase.
21                MR. AUDE:  I'm a little confused on the 
22      terminology being used here.  My name is Dan Aude.  
23      I live at 118 South Washington Street, Riverside 
24      Condominiums.  When you say capping and then you 
25      refer to a landfill where the sediment is going to 

                                             40

 1      be stored, I often think of a clay-lined base with a 
 2      lining in between and it's capped.  Now when you are 
 3      talking about capping the bottom of the river, it 
 4      sounds as though it's only a mechanical barrier as 
 5      opposed to seepage that's going to continue up to 
 6      the surface if that's what they do.  I'm not sure I 
 7      understand.  Unless you get it all out, you are 
 8      still going to be -- it's basically, this cap you 
 9      are talking about is a mechanical protection to not 
10      stir up the sediment, although it can seep up 
11      through porous material; correct?  
12                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Good question.  You are 
13      right.  It's different than a landfill cap.  It 
14      doesn't have quag, it has sand.  A landfill cap is 
15      designed to stop water from migrating through the 
16      cover.  This is not.  This is a different kind of a 
17      cap, you are right.  This kind of a cap is designed 
18      to contain the particles, the sediment.  And there 
19      really -- in terms of water moving through it, there 
20      shouldn't be much water moving through this cap.  In 
21      terms of the groundwater discharged to the river, 
22      it's not that significant, especially in the central 
23      portion of the river in this area.  But the cap 
24      would be effective in containing the particles.  And 
25      for PCB's that's very important, because the PCB's 

                                             41

 1      attach to particles and they don't really go into 
 2      solution very easily in the water.  Therefore, if 
 3      you contain the particles, you are containing the 
 4      PCB's, and that's what the caps are designed to do.
 5                MR. AUDE:  So what you're saying is you 
 6      are kind of trapping it between this cap and the 
 7      existing river bottom.  
 8                MR. HAHNENBERG:  You are keeping it in 
 9      place.  You are keeping the sediment in place, and 
10      if you keep the sediment, the mud, the particles in 
11      place, you are keeping the PCB's in place.
12                MR. JOHNSON:  Dave Johnson, 724 Park 
13      Street, Green Bay, Wisconsin.  We have approached 
14      this subject for a number of years.  We have 
15      determined in the past that this was not the way to 
16      go, this was not the way to cap.  Cap was not the 
17      way to go.  We have gone that route.  I just want to 
18      know what has changed in the short term since we 
19      have determined that we could not dispose of the 
20      PCB's in the landfill or Georgia Pacific behind the 
21      casino.  What has all of a sudden came about that 
22      now capping is the ultimate answer when we in the 
23      past have said this is not the way to go?  What 
24      engineering firm?  And I want the name.  I want the 
25      name of the engineering firm right tonight that says 

                                             42

 1      this is the way and it's better, because it wasn't 
 2      the better way to go no more than 18 months ago.  
 3      What has happened in that short period of time, when 
 4      we just eight months ago were going to dredge and 
 5      dispose of this in disposals in the Georgia Pacific 
 6      landfill?  But we ruled that out.  We went against 
 7      that.  Now all of a sudden this is the answer.  I 
 8      want to know why this is the answer and I want to 
 9      know the engineering firm that says this is the way 
10      to do it.  
11                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Good question.  First, we 
12      are not saying this is the only solution.  We do 
13      have a significant amount of dredging that would 
14      still be done.  In terms of capping, the original 
15      feasibility study, which was the --
16                MR. JOHNSON:  I have followed this very 
17      closely.
18                MR. HAHNENBERG:  The decision in the 
19      original feasibility study that it was based on 
20      talked about capping.  It didn't state capping was 
21      effective or was not.  The reason it was not 
22      selected in the original rememdy was because it was 
23      not cost-effective.  It was considered to be more 
24      costly than a dredging project.  The new  
25      information --

                                             43

 1                MR. JOHNSON:  I don't agree with you on 
 2      that.  I don't agree with you on that subject, on 
 3      that answer right there.  I do not agree with you on 
 4      that answer, because the feasibility study said that 
 5      capping was cheaper than dredging.  I don't agree 
 6      with you with your answer.  Go ahead.  Continue.  
 7                MR. HAHNENBERG:  There is an option, I 
 8      forget the alternative number, but in the 
 9      feasibility study there was an alternative that was 
10      a partial capping project, and that was actually 
11      more costly than a dredging project.
12                MR. JOHNSON:  Who said that?  
13                MR. HAHNENBERG:  It was in the feasibility 
14      study in the original --
15                MR JOHNSON:  What was the date of that 
16      feasibility study?  
17                MR. HAHNENBERG:  2000?  
18                MR. JOHNSON:  I want to know.  I want 
19      dates.  
20                MR. HAHNENBERG:  2000 by Thermal Retech.  
21      Retech was the contractor.
22                MR. JOHNSON:  Whose study was that?  
23                MR. HAHNENBERG:  It was contracted by the 
24      EPA and DNR.  DNR and EPA.
25                MR. JOHNSON:  You are going to be held 

                                             44

 1      accountable for this.  Your answers are going to be 
 2      held accountable.  
 3                MR. HAHNENBERG:  That's fine.
 4                MR. JOHNSON:  And that's exactly what we 
 5      are here for.  All right.  Now, you said your 
 6      answer.  I have a tape recorder in my pocket right 
 7      now.  I got a tape recorder, and there's people that 
 8      know that I come with a tape recorder.  Believe me, 
 9      there's people that know I come with a tape 
10      recorder.  So go ahead.  
11                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, and it's under the 
12      Wisconsin DNR web page.  Look at the feasibility 
13      study, which was dated I believe was the year 2000.  
14      I'm not certain.  I shouldn't say that.  I'm pretty 
15      sure it was 2000.  Or 2002.  It was 2002, because it 
16      was actually finalized when we did the record of 
17      decision.  But, in any event, whatever date it was, 
18      it was done by Retech.  It was done under the 
19      Agency's authority, and their evaluation did look at 
20      capping and it did say that capping was adequately 
21      protected.  
22                MR. JOHNSON:  I have been there.  I didn't 
23      know who made the study.  
24                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Retech was the --
25                MR. JOHNSON:  Retech.  Okay.  

                                             45

 1                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Now, the Basis of Design 
 2      Report is being done by two contractors:  Shaw and 
 3      Anger (phonetic).
 4                MR. JOHNSON:  Pardon me.  Would you repeat 
 5      that?
 6                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Shaw Environmental and 
 7      Anger.  And they are the two companies who have done 
 8      the Basis of Design Report.  And that's also on the 
 9      Wisconsin DNR web page.  If you look in that, they 
10      talk -- actually, look in Section 5 in the Basis of 
11      Design Report.  It talks about -- the title there is 
12      called the Optimized Remedies in that Chapter.  So 
13      it's in there.  Also, if you look in the Basis of 
14      Design Report, Appendix D, there is a contingent 
15      remedy, which was actually consistent with the 
16      original record of decision, which would have been 
17      -- could have been done under the original Record of 
18      Decision, that contingent capping remedy.  This 
19      takes it somewhat beyond that, but still there was a 
20      substantial capping project that could have been 
21      done under the original Record of Decision because 
22      it was considered to be an adequately protective 
23      remedy under the original Record of Decision, which 
24      was based on the feasibility study by Retech.
25                MR. JOHNSON:  Didn't we rule that out, 

                                             46

 1      though?  Didn't we rule capping out back in 2002?  
 2                MR. HAHNENBERG:  We didn't rule it out, 
 3      but --
 4                MR. JOHNSON:  Are you sure?  Are you sure?
 5                MR. HAHNENBERG:  We didn't say it was 
 6      absolutely not a feasible remedy.  
 7                MR. JOHNSON:  Didn't you say at that time 
 8      it was not a viable recommendation in 2002?  
 9                MR. HILL:  No.
10                MR. JOHNSON:  Are you sure?  
11                MR. HILL:  Yes.
12                MR. JOHNSON:  All right.  I'm glad you 
13      said that.  Thank you.  Go ahead.  Oh, no.  You have 
14      one more question.  You have one more answer.  How 
15      many viable disposal sites do you have in Wisconsin 
16      at this point to dispose of PCB's?  How many 
17      licensed points?  
18                MR. HAHNENBERG:  What we call a TSCA 
19      facility, which --
20                MR. JOHNSON:  Toxic facility, waste 
21      disposal facility in Wisconsin.
22                MR. HAHNENBERG:  I want to be clear.  EPA 
23      has a program which allows disposal of PCB's 
24      regulated under EPA called TSCA program, which 
25      stands for Toxic Substances Control Act, regulates 

                                             47

 1      PCB's.  And anything over fifty parts per million 
 2      has to go to an EPA-regulated facility.
 3                MR. JOHNSON:  How many facilities do you 
 4      have in Wisconsin?
 5                MR. HAHNENBERG:  None that are now 
 6      accepting PCB's.
 7                MR. JOHNSON:  Thank you.  
 8                MR. HAHNENBERG:  However, there is more to 
 9      the answer, in that the greatest portion of this 
10      project are not of that concentration.  It's a 
11      relatively small percentage that would be to that 
12      level of fifty parts per million or more.  It's like 
13      two hundred thousand cubic yards out of the 7.6 
14      million cubic yards would be at concentrations 
15      greater than 50 parts per million.  The remainder of 
16      that 7.6 million cubic yards would still -- would be 
17      below the 50 parts per million and would not have to 
18      go to a PCB facility regulated by EPA.  So it could 
19      be disposed of in a state-licensed landfill.
20                So I want to be clear.  The vast majority 
21      of the contaminated sediments could go to an 
22      in-state licensed landfill.  A small portion of 
23      those would have to go to a more highly regulated 
24      facility by EPA, but right now the only facilities 
25      of that nature are out of state.  But that is only 

                                             48

 1      for a small portion of the project.
 2                MR. REIGEL:  My name is Jim Reigel, and I 
 3      live in Oneida.  And I would like you to address 
 4      what I consider to be a fatal flaw in the capping 
 5      plan, and that is your reliance on Wisconsin DNR.
 6                Wisconsin DNR has a record in terms of 
 7      monitoring landfills that is absolutely atrocious.  
 8      I have tracked the local landfills in this area for 
 9      the last five years, downloading all of the 
10      monitoring well reports.  They have been 
11      consistently in violation.  The monitoring wells  
12      all show hazardous waste being leaked out into the 
13      groundwater.  These reports have all been given to 
14      me by the DNR and, yet, they do nothing about them.
15                Indeed, the Wisconsin DNR Statutes state 
16      that landfill violations are self-reporting.  That's 
17      akin to you driving down 41 and then calling a 
18      policeman later and saying, "Oh, by the way, I was 
19      speeding last night.  I just wanted to let you 
20      know."  They are self-reporting in Wisconsin.  And 
21      the idea that Wisconsin DNR, without posting a 
22      multi-million dollar bond, would somehow be charged 
23      with maintenance and monitoring of a clean-up of 
24      this river is absolutely atrocious.  By their own 
25      statement they admit that they cannot now monitor 

                                             49

 1      the landfills, which is why they are self-reporting.
 2                So I would like to know why and under what 
 3      circumstances you would ever hook up with Wisconsin 
 4      DNR for the maintenance and monitoring of this 
 5      program.  
 6                MR. HAHNENBERG:  I want to be clear on 
 7      what the question is.  
 8                MR. REIGEL:  I repeat it.  Why would you 
 9      ever hook up with the Wisconsin DNR, given its track 
10      record for landfills, for monitoring this clean-up 
11      at whatever kind of concept it resolves into?  
12                MR. HAHNENBERG:  It's a joint project with 
13      EPA and DNR, and there would be oversight from DNR 
14      and EPA.
15                MR. REIGEL:  Didn't you check their 
16      record?  I'm serious.  They have a record.  
17                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, I'm not --
18                MR. REIGEL:  The landfill operators have 
19      to file twice-a-year reports from their monitoring 
20      wells.  The Wisconsin DNR collects it.  Has no one 
21      checked what they do with these records?  They show 
22      hazardous chemicals being released at the monitoring 
23      well cites.  Their numbers, not mine.  Their 
24      numbers.  And so why would you arrange for relying 
25      for a project of this magnitude with someone with 

                                             50

 1      this kind of track record?
 2                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, DNR, as far as the 
 3      EPA is concerned, has shown that the state-licensed 
 4      landfills, as I indicated, are well designed and do 
 5      have good monitoring programs.  As I said, EPA TSCA 
 6      program has evaluated that, has looked at that.
 7                MR. REIGEL:  So you never checked their 
 8      records.  Have you ever checked their records?  
 9                MR. HAHNENBERG:  I personally have not.   
10      I do know -- as I said, our TSCA program, which 
11      regulates PCB's, has considered that their 
12      state-licensed landfills are equivalent to one of 
13      theirs.
14                MR. REIGEL:  Have they talked to you about 
15      the additional point sources of PCB's right now for 
16      the Fox?  
17                MR. HAHNENBERG:  No, I'm not familiar with 
18      that.
19                MR. REIGEL:  Thank you.  
20                MS. PASTOR:  Let's try to move along, 
21      because I'm hoping by about 8:15 or so we can get to 
22      the comment portion.  But I know we have a few more 
23      questions.
24                MR. CRADLER:  My name is Fred Cradler.  I 
25      live at 3481 Nicolet Drive.  You mentioned before in 

                                             51

 1      the long-term monitoring of the caps that you felt 
 2      it would work because you were basing it on models 
 3      that were used in projections for the future.  I was 
 4      reminded of another geological climatological event 
 5      where models were used and projections were made and 
 6      then Katrina came along and wiped out New Orleans.  
 7      And this is because they had no empirical data.  
 8      They based everything on their computer projections, 
 9      which is exactly what was said to us here about an 
10      hour ago.  And I'm wondering why we can only rely on 
11      models when we should be relying on empirical data.
12                MS. PASTOR:  Let's answer that one first. 
13                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, the models are 
14      based on empirical data when they were developed.  
15      When you develop these equations models, it also 
16      ties in to various laboratory studies as well to try 
17      and determine what kind of -- if, in fact, equations 
18      seem to be accurately reflecting reality.  There is 
19      also calibrations of these models where you try and 
20      refine those calculations, make sure they seem to be 
21      accurate.  So there is empirical data that the 
22      models are based on when they develop the models.
23                MR. CRADLER:  Thank you.  You used the 
24      word "seem" twice.  I'm concerned about that.
25                Secondly, you said that if the remedies 

                                             52

 1      didn't work and we had to go back in and repair 
 2      those caps, that we would do that.  But, if I am 
 3      understanding correctly, by then, all of the paper 
 4      corporations would have been released from liability 
 5      and we taxpayers would have to pay for those cap 
 6      repairs; is that correct?
 7                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Not necessarily, no.
 8                MR. CRADLER:  Not necessarily?  
 9                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, there is no 
10      agreement now either way that would either release 
11      the companies or not release the companies, because 
12      there is no legal agreement in terms of what their 
13      liability could be under that agreement.  But I can 
14      tell you right now what the statute says is they are 
15      liable.  They are liable under CERCLA, which creates 
16      the Super Fund, basically.
17                MR. CRADLER:  Is there any provision for 
18      releasing them from liability once this procedure 
19      has been started?  
20                MR. HAHNENBERG:  That's possible, but that 
21      remains to be seen.  EPA has not done that on these 
22      projects, generally speaking.
23                MR. CRADLER:  So far.    
24                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Yes.  I mean nothing is 
25      impossible, but the statute says that they are 

                                             53

 1      liable.
 2                MR. CRADLER:  Jim, I want to thank you for 
 3      your answers, and I am going to have to leave you 
 4      with one more question.  I have been at these 
 5      hearings for three years, and in the last three 
 6      years I have been assured with the same sort of 
 7      strength and assurance that this is the plan that 
 8      will work.  This plan is different from the plans 
 9      that I have watched for the last three years.  My 
10      question is why should we believe you this time when 
11      you have changed it three times already?  Thank you.
12                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, all I can say is 
13      that, or I would say is that we have all the 
14      information that's out there that we based our 
15      decision on.  It's in the Basis of Design Report and 
16      the other reports as well that we have in what we 
17      call the administrative records file, which is in 
18      the libraries, and the information that's on the DNR 
19      and EPA websites, mostly the DNR website.  So the 
20      information is out there.  So if someone wants to 
21      look at that information, also look at the 
22      evaluations that we have done, the engineering 
23      evaluations, it's all laid out there for you to 
24      review it, consider it yourself, look at the 
25      information yourself, and you can decide if what we 

                                             54

 1      are proposing makes sense based on all that 
 2      information.
 3                The record is open, it's transparent.  
 4      Everything is out there that we base our decision 
 5      on, or our recommendation.  There is no decision 
 6      yet.  But we have all that information out there for 
 7      you to take a look at to review and for your 
 8      consideration.  And you can make your comments known 
 9      on that information.  If you have an evaluation on 
10      that data that you think differs from ours, that's 
11      fine.  Tell us what you think and we will consider 
12      that in the final decision.  
13                MS. PASTOR:  I've got three people waiting 
14      to do questions and then we will move into comments.
15                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  I was just looking 
16      for a clarification.  Two gentlemen ago you said 
17      that economics are a part of this decision, and 
18      maybe 10 questions before him you said economics 
19      were not a part of this decision.  And I was just 
20      looking to see if you could actually give us a real 
21      answer on that.  
22                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Well, it is a factor.  In 
23      Super Fund we have what we call nine criteria.  
24      Those are -- the first two are criteria that any 
25      remedy that we select must meet.  One is it must be 

                                             55

 1      protective of human health and the environment.  
 2      Two, it must comply with all laws and regulations.  
 3      If it does not meet those two criteria, then we 
 4      don't consider it.  Either the dredging project or 
 5      the capping and dredging project, both of those meet 
 6      those criteria.
 7                Therefore, we go to the next seven 
 8      criteria, which are long-term effectiveness; 
 9      short-term effectiveness; implementability, that  
10      is, can you do it.  We look at we have a preference 
11      for treatment, and then we also look at 
12      cost-effectiveness.  We add all those together and 
13      then out of that blend we come up with a decision or 
14      a recommendation that tells us we think this is the 
15      right proposal.  It is one of those criteria.
16                By cost-effectiveness, what we mean is how 
17      does it compare relatively to the other rememdies.  
18      If all the things are being --
19                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  But it's uncertain, 
20      because you don't know if something is going to come 
21      along in the future to destroy those caps, if those 
22      caps do, indeed, work throughout the time period 
23      that you're looking for.  What if we have to redo 
24      them?  What if we have to get rid of them and dredge 
25      again?  That could be millions of more dollars.  And 

                                             56

 1      you don't even know where this money is going to be 
 2      coming from, whether it will be coming from 
 3      corporations or the people.  I think that doesn't 
 4      make any sense.  I'm sorry.  It just doesn't make 
 5      any sense.  
 6                MR. HAHNENBERG:  All the modeling 
 7      information, the engineering information, all these 
 8      other evaluations that we have done, the prop wash, 
 9      ice scour, biological effects, all those pieces of 
10      information inform us that these caps would be 
11      stable over the long term.  
12                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  But you don't know 
13      for sure, and dredging would get rid of it.  
14                MR. HAHNENBERG:  There is a hundred 
15      percent (speakers talking over each other), but that 
16      information tells us it would be stable.  So we 
17      believe those scientific and engineering 
18      evaluations, and it tells us it would work.  And 
19      that's what we base our -- we have to base our 
20      recommendation on the engineering and the science 
21      and the data, and that's what it is based on.  And, 
22      as I said before, all that information is laid out 
23      there in the record, and if people want to review 
24      that and decide for themselves, we welcome that 
25      input in terms of what you think.

                                             57

 1                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Before you said 
 2      that the PCB's that were more than fifty parts per 
 3      million go to one landfill, but if they are less 
 4      than 50 parts per million they go to another, even 
 5      though the concentrations are different in one set 
 6      of PCB's and less toxic in another.  So why do you 
 7      need different types of landfills for those?  
 8                MR. HAHNENBERG:  The higher concentrations 
 9      are more toxic, and that's what the regulation says.  
10      The regulation says 50 parts per million is a 
11      cut-off.  That was drafted years ago under the days 
12      of PCB regulation.  And so it says 50 parts per 
13      million goes to these different, more stringent 
14      landfills because they are considered more toxic.
15                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  So then there is a 
16      study that was done that shows a cut-off for 
17      toxicology?  
18                MR. HAHNENBERG:  Yes.  Well, that fifty 
19      parts per million number actually has a variety of 
20      reasons why that was come up with.  That was in the 
21      PCB regulation years ago.  It's not entirely 
22      protective, quite frankly.  There is a number of 
23      factors that went into that.  But that's the number 
24      that's in the regulation.
25                MR. ACKER:  Bill Acker, 3217 Nicolet 

                                             58

 1      Drive.  I'm an environmental coach here for the 
 2      Nicolet Drive Neighborhood Association.  I'm here to 
 3      object to this plan for one main reason, that there 
 4      is no money for the closure of Renard Island.  There 
 5      was in the original estimate, but that money has 
 6      been removed.  That money that was set in the 
 7      original budget went into there thanks to our county 
 8      being proactive and looking at this and knowing that 
 9      they needed money to properly close Renard Island.  
10      That money has now been cut.
11                As a result of that, the County is 
12      struggling to try to determine how to properly close 
13      it.  They have no money to properly close Renard.  
14      And we know from the current closure document that 
15      the current test revealed that the leakage out at 
16      Renard Island violates our state statutes.  If it 
17      violates our state statutes, the people who are 
18      currently looking at a lawsuit against Brown County 
19      and the Army Corps would most probably lose and the 
20      cost of properly closing Renard Island will fall on 
21      the backs of Brown County residents.  That's the 
22      main reason why I object to this plan, because there 
23      is no money for the proper closure.
24                Second of all, I would like to know with 
25      these different caps that you are looking at, what 

                                             59

 1      is the maximum velocity that these caps, that would 
 2      start to actually move these caps from in place, 
 3      putting stuff in place, what would actually move the 
 4      caps?  What kind of velocities would you need?  
 5                MR. HAHNENBERG:  I can't tell you the 
 6      exact velocity off the top of my head.  I would have 
 7      to look in the report. 
 8                MR. ACKER:  Could someone get an answer?  
 9                MR. HAHNENBERG:  We can find that for you, 
10      yes.
11                MS. PASTOR:  I think we will be done with 
12      questions, and it's 8:20 and I was shooting for 
13      8:15, so that's not bad.  So if we can move into the 
14      comment portion of the meeting, I think that's why 
15      many of you are here.  I don't know how many numbers 
16      we gave out.  I know the last count was in the 
17      thirties.  Do you have a count on that, Greg?  57, 
18      so we need to get the show on the road.
19                So, again, these are your comments in a 
20      statement form that if you can keep it to three 
21      minutes, I'm going to have someone kind of watching 
22      their watch and giving me a hi sign so that, in all 
23      fairness, everybody will get a chance to give your 
24      comment for the record.
25                So the court reporter is up here, and for 

                                             60

 1      this we do need your name spelled.  And if you are 
 2      with a particular organization or governmental 
 3      entity, we would like to know that, too.  And I've 
 4      asked the court reporter to say she didn't catch 
 5      your name or to spell it so that she can get that 
 6      correct.  So don't be offended if she interrupts you 
 7      and stops you.
 8                So not questions, statements.  And you can 
 9      criticize, you can compliment, you can agree, you 
10      can disagree, you can do whatever you want to.  So 
11      who's got number one?  Come on down.
12                MR. JADIN:  My name is Paul Jadin, 2847 
13      Lobelia Court in Green Bay.  And I'm here 
14      representing the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, but 
15      I also want to point out that I also was the mayor 
16      in 1995 to 2003.  And I make that point because this 
17      was an issue when I took office in 1995 and it was 
18      an issue when I left office in 2003.  And I would 
19      like for it not to be an issue when I leave the 
20      Chamber of Commerce or perhaps even die in Green 
21      Bay.
22                So, having said that, first of all, I  
23      also want to commend you for being here tonight and 
24      for the diplomacy you have shown to this point.  
25      But, having said that, I think it's important for 

                                             61

 1      everyone to appreciate that this is, I believe, the 
 2      first real opportunity we have had to see something 
 3      done on the Fox River in the last at least decade.  
 4      And I think that when I left office the primary 
 5      message I was sending to the EPA and the DNR was 
 6      please base your remedy on sound science.  And I was 
 7      delighted that just not more than two hours ago I 
 8      left a meeting with the Governor in which he was 
 9      echoing that very same sentiment.
10                I think that you have shown that you have 
11      applied sound science to this whole effort.  I'm 
12      seeing that there is collaboration, there is 
13      compromise, and, indeed, a scientific solution.  And 
14      that's evidenced in not just the efforts of the DNA 
15      and the EPA, but also the various engineering firms 
16      that you have brought into the process.  I believe 
17      that you have come up with a more efficient 
18      proposal, and, as I stated, I want to refer to the 
19      document, the table that you put together showing 
20      the comparison.
21                OU-3 has an estimated PCB concentration 
22      after remediation of .31 to .57 parts per million 
23      under the current plan.  Under the proposed plan it 
24      goes to .28 to .49.  OU-4 goes from .32 to .37 down 
25      to .25 to 2.9.  That obviously is a more efficient 

                                             62

 1      way to do things.
 2                The second thing that's very critical in 
 3      my opinion is, as I watched these various hearings 
 4      over the years, particularly the most recent one 
 5      that dealt with the west side landfill, it's become 
 6      quite apparent that, whatever happens, there is 
 7      still going to be conflict with respect to 
 8      landfilling these sediments.  And this is a solution 
 9      that I think obviates some of that controversy, that 
10      dialogue, because of the pipeline situation, because 
11      of the lower amounts of sediment that have to be 
12      landfilled.
13                And, while it came up several times during 
14      the questions, I think it's important to reemphasize 
15      the cost situation.  We have gone from a $334 
16      million plan to a $395 million plan, which arguably 
17      was going to be a $580 million plan.  Obviously, we 
18      can't discount the whole issue of what this is going 
19      to do to one of our larger employers or several of 
20      our larger employers in the area.
21                Ultimately, the only question that remains 
22      here is:  Is capping sound science?  I have not seen 
23      any evidence to the contrary.  I have researched it 
24      thoroughly, as most of the people here have, and I'm 
25      satisfied that the way you've engineered this and 

                                             63

 1      the way you are going to monitor it and maintain it 
 2      does give us the ability to be assured that either 
 3      it's going to do the job short-term and long-term or 
 4      there is going to be a mid-term remedy that you are 
 5      going to be able to bring to the table to resolve 
 6      that.  So I'm here to tell you that I'm in support 
 7      of this remedy and I thank you for your efforts.
 8                MS. PASTOR:  Number two.  Keep your 
 9      comments to like around three minutes.  I have 
10      someone kind of watching so that we can keep it 
11      going, so please.  
12                MR. ANDERSEN:  My name is Curt Andersen.  
13      That's Curt with a C-u-r-t, A-n-d-e-r-s-e-n, 2942 
14      Jack Pine Lane, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and that's 
15      actually a Suamico address.
16                In the spirit of the secret meetings that 
17      were held over the last few years without all 
18      parties being represented, I want to tell everybody 
19      here that my wife and I have had several secret 
20      meetings to determine the actual cost for cleaning 
21      up the pollution left by some bad actor paper mills.  
22      The actual costs involved removing Renard Island, 
23      that's a toxic pile of crap dumped into the bay and 
24      a recreation area by sissy politicians, bad public 
25      policy, and several large gorilla corporations that 

                                             64

 1      know how to both reward and threaten.  The actual 
 2      costs include dredging the entire southern end of 
 3      Green Bay and removing the spoils to a proper 
 4      landfill.  And oh, look there on the stream, there 
 5      is a branch in the water.  I wonder if a whole tree 
 6      would fall in and roll around back and forth a few 
 7      times and punch that stupid cap up.
 8                The actual costs involve lost economics 
 9      from a clean river, healthy tourism in Brown County, 
10      a one hundred year lack of demand for river lots 
11      that only changed since the clean-up plans were 
12      announced, and a thriving commercial fishing 
13      industry on the river bay of Lake Michigan.  
14      Monitoring for a hundred years is imperative so the 
15      citizens can be sure that dredging has been properly 
16      executed and public safety assured.  I do not trust 
17      the Army Corps of Engineers, since they are also the 
18      ones that have been monitoring Kitty Island.
19                A cost settlement lower than conservative 
20      cost determinations is ass backwards.  It costs what 
21      it costs to do a clean-up.  This is not a vegetable 
22      fall in the Punjab.  We do not barter here.  Capping 
23      is an idiotic measure and indicates the level of 
24      corruption we have in our city, state, county, and 
25      federal governments from the top down.  What we have 

                                             65

 1      in Green Bay and in the river is due to corruption 
 2      headed by former Governor Tommy Thompson, current 
 3      Governor Jim Doyle, and the ultimately corrupt 
 4      President George Bush, who have weakened DNR and EPA 
 5      so that they are only convenient names for public 
 6      relations actions.
 7                Based on these points, my wife and I have 
 8      determined that the new costs of cleaning the river 
 9      and bay with toxic dredge spoils being removed 
10      likely to Detroit is $4.75 billion.  All of you can 
11      go home now, because we have decided this, it's 
12      done.  That's the new cost, and we have decided that 
13      a further wasting of time by the paper industry, 
14      they should be penalized at the rate of $50,000 a 
15      day per paper mill.  So time is a wasting, you paper 
16      mills.  Start writing those checks.  Get on with it.
17                MS. PASTOR:  Number three.
18                MS. GARRELS:  My name is Josie Garrels, 
19      G-a-r-r-e-l-s, and I live at 219 13th Avenue in 
20      Green Bay.  I first want to thank you for the 
21      opportunity to comment.  I'm a resident in Green Bay 
22      and so I'm speaking as a resident, but I'm also 
23      speaking on behalf of the Wisconsin League of 
24      Conservation Voters, which is a nonprofit and 
25      non-partisan organization that works for (inaudible) 

                                             66

 1      public health and natural resources here in 
 2      Wisconsin.
 3                I've lived in central Wisconsin all my 
 4      life, but until I moved to Green Bay about a year 
 5      and a half ago I don't know if I could have even 
 6      told you where the Fox River was, let alone the 
 7      detailed history of PCB contamination in the river 
 8      or the saga of the clean-up efforts.  And I 
 9      deliberately use the word "saga", because the people 
10      in this community and others have struggled for 
11      years to make the river swimable and fishable again 
12      and to ask corporations to be responsible for their 
13      hazardous waste.
14                Decades have passed with PCB's being 
15      dumped into the river and then toxicity was brought 
16      to light, and then all the studies, public comment 
17      periods, hearings, and meetings were conducted.  And 
18      all the while the contamination sat there at the 
19      bottom of the Fox River, being absorbed by all the 
20      organisms, accumulating in the fish we eat, and 
21      affecting our health in measurable and immeasurable 
22      ways.
23                By the time we determined that the best 
24      solution (inaudible) required removal of the toxins, 
25      the parties involved signed a record of decision and 

                                             67

 1      the people of Green Bay and other cities along the 
 2      Fox River finally gained some peace of mind.  But 
 3      today we find the contamination issue is being 
 4      revisited to allow the (inaudible).  To reopen the 
 5      record of decision because it's costing too much to 
 6      clean up the toxic mess they left behind in the 
 7      pursuit of profit is a slap in the face to citizens 
 8      who stopped fishing in the Fox River, to the parents 
 9      who do not let their children splash on the shore, 
10      and to the city for trying to overcome the stigma of 
11      a toxic waste site.  Backing down from the original 
12      well researched clean-up plan does not provide the 
13      same level of protection for public health and 
14      natural resources.
15                We would like to ask you to:  One, uphold 
16      the original record of decision; two, clean up, not 
17      cover up the PCB's in the Fox River; and, three, 
18      make sure liable pollutors bear responsibility and 
19      pay to clean up their toxic mess.  Green Bay and Fox 
20      Valley residents in this whole area (inaudible) 
21      water and our future.  So, as you think about the 
22      kind of gifts you want to give your children this 
23      holiday season, I would like you to ask yourselves 
24      if you would like to be giving them a toxic mess.  
25      And thank you for the opportunity to comment.

                                             68

 1                MS. PASTOR:  Number four.
 2                MS. DIAZ:  My name is Kim Diaz, D-i-a-z, 
 3      and I live at 13th Avenue here in Green Bay, a 
 4      couple of blocks away from the Fox River, and I am 
 5      just representing myself.  And I just wanted to make 
 6      a comment that I feel like we are cleaning up the 
 7      Fox River now, and that's good.  It's about time.  
 8      And I think that we should do a good job and not do 
 9      half measures and just cover it up.  I think we 
10      should stick with the original plan to clean it and 
11      not do the capping, because the river runs and it's 
12      going to run out into the bay and then it's going to 
13      run into Lake Michigan.  We don't have a lot of 
14      fresh water in this world.  We need to protect that.  
15      And I wanted to say also that we should take care of 
16      this problem because we are responsible for it and 
17      not leave it for our grandchildren.
18                MS. PASTOR:  Thank you.  Number five.
19                MR. HOWLETT:  My name is George Howlett, 
20      environmental scientist living at 422 Koynee 
21      (phonetic) Street in Seymour, Wisconsin.  I began 
22      life on the Fox River in Green Bay when I was a baby 
23      at three months old in a sailboat.  I am a 
24      researcher who did work starting in 1968, both for 
25      my dissertation research on the west shore and for 

                                             69

 1      the sea grant program under Dr. Sager and Doctors 
 2      Wierzma (phonetic).  I have a formal statement being 
 3      submitted.  It's very, very technical.  Before I go 
 4      any further, I want to say Jim, you did a very good 
 5      job of explaining it to me.  I understand fully.  I 
 6      fully support the proposal.  (inaudible) for 
 7      scientific engineering reasons.
 8                I am in part an algologist and a 
 9      hydrologist.  I understand why the cap, the armored 
10      cap works, and I want to present some information on 
11      why algae are part of the situation and why the 
12      capping will stop the movement of PCB's to the bay 
13      and eventually to Lake Michigan.
14                Before we go any further, I have a most 
15      recent book, 2006, showing that the PCB's, in fact, 
16      are beginning to bioremediate bacterial action, 
17      bioremedial compounds.  They have been proven to be 
18      doing so in the Hudson River, the Milwaukee River, 
19      the Sheboygan River, and there is every sign that 
20      it's happening here in the Fox River.  I want to go 
21      on to the main part, and that is some quoting from 
22      my paper.
23                First of all, yesterday I had a 
24      conversation with Steven Westerbrook, USGS scientist 
25      now assigned to the project for the PCB's at 

                                             70

 1      Madison, and he replaces Eric Stollers (phonetic), 
 2      who was doing the PCB work, and I am reporting back 
 3      out of things that I saw in Eric Fitzgerald's paper, 
 4      that the algae are the principal carriers of PCB's 
 5      to the river.  The main thing to do is to stop that 
 6      transfer.  And I will explain a little bit here.
 7                First of all, the algae that are the ones 
 8      that are carrying it are principally cyanobacteria, 
 9      which means they are bluegreen algae.  The 
10      cyanobacteria are gram negative.  I don't know if 
11      anybody here has any background in bacteriology, but 
12      the gram negative have an external membrane which is 
13      a saccharide but it's also a lipid, 
14      lipopolysaccharide.  And the reason I say that is 
15      because that shell makes contact in the bottom when 
16      the bottom is exposed, exposed because it's a 
17      sediment.
18                The algae also have gas vacuoles.  They 
19      sink into the bottom, pick up phosphate, and in the 
20      process contact and also come in contact with other 
21      gram negative bacteria which decomposes.  So it's a 
22      mix of decomposed bacteria and cyanobacteria that 
23      are contacting the bottom.  This bottom then is 
24      giving them the PCB's, because both are nonpolar 
25      rather than polar materials.  The PCB is of a 

                                             71

 1      variety of polarities of 209 containers, but most of 
 2      them are very water insoluble and very lipid 
 3      soluble.  And so they pass to the bacteria and the 
 4      cyanobacteria, which rise again because of their gas 
 5      vacuoles and carry this until the next time that 
 6      they fall down.
 7                And this is a reservoir, it is not a 
 8      river.  It's very important to understand the 
 9      hydrology of this system, because the flows in the 
10      river from the bottom only at the time when the 
11      tainter gates are open during flood stage.  
12      Otherwise, all those are over the top because that 
13      flow that goes into the paper mills for power and to 
14      the power generated rapid crush, those have to have 
15      fall.  You don't get power without fall.
16                MS. PASTOR:  We need you to wrap up.  
17                MR. HOWLETT:  Okay.  The principal point 
18      is that it is the algae that are the carriers, and 
19      the mechanisms of the algae and the paper will 
20      explain more.  And one thing that I can add that was 
21      found this morning when I looked at my bacteriology 
22      manual was that point on the polysaccharides and the 
23      lipid A.  Lipid A plus slimes, and I'll mention plus 
24      the slimes.  And vanderwall forces.  Vanderwall 
25      forces are doing all the work.

                                             72

 1                MS. PASTOR:  Number six.
 2                MS. KATERS:  My name is Rebecca Katers.  
 3      I'm the Associate Director of the Clean Water Action 
 4      Council.  My address is 2484 Manitowoc Road in Green 
 5      Bay.  The Clean Water Action Council absolutely 
 6      opposes this plan.  We are not happy with the last 
 7      plan because of the weaknesses that were inserted in 
 8      that one.  But this plan goes far beyond what is 
 9      acceptable.  We cannot support it.  We are going to 
10      be submitting technical comments, but I wanted to 
11      devote my three minutes to talk about the processes, 
12      because I think the process is the most disturbing 
13      to me.
14                I have worked on this issue for 20 years 
15      now on and off as part of the official planning 
16      process and then the unofficial planning process.   
17      I was part of the original Remedial Action Plan 
18      Committee.  But the last three-and-a-half years have 
19      been entirely closed-door secret meetings between 
20      the corporations and agencies.  Completely 
21      imbalanced.  You talk about science.  Why were you 
22      not willing to allow our experts to be present to 
23      participate in those meetings or even to observe 
24      those meetings?  They were shut.  The doors were 
25      shut.  You and the corporations getting together and 

                                             73

 1      discussing all the details at length, without any 
 2      public input or even observation.  That is 
 3      corruption.
 4                And you come here talking about science.  
 5      You give us three minutes.  Industry has had access 
 6      to you people for three-and-a-half years.  You give 
 7      us three minutes to comment on it.  We have a 
 8      document this thick (indicating), but you give us 
 9      three minutes to comment on it.  That's an outrage.
10                Other things have been happening.  You 
11      pick the busiest season of the year, of course.  
12      It's finals for students, it's holiday for adults.  
13      It's the same night as the Green Bay City Council.  
14      Our aldermen should be here, our mayor should be 
15      here.  Don't you people check the schedules?  
16      Governor Doyle planned his Town Hall meeting tonight 
17      just a couple hours ago.  Is that deliberate?  An 
18      effort to waylay the media and dominate the media 
19      coverage tonight so that the public doesn't hear 
20      what happened here?
21                You only made seven copies of the Basis of 
22      Design Report for the public.  We got a copy because 
23      we are the technical advisory grant group, but we 
24      had to send it to Virginia where our expert is.  You 
25      claim you mailed a copy, a second copy, but Fed Ex 

                                             74

 1      lost it, and you refused to file a claim and get us 
 2      another copy.  I'm sorry, but the corporations 
 3      should be paying for anybody to get a copy of these 
 4      documents well in advance so we have time to review 
 5      them.  They are very thick, they are they technical.  
 6      You are talking about science, this is science 
 7      based.  Well, let us have a chance to look at the 
 8      science and have a document to look at.  You cannot 
 9      study this material on line, you can't look at a 
10      disk and go through hundreds of pages of technical 
11      jargon on a computer screen at the same ability that 
12      you have with a paper document.  It is simply not 
13      possible, especially when you don't number the pages 
14      accurately and you are referring to diagrams and 
15      tables that are misnumbered.  Try to do that on a 
16      disk on your computer, sort your way through it.
17                And why did the DNR not have their website 
18      updated?  And why couldn't people open the documents 
19      on your website for months on end?  You have the 
20      wrong contact named, you had two-year outdated 
21      information on who to contact at DNR.  You had your 
22      statement there that there were no public meetings 
23      planned.  Finally you put a little box in the corner 
24      of your Fox River page that says that there is a 
25      public hearing tonight.  Kind of late.  I have been 

                                             75

 1      checking the website.  You are not providing the 
 2      information.  There are no news releases posted, 
 3      there was no meeting posted until just recently,  
 4      and people couldn't open the documents to even study 
 5      them.  You talk about a public involvement plan.  
 6      This is a lousy excuse for it.  But industry had 
 7      access to you people for three-and-a-half years on 
 8      this.  
 9                MS. PASTOR:  Number seven.  State your 
10      name for the record.  
11                MR. HICKS:  My name is George Hicks, and  
12      I represent the design team of Shaw Environmental 
13      and Anger Environmental.  We are actually doing this 
14      project of remedial design on behalf of Georgia 
15      Pacific and NCR and under the watchful eye of EPA 
16      and DNR.  We are designing the largest environmental 
17      dredging project in the United States, if not the 
18      world.  This project is based on sampling, on 
19      analysis that's been done over the last three years.  
20      We have 1400 locations as opposed to 400.  We have 
21      10,000 samples that we have analyzed over the last 
22      three years.
23                And, by analyzing these samples, we have 
24      determined differences in the river than there were 
25      previously thought of.  There is different 

                                             76

 1      concentrations, there is different areas.  We talked 
 2      about earlier tonight there are areas of higher 
 3      concentrations that weren't discovered before down 
 4      below the DePere dam.  We are addressing those next 
 5      year.  They are being dredged by the paper companies 
 6      next year.
 7                All this work has given us a much, much 
 8      clearer picture, and I think there is -- some of the 
 9      other aspects should be that there are deeply buried 
10      material is cleaner, there is deeply buried 
11      contaminated material is cleaner (inaudible) that 
12      lend themselves to capping.  There is a thin layer 
13      of material that is barely over the 1 ppm RAL that 
14      lends themselves to capping.
15                This summer we submitted the report, BODR, 
16      Basis of Design Report, recommending remedial 
17      approaches to each of the areas that we found during 
18      our studies.  Our report received intense scrutiny 
19      from DNR, EPA, their experts, and national engineers 
20      and scientists from throughout the United States.  
21      The DNR and EPA ultimately approved the report, and 
22      now we are proposing and they are now proposing to 
23      update this clean-up plan in light of the new 
24      information provided within this report.
25                The core idea of the proposed remedy is to 

                                             77

 1      tailor the clean-up to different parts of the river 
 2      using different remedies, be it dredging, dredging 
 3      and cap, capping by itself.  Dredging these areas 
 4      would still remove 74 percent of the PCB mass from 
 5      the river that the ROD remedy would have also 
 6      removed.  At the same time, the dredging would be 
 7      more focusing in the areas of higher PCB 
 8      concentration so that millions of cubic yards of 
 9      sediment containing one ppm or less doesn't go into 
10      Wisconsin landfills.  This allows the proposed 
11      remedy to achieve an environmental target of an ROD 
12      about half the size of the original, or nine years 
13      versus 15 plus, all the way up to 24 years.
14                The proposed remedy applies capping where 
15      the petula (phonetic) is better suited than dredging 
16      to address particular areas of the river, 
17      specifically in areas where dredging would be 
18      harmful to the shoreline, to existing bulkheads, to 
19      piers, utilities.  This will insure that we don't 
20      undermine docks or public or private facilities.
21                The proposed remedy still follows the one 
22      ppm action level the agency set forth for this 
23      project.  In the proposed remedy every spot in the 
24      river that's over one ppm will be addressed, either 
25      through dredging or capping.  Importantly, the 

                                             78

 1      proposed remedy achieves a lower average surface 
 2      concentration than the original ROD remedy.
 3                And then I want to emphasize that the 
 4      proposed combination of dredging and engineered 
 5      capping is a permanent remedy for the PCB in 
 6      sediments.  We are using basic engineering 
 7      principles, governmental guidance set by the EPA, 
 8      and a large margin of safety to design these caps so 
 9      they can withstand the forces three times the 
10      highest flows recorded in the river.  That is, these 
11      caps are designed to withstand all plausible 
12      combinations of ice scour, low flow, severe storms, 
13      winds, floods, and boat traffic.
14                The proposed remedy will enable the river 
15      to recover faster than the original remedy, the 
16      clean-up will take half the time, and will leave 
17      lower surface PCB concentrations in less time as 
18      well as fast removal of the fish consumption 
19      advisories.  This combination of dredging and 
20      capping will also make the clean-up much more 
21      cost-effective.
22                As closing, I want to say we are proud to 
23      be doing this vital remedial action, remedial 
24      design, and that the Fox River will still be the 
25      largest dredging project ever conducted by tailoring 

                                             79

 1      the remedial technologies to localized sediment 
 2      conditions.  Thank you.
 3                MS. PASTOR:  Number eight.
 4                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  My name is Zalman T. 
 5      Sapperstein.  I live at 3155 Gibraltor Road in Fish 
 6      Creek, although I lived in California, Los Angeles, 
 7      from 1931 till about 1965.  I'm an old fart.
 8                First of all, I'm going to make three 
 9      statements.  This plan is wrong.  I say that as a 
10      research engineer, going for my doctorate when I was 
11      drafted into the Korean War.  I worked in 
12      engineering research my whole life.  My fields 
13      included material turbulence flow, mass flow, heat 
14      transfer, structures, and on.  I'm a Fellow of the 
15      American Society of Metals.  And, just to give 
16      another bit, I am also a member of the (inaudible) 
17      Research Society, American (inaudible) Research 
18      Society of the United States of America.  And I ask 
19      all of you to become a water warrior.  Demand safe 
20      water now.
21                I now would like to read from a sheet that 
22      I took out today.  Last revised Tuesday, November 
23      21, 2006.  Okay?  Three weeks ago maybe.  This is  
24      on the www.dnrstate.wius/org_water_wn/foxriver/ 
25      happyhtml.  I can give you that later.

                                             80

 1                Depending on the erosive forces present at 
 2      the site an in situ cap may have to be armored with 
 3      stone or other materials to keep the cap intact.  
 4      The potential for large commercial vessels to scour 
 5      the river bottom would necessitate a very large 
 6      armor stone, making in situ capping difficult in an 
 7      area most active navigation channel.
 8                The active navigation channel in the Fox 
 9      River extends from Green Bay upstream to the turning 
10      basin at Fort James Paper Corporation.  The 
11      federally authorized navigation channel extends from 
12      Green Bay to the outlet of Lake Winnebego.  Goes on 
13      to say, "November 21, 2006, besides capping, other 
14      in situ approaches to managing contaminated 
15      sediments exist."  And then it goes on to say, "In 
16      situ caps may further reduce water depths to levels 
17      that are not safe for existing or planned 
18      recreational boating or may eliminate shallow water 
19      aquatic habitat.  Construction of an in situ cap 
20      represents a deliberate change to the shape of the 
21      bottom of a waterway.  Future human and ecological 
22      uses of the waterway may be limited by this change.  
23      Sites that are capped require perpetual maintenance, 
24      and there is always the risk that the cap could 
25      erode from flooding, aquatic organisms, stream bank 

                                             81

 1      erosion, navigation, and recreational forces."
 2                MS. PASTOR:  You'd better wrap up.
 3                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  Ma'am, this other 
 4      gentlemen took five minutes and I have taken less 
 5      than three, and I think you are unfair.  You are 
 6      biasing this one way.  And I think I should be 
 7      allowed at least two more minutes.
 8                MS. PASTOR:  Two more minutes and then we 
 9      have 40 more people.  
10                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  Fine.  I understand.  
11      But we have been listening to a lot of deception.
12                The most recent research done by Alcoa 
13      shows that the capping methods that they studied in 
14      2004 were subject to ice erosion and ice shoves.  Do 
15      you want that?  Of course, ice doesn't exist in the 
16      Fox River or in Green Bay.  And, in fact, the PCB 
17      levels went up in the sediment rather than went 
18      down.  Now, wait a minute, let me -- you gave him 
19      much time.  I'm going to read one other thing.
20                Those of you who are for this, this is a 
21      staged affair.  I want to say one other -- I have 
22      questions that I will ask, then ask one final -- 
23      it's not a question to be answered.  Why do the 
24      paper companies in Wisconsin use PCB's in the 
25      manufacture of products for more than 25 years 

                                             82

 1      beginning in 1954 when they knew that the wastewater 
 2      discharges would contaminated the water?  Why did 
 3      the use of existing stocks of PCB's continue after 
 4      production of PCB's was banned in the U.S. in 1979?  
 5      Why did the political administrations in Wisconsin 
 6      of Thompson, McCullum, and Doyle, and the elected 
 7      Assemblymen and Senators over the last 30 years 
 8      allow PCB contamination's persistence after the 
 9      production ban?  Why do paper companies continue to 
10      use this deadly chemical even after production was 
11      banned?  Why does PCB contamination remain in 
12      northeastern Wisconsin after more than 17 years has 
13      lapsed since our elected Wisconsin government 
14      officials in the Thompson administration and paper 
15      industry executives agree to a comprehensive PCB 
16      removal plan?  
17                MS. PASTOR:  Sir, we need to move on.
18                MR. SAPPERSTEIN:  And I strongly urge 
19      everyone here to stand up and oppose this farcical 
20      remedy that is done strictly for economic reasons to 
21      benefit the corporations and the government.  
22                MS. PASTOR:  Number nine.
23                MR. WOLFF:  My name is Kelly Wolff.  
24      K-e-l-l-y, W-o-l-f-f, and I'm here wearing two hats 
25      tonight.  The first one is Vice-President of 

                                             83

 1      Operations for Georgia Pacific here in Green Bay, 
 2      and the second and more important is as a citizen of 
 3      this community, long-term community citizen.  My 
 4      wife and I raised our family here, and are very 
 5      concerned about this (indicating).
 6                I want to applaud the Agency for this 
 7      plan.  This is a very good plan, and we should be 
 8      very excited about our ability to move forward based 
 9      on sound science.  Thousands of hours of engineering 
10      studies have gone into this.  I personally have 
11      asked all of the questions that you folks have asked 
12      here tonight and applaud all of you for asking those 
13      questions.  As a steward of a company, I have the 
14      responsibility of making sure anytime we spend large 
15      sums of money in investments that we know that we 
16      are going to get the result.  This plan achieves 
17      that result.
18                So, if you look at the multi-faceted plan 
19      that you put together, with dredging, capping, the 
20      combination of the two, it's going to insure that we 
21      have the best plan.  It's quicker, it achieves it in 
22      half the time.  And the capping really does separate 
23      the organisms, so we are going to get a much quicker 
24      effect in the river, less PCB's in the river.  So 
25      it's a good plan, again.

                                             84

 1                I'm going to be very brief.  I know there 
 2      is a lot of other people who would like to talk.  
 3      but, again, for both of my hats, this comprehensive 
 4      plan that you have put together meets the needs, and 
 5      we need to support it.  Thank you.  
 6                MS. PASTOR:  Number ten.
 7                MR. GARARDI:  My name is Don Garardi.  I 
 8      live at 6590 Aspen Drive.  Last name, G-a-r-a-r-d-i.  
 9      I've lived and worked in Green Bay for ten years.  
10      I'm also an avid sailor, member of Windjammer 
11      Sailing Club.  Love the South Bay, think South Bay 
12      Fox River a very valuable resource.  Studied the 
13      plan.  I think it's a very good plan.  I think it's 
14      the best chance we have of seeing this river 
15      restored in our lifetimes and would like to see it 
16      move forward.  Thank you.
17                MS. PASTOR:  Eleven.  
18                MR. FRISK:  Charles Frisk, 3560 Sunrise 
19      Circle, Green Bay, Wisconsin.  I'm also speaking on 
20      behalf of the Northeast Wisconsin Autobon.  I'm not 
21      an engineer or anything like that, but I am a person 
22      who spent a lot of my whole life messing around on 
23      rivers, fishing, swimming, canoeing, and so on.  I 
24      can tell you that you can have a river completely 
25      memorized, where the deep holes are, where the 

                                             85

 1      shallow holes are, where the ripples are, and if you 
 2      stay away from that river for ten years and come 
 3      back, it's not the same river.  It doesn't need a 
 4      hundred-year flood, it doesn't need a 200-year 
 5      flood.  Rivers move sediments around.  They move 
 6      huge sediments around.  They move giant boulders 
 7      around.  The idea that you can put sediment down on 
 8      top of other sediment and expect it to stay there, 
 9      because that's all this is, you are putting sediment 
10      on sediment, that stuff moves around.
11                The DNR did a huge dredging project up in 
12      the Wolf River a few years ago to make deeper holes 
13      for trout fishing.  They were just impressive as all 
14      get out for the first season.  Two years later, it's 
15      all gone back to kind of the way it was before.  
16      Rivers have the places where they put the things.  
17      They cut material out, they move it.
18                Some of these caps will stay in place.  
19      Some of the caps may actually get buried under more 
20      sediment.  But some of the caps are going to get 
21      eroded completely away.  Anybody that's spent a lot 
22      of time on rivers knows that you can't put sediment 
23      down and expect it to stay in place.  It's just a 
24      common sense thing.  We are going to get one real 
25      good chance to clean up this river, and I don't 

                                             86

 1      think that this is the way to do it, because this 
 2      isn't going to stay in place.  Thank you.
 3                MS. PASTOR:  Number twelve.
 4                MS. SCHAEFER:  I'm Patty Bernard Schaefer 
 5      from the Fox Valley Sierra group, and I am 
 6      disappointed to be here tonight. I have been 
 7      attending these meetings and hearings for many 
 8      years.  I was at the June 23 meeting for the record 
 9      of decision, and I remember pointing out at that 
10      meeting a very large loophole in the record of 
11      decision, a loophole that's too big to close and 
12      much too big to cap.  That loophole is letting the 
13      DNR and the EPA change their plan based solely on 
14      economic interests rather than on human health 
15      interest.  The DNR and the EPA should be doing a 
16      river clean-up, not a river cover-up.
17                Capping is not the permanent solution to 
18      the problem facing us.  The PCB's in the Fox River 
19      need to be removed from the river and they need to 
20      be treated and destroyed effectively and disposed of 
21      in a fashion that protects human health.  Removal 
22      and destruction of the PCB-contaminated sediments 
23      should be the goal of the clean-up, not just 
24      covering up those sediments.
25                If the DNR and the EPA do insist on 

                                             87

 1      capping parts of the river, then liability must go 
 2      along with the cap.  Covering up does not destroy 
 3      the PCB's.  Covering up does not dissolve liability 
 4      for the PCB's either.  I support removal and 
 5      destruction of the PCB's, not covering them up.  I 
 6      support a permanent, not a temporary, solution.
 7                MS. PASTOR:  Thirteen.
 8                MR. KRANING:  My name is a Lawrence 
 9      Kraning.  I live in Little Suamico.  The Weeping 
10      Willow up here is an apt symbol for the EPA and its 
11      statistics and generalities presented tonight.  This 
12      is not a clean-up.  This is a cover-up which was 
13      presented to you.  We have had 30 years of cover-up 
14      on this river.  Relying on statistics from other 
15      industry self-monitoring studies is absolutely a 
16      farce.  How much common sense has gone into your 
17      statistics and the analyzing of them?  You need to 
18      change your name.  You need to change your initials 
19      to POP, pawn of the paper companies.
20                The paper companies put it in there.  They 
21      put the PCB's in there knowingly, they covered it up 
22      knowingly.  Let them get it out knowingly.  Too bad 
23      that there's got to be a little cave-in of the 
24      riverfront, okay, the shoreline.  Too bad you got to 
25      go around some pipes, too bad you got to go around 

                                             88

 1      some docks.  Isn't the health and welfare of the 
 2      citizens of this state worth it?  What do we care 
 3      whether it costs this much or that much?  Are you 
 4      going to do your job responsibly or not?  As far as 
 5      I am concerned, the EPA is a wasteland.
 6                We faced a terrible environmental problem 
 7      a few years ago with the Exxon Crandon mine, and 
 8      over 60 organizations got together to defeat it.  
 9      And, if necessary, those same organizations are 
10      going to get up and we are going to clean up the Fox 
11      River.  The same delaying tactics are going on on 
12      the Hudson River with GE.  We are not going to put 
13      up with it.  Perhaps what we need to do is hit the 
14      paper companies where it really hurts, their bottom 
15      line.  Maybe we should call a worldwide boycott on 
16      all their manufactured products.  We are tired of 
17      this.  This is serious business to the people that 
18      live in this community.  Thank you.
19                MS. PASTOR:  Fourteen.
20                MS. SKVARA:  Thank you for listening to me 
21      tonight.  My name is Carolyn Skvara, S-k-v-a-r-a. I 
22      live in Arapaho Trail in Hobart.  My voice is a 
23      small one, but I would like to share a small portion 
24      of information with you.  My husband was a 
25      scientist.  His firm was Scientific Ecology Group in 

                                             89

 1      Oakridge, Tennessee.  He invented a process which 
 2      handled nuclear waste as well as PCB's, et cetera.  
 3      He also did a great deal of work in Europe and was 
 4      responsible for the clean-up of two major rivers 
 5      which find their way into the ocean.  It was his 
 6      dream to clean up these areas which are on tonight's 
 7      agenda.  Unfortunately, he died before he could 
 8      accomplish this.  He had associations with the EPA, 
 9      DNR, the Nuclear Regulatory Association, et cetera.  
10      He discussed his dream with me, and I have committed 
11      this to memory.  I am thankful to be here, because 
12      his cause has become my passion and my heart's 
13      desire, and I really want to finish this for him.
14                As it's been stated, we are here tonight 
15      because the lower Fox river project involves a 
16      clean-up of sediment contaminated with PCB's and 
17      other things, as well as restoring the natural 
18      resources which have been destroyed and damaged.  
19      Time is of the essence with PCB clean-up, and, even 
20      though dredging is expensive and people believe that 
21      there are areas which cannot be reached, I need to 
22      say this simply.  How can we define success?  How 
23      can we place a dollar amount on success?
24                Don proposed to dredge, then burn in a 
25      portable incinerator, which will reduce the volume 

                                             90

 1      by over one-half.  It can then be transported per 
 2      rail car to Nevada or Utah, which has toxic burial 
 3      waste, and they will accept this.  Vegetation can 
 4      then be planted to further help our cause.
 5                We need to do this for ourselves and for 
 6      those who follow us.  I pray that through mutual 
 7      respect, understanding, and action, we will come 
 8      together and turn this into a wonderful plan of 
 9      action.  If I have offended anyone, I do apologize, 
10      but I do truly know this is a correct and vital 
11      plan.  Don would love it.  I know I am not in 
12      control, but I hope this committee will be receptive 
13      to hearing and seriously considering my solution.  
14      Thank you.
15                MS. PASTOR:  Fifteen.  
16                MR. HARKNESS:  Good evening.  My name is 
17      Larry Harkness, 5908 Moonflower Drive in Appleton.  
18      I speak to you as an avid fisherman.  I've fished 
19      the Fox River for more than 29 years and know 
20      literally every bend of that river very well.
21                I support this project for three reasons.  
22      One, it's sound scientifically, its methodologies 
23      have been used elsewhere and are proven.  Two, the 
24      capping process places cobble on top that provides 
25      for an ecosystem which is very conducive to game 

                                             91

 1      fish, and it's been proven that in less than two 
 2      years the game fish population can increase 
 3      dramatically.  Third, it provides for timely 
 4      remediation, and I would like to see that happen in 
 5      my lifetime.  Thank you.
 6                MS. PASTOR:  Sixteen.
 7                MS. FOSSEN-RADES:  Good evening.  My name 
 8      is Christine Fossen-Rades.  Not only am I on the 
 9      Board of Directors for the Clean Water Action 
10      Council, but I also teach biology and environmental 
11      science at East DePere, although this evening I'm 
12      not wearing either of those hats.  I'm wearing my 
13      newest hat, which is mommy.  I have two toddlers at 
14      home, and to know that -- to think that we have a 
15      toxic waste dump in our back yard and we are just 
16      going to throw gravel and dirt and sand and then to 
17      knowingly let our children play in and around that 
18      toxic waste dump to me is unfathomable.  I do not 
19      have any other way to put it than that.  It is 
20      completely unacceptable to pass this on to our 
21      children and to our children's children, because by 
22      not removing, that is what we are doing.  The caps 
23      cannot theoretically last forever.  The PCB's will 
24      still be there and we are just passing this dilemma 
25      on to our children, and that cannot happen.

                                             92

 1                MS. PASTOR:  Seventeen.
 2                MR. GRAVES:  My name is Ken Graves, 3131 
 3      Westview Road in Green Bay.  I was born and raised 
 4      in this area, I raised my family in this area, and 
 5      throughout my whole life.  I went to school at UWGB 
 6      and got my degree in science and environmental 
 7      change, so I'm well vested in this area and have a 
 8      lot of experience.  I'm also Environmental Program 
 9      Manager at Georgia Pacific, and I have been doing 
10      that for 20 years.
11                Many of you can remember back in the early 
12      seventies and late sixties the Fox River between  
13      the dam and the mouth of the bay was a dead river.  
14      Fish didn't go up the river because there was no 
15      dissolved oxygen.  There was freezing point 
16      depression in the winter.  In other words, the level 
17      of pollution in the river was such that the river 
18      actually would freeze at a lower temperature, 29 or 
19      30 degrees, versus what you would normally expect.
20                Being on the end of a highly regulated 
21      thing we are talking about here, one of the things  
22      I wanted to point out, and a lot of people haven't 
23      really thought about this, but over the past 30 
24      years there's been a deliberate and effective 
25      process in place to manage the health of the Fox 

                                             93

 1      River.  It started out bad.  Right now it's a very 
 2      high class fishery.  We went from no fish, dead, a 
 3      river that looked like a flowing mud stream, to now 
 4      is a very healthy ecosystem with respect to the 
 5      fishery that's there and has been a highly valued 
 6      resource to sport fishermen.
 7                I am convinced that the project in the way 
 8      that it has been proposed is going to deliver the 
 9      most effective results in the shortest period of 
10      time.  What we are driving here towards is overall 
11      environmental ecosystem health.  The data and the 
12      facts, the statistics, the research, have all been 
13      done by what I believe and I am convinced are some 
14      of the world's experts in this field.  And I have 
15      been exposed to this long enough to know where this 
16      is taking us, and I am truly convinced that, as we 
17      go forward in this process, what's been proposed, 
18      capping in combination with all the other 
19      technologies, is going to take us to the fastest 
20      recovery of the Fox River ecosystem in the shortest 
21      period of time.
22                I have a long history in this area and I 
23      plan on staying in this area, and I want to lend my 
24      support to the fact that there is credibility in the 
25      management of the DNR and EPA, as much as sometimes 

                                             94

 1      it doesn't feel like it as part of a person that's 
 2      been regulated.  It's been absolutely successful, 
 3      and I'm convinced that it's going to be successful 
 4      going forward on this project the way it's been 
 5      proposed.  The data and the facts support that, and 
 6      we will get there.  Thank you.
 7                MS. PASTOR:  Eighteen.
 8                MR. WILUSZ:  My name is Ed Wilusz.  Last 
 9      name spelled W-i-l-u-s-z.  I represent the Wisconsin 
10      Paper Council of Neenah, Wisconsin.  The Paper 
11      Council is the trade association for the paper 
12      industry here in Wisconsin, and the Paper Council is 
13      here to support the revised Fox River clean-up plan.  
14      The affected companies understand that they have 
15      clean-up responsibilities and are committed to 
16      meeting them.  However, economic realities dictate 
17      that these responsibilities be fulfilled 
18      effectively, quickly, and at the least cost.  To 
19      succeed at meeting these goals is for the major 
20      affected parties to reach a voluntary agreement that 
21      will avoid the Super Fund legal process, a process 
22      that could add years to the schedule and millions of 
23      dollars to the cost of the clean-up.
24                The process is working as it should.  An 
25      extensive clean-up and design effort supervised by 

                                             95

 1      EPA and DNR generated significant new information 
 2      that allowed the best and most informed decisions to 
 3      be made.  This new information points to a different 
 4      mix of technologies that involves less dredging, 
 5      combined with the use of engineered caps.  The 
 6      result is a revised clean-up plan that meets all 
 7      evaluation criteria, will result in lower PCB levels 
 8      in less time, and cost an estimated $109 million 
 9      less than the original plan.  This is clearly a 
10      win-win proposal.
11                Some are concerned about the use of the 
12      engineered caps.  We do not share this concern.  
13      Capping is only being allowed in limited areas and 
14      must be as effective in risk reduction as dredging.  
15      Stability and performance of cap design is 
16      thoroughly evaluated against the effects of high 
17      river flows, storms, high waves, and from shipping 
18      and recreational use.  Long-term monitoring is 
19      required to make sure the caps remain effective.  We 
20      urge the EPA and DNR to approve the revised cap to 
21      allow the clean-up to begin.
22                MS. PASTOR:  Nineteen.  Who has 19?  Going 
23      once, going twice.  Twenty.
24                MR. SAMPSON:  Thank you.  My name is Dick 
25      Sampson, S-a-m-p-s-o-n, 1013 East North Street in 

                                             96

 1      Appleton 54911.  I share the skepticism of many on 
 2      the caps, but I also have noticed that there is 
 3      neglect of new river input of PCB's along the Fox, 
 4      particularly in Neenah at what is called Arrowhead 
 5      Park, which is a local poison source.  I lived at 
 6      one point back in the fifties, I lived in 
 7      Schenectady, New York, and happened to have visited 
 8      the confluence of the two rivers in Albany, and they 
 9      had a lethal beauty.  I hope that we will get rid of 
10      any lethal beauty like that in the Fox River.  Of 
11      course, anything made by people is imperfect.  There 
12      is only one source of perfection.  And I think these 
13      -- I'm really concerned about the existence of 
14      Renard Island and the particular examples of these 
15      leaking landfills.  We don't need that lethal beauty 
16      leaking into them.  Thank you very much.
17                MS. PASTOR:  Thank you.  Twenty-one.
18                MS. MOLDENHAUER:  My name is Janet 
19      Moldenhauer.  I'm from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  I am a 
20      boater and a swimmer and canoeist and a sailor.     
21      I think that there should be some changes and 
22      revisions in this plan from what was presented three 
23      years ago, but I don't like to be threatened by the 
24      paper companies that if you don't do it our way 
25      right now it's going to be held up another 30 years.  

                                             97

 1      I think that's kind of ridiculous.  And everyone is 
 2      refusing to go back to vitrification, which would 
 3      burn up the PCB's and we would be done with them 
 4      forever.
 5                Oshkosh is one of the towns that refuses 
 6      to have PCB's in its landfill.  And the reason this 
 7      is being brought up right now is that it's getting 
 8      expensive to ship the PCB's over to Michigan.  This 
 9      is money.  That's all there is to it.  And we are 
10      supposed to think of the sound science, the sound 
11      science of the EPA.  The EPA, whose administrator, 
12      Steve Johnson, is closing all the libraries and 
13      doing away with all the research that has ever been 
14      collected by the EPA.  We are supposed to listen to 
15      the sound science of the DNR, a DNR that is so 
16      emasculated they don't even have people to do the 
17      jobs that are assigned to them, much less add some 
18      more.  I am not in favor of this.  I'm in favor of 
19      some changes, but not just a cover-up.  We need a 
20      clean-up.  Thank you.
21                MS. PASTOR:  Twenty-two.
22                MS. RONSMAN:  My name is Taku Ronsman.    
23      I live at 1688 Beaver Dam Drive in Green Bay.
24                MS. PASTOR:  I think you need to spell 
25      that for her, pelase.

                                             98

 1                MS. RONSMAN:  It's phonetic.  T-a-k-u.  
 2      Ronsman, R-o-n-s-m-a-n.  And I'm always very torn 
 3      when I come to events like this, because I 
 4      understand and believe in the importance of our 
 5      businesses to have a very strong community, but I 
 6      also feel very strongly that when a wrong has been 
 7      done, which the PCB's being dumped, that was a wrong 
 8      that occurred, and that the price has to be paid.  
 9      It's human nature to figure out the best ways to 
10      reduce the cost and so I can't say oh, this is 
11      horrible that Georgia Pacific and the other mills 
12      are figuring out ways to save money.  I mean they 
13      should try to do that.  But I also believe that 
14      sometimes you just really do have to pay the price.
15                And I wholly support a permanent solution 
16      and not, as they have been saying, the covering up 
17      or figuring out what's going to be the most 
18      cost-effective for a temporary solution.  Let's 
19      clean it up for real.  Let's get rid of it, the 
20      problem, for real, even if it costs a lot, because 
21      that's the price you pay when you pollute.
22                And I guess part of what I am saying is 
23      that, even though I want these companies to be able 
24      to continue to make a profit so they can exist, I 
25      also want them to hurt a little bit so that lessons 

                                             99

 1      are learned and that they don't get to keep getting 
 2      away with cutting corners and doing things that are 
 3      harmful to the public.
 4                And my last comment is boy, I sure miss 
 5      having a public intervenor, and I'm looking forward 
 6      to the day when we have the process, what Becky said 
 7      about the process, where the public gets to know 
 8      right from the get-go so it doesn't become us 
 9      against the businesses, because that's what this has 
10      been reduced to, the people against the businesses.  
11      And it shouldn't be that way.  We are all part of 
12      the same community.  So let's have a clean -- I want 
13      to see it clean enough where we can swim in this 
14      again, you know, swim in any of the waters in this 
15      area, even be able to drink it.
16                MS. PASTOR:  Thanks.  23.  24.  25.
17                MS. EFEBVRE:  Kathy Efebvre.  Kathy with  
18      a K.  Last name is spelled Efebvre.  I live at 1731 
19      East Shore Circle.  I am about two blocks, maybe, 
20      from Kinney Island.  I've lived on the shore since 
21      1971, raised my daughter there, my husband and I.  
22      So I've lived there a long time.  One thing was 
23      mentioned, that the reason the bay was taken out of 
24      the clean-up is because the PCB's aren't bad in the 
25      bay, it's fine.  Well, then how come someone told me 

                                             100

 1      the discussion was someone went to the DNR, 
 2      mentioned to him that something happened to Renard 
 3      Island or Kinney Island here, the walls, and there 
 4      was a large spill out of what's in there, that they 
 5      would only demand that the walls be redone on the 
 6      island.  Why?  Because there is so much pollution of 
 7      PCB's around Kinney Island now that they wouldn't 
 8      know where to start or finish.  This tells me that 
 9      there is a lot of PCB's out there.
10                I went through the flood of '73, and at 
11      that time my husband was a teacher.  He taught out 
12      at Howard/Suamico and we did not have the Tower 
13      bridge.  We had just the three bridges that are 
14      right in Green Bay.  I was told, I heard on the news 
15      that they were going to close the bridges.  So I 
16      called him and told him to get home.  Because the 
17      water during this flood, the bay pushes up the river 
18      past all the bridges, what do you think happens when 
19      that bay, when the wind stops, what happened to that 
20      water?  I'd say it was probably like flushing a 
21      toilet.  It goes up; when that wind stops, it's just 
22      going to go right out.
23                Now, during that time, did anybody 
24      measure, actually measure how much sediment or give 
25      a real good guess how much sediment was moved out of 

                                             101

 1      that river during that flood in '73?  And that was 
 2      only a 20-year storm.  Even when there is just a 
 3      rain.  Three, four years ago we had a heavy, heavy 
 4      rain in spring where people were being flooded all 
 5      over their back yards and little creeks and 
 6      everything were flooding.  I went over Tower Drive 
 7      bridge.  The whole bay, you could just see, and it's 
 8      mainly on the east side, you could just see brown as 
 9      far as you could see.  How much sediment was moved 
10      out of that at that event?
11                You can have all the models that you want, 
12      computer models, and it ain't going to tell you the 
13      whole truth.  You have to know how much in a 20-year 
14      storm was moved out, actually moved out.  Because 
15      you talk about sound science, computer models, world 
16      class engineers.  They got two examples.  Wait a 
17      minute.  They use computer models to predict the 
18      weather.  Well, today they can't predict from one 
19      day to the next.  You'd better listen in the morning 
20      to know what that day's weather might be.  Also, 
21      what about, and I had to mention it, the World Trade 
22      Center.  You had world class engineers designing 
23      this building, and it wasn't supposed to happen what 
24      happened.  I mean the results.  But it came down.  
25      Tragically.  I want to just quick a couple other 

                                             102

 1      things.
 2                MS. PASTOR:  We need to move along.
 3                MS. EFEBVRE:  Are you aware that between 
 4      Kinney Island and the shore, which is a dike, 
 5      doesn't move, there are 10 to 15 acres of sediment 
 6      build-up?  That all came out of the river since the 
 7      -- we know it's there since Kinney Island was built.  
 8      That's in the late seventies.  That's almost half an 
 9      acre a year just coming out naturally.  This is 
10      after the big flood.  So we need to know all this.
11                And I also want to hold you responsible 
12      for this, the EPA and the DNR, to finally stand up 
13      like you used to.  You can tell the people who are 
14      responsible to clean-up their mess, and you can give 
15      them a date and you can start fining them if they 
16      don't do it.  Don't give us this crap that they -- 
17      oh, if we don't do this plan they are not going to 
18      play.  Come on.  You are the power, not them.  You 
19      work for everybody, not just the paper mills.  You 
20      work for the public, for everybody.  So stand up and 
21      have some guts and do it.
22                MS. PASTOR:  26.  27 is on deck.
23                MR. MAHONEY:  My name is Mark Mahoney, and 
24      I live in the village of Howard here in the Green 
25      Bay area.  And I've lived in northeast Wisconsin for 

                                             103

 1      about 30 years.  I'm glad to see that a number of 
 2      younger people are here today, because I'm here 
 3      today because of something that happened to me when 
 4      I was their age, and it had to do with a river.  
 5      When I was their age I lived on the Illinois River, 
 6      and I heard my grandfather talk about what a 
 7      marvelous fishery that was in his day, all the clams 
 8      that were in the river, all the species of fish, how 
 9      clean it was, and how you could eat the fish.  And 
10      when I was their age the Illinois River was a 
11      disaster and it was nothing like it was with my 
12      grandfather.  And I thought how could that happen?  
13      How could anybody get away with this?  How could 
14      that happen?  How could somebody poison and destroy 
15      this river I love to fish in?
16                So I did a little bit of research, and I 
17      found out that part of the problem was that the City 
18      of Chicago didn't want to pollute its own back yard, 
19      which was Lake Michigan, so they reversed the course 
20      of the Chicago River.  So instead of flowing into 
21      Lake Michigan they sent all their junk down the 
22      Illinois River.  And when I heard that, I thought 
23      how could you possibly get away with that?
24                And you say well, what does that have to 
25      do with this river here?  Well, I've never forgotten 

                                             104

 1      that, ever since I was their age.  And I thought how 
 2      could that be?  How could people get away with 
 3      poisoning a valuable resource like this?  And how 
 4      can they get away with it?  It has to do with just 
 5      cutting corners.  The paper companies saw here we 
 6      can save some money if we just get rid of this waste 
 7      and put it into the river, we can save some money, 
 8      save some dollars.  So now, once again, we are faced 
 9      here with the issue of either we are going to cut 
10      corners or we are not going to cut corners.
11                I think about my own situation.  If I were 
12      to throw this piece of paper outside my window on 
13      the way home, that's littering.  If a cop saw me, he 
14      would pull me over, fine me, it would be against the 
15      law.  If I took a trailer up to Lake Shawano and 
16      dumped a bunch of stuff into the river, what would 
17      the police say to that?  I would be lucky if they 
18      said well, cap it and we will see if it's okay.  No.  
19      I would be in jail, and I don't know if I would ever 
20      get out.  I wouldn't be able to get away with it.
21                So let me just conclude by saying that, if 
22      I could be so bold, I don't know who would speak for 
23      the river.  We have the corporations speaking 
24      apparently to the regulators here, we've got the 
25      public talking perhaps when it's too late and the 

                                             105

 1      decisions have been made.  But who speaks for the 
 2      river?  And if I may be so bold, I would say that 
 3      the river says somebody put this poison in the 
 4      river, take it out.  Thank you.
 5                MS. PASTOR:  27.  28.
 6                MR. VANDERLOOP:  Ron VanderLoop, 
 7      V-a-n-d-e-r-capital-L-o-o-p.  In listening to the 
 8      introduction today, we heard quite a few things, and 
 9      several times I heard the word "Super Fund."  And I 
10      questioned myself what is that word being talked 
11      about at this meeting today?  We are not -- I 
12      understand we are not in a Super Fund, we are in a 
13      negotiated process and it's not being forced by 
14      federal.
15                And I'm thinking of well, it's used so 
16      that it kind of covers up some things.  And that's 
17      the part I don't like and don't understand.  And I 
18      didn't ask the question earlier, because I want you 
19      to think about this for a much longer period of 
20      time.  That is totally ridiculous.  As I understood 
21      it, it's a separate deal.  So why those words were 
22      used in here is to make it look well, if this 
23      doesn't work, the Super Fund is going to put in to 
24      do this.  I kind of doubt that.
25                So you've come up with too many poor, 

                                             106

 1      negative suggestions.  And this program, this 
 2      covering up, there was a few that was mentioned 
 3      earlier in previous sessions that there would be a 
 4      few places we would have to do that.  Now all of a 
 5      sudden all kinds of them are good.  Bull.
 6                MS. PASTOR:  29.
 7                MR. RUSS:  My name is Ben Russ, that's 
 8      R-u-s-s, and I live at 302 East Allouiez Avenue.  
 9      I'm speaking partially on behalf of the East High 
10      Environmental Club.  And we believe that this issue 
11      is not just about funds or whatever, it's about 
12      morality versus reality, and what that boils down to 
13      is really right versus wrong.  It's wrong to leave 
14      those PCB's in the river.  Twenty, thirty, forty 
15      years down the road when I am in the prime of my 
16      life and many of these people here are too old to 
17      care, it's still going to be an issue.  If you don't 
18      get those PCB's out, they are still going to be 
19      there when I am starting a family.
20                Unfortunately, I'm just 16 right now.  A 
21      16-year-old doesn't have a whole lot of questions.  
22      I'm sure I care about this issue just as much as 
23      anyone else here, but I am only 16.  A 16-year-old 
24      doesn't really matter much.  A little more than a 
25      week ago the East High Environmental Club found out 

                                             107

 1      about this issue, and we mobilized.  We held an 
 2      emergency meeting, and hundreds and hundreds of 
 3      students were very passionate about this issue.  
 4      Lists like this (indicating) signed by, this was 27 
 5      students, were all over the school.  There are 
 6      hundreds of students that signed up for this.  We 
 7      all care, but we couldn't be here today.  There were 
 8      20 people from East High here, protesting this 
 9      issue, and they had to go.  Students have curfews, 
10      we have homework, we have to get up tomorrow 
11      morning, and we were not allowed to be here because 
12      of the time.  I think that's wrong.  And I think 
13      that we should be considered.
14                I think that these people from these 
15      various corporations should step down from their 
16      comfortable pedestals.  They should think about the 
17      people who this issue is the future to.  It is the 
18      future.  That's all it really is.  I'm fully against 
19      this capping, and I think we should get rid of these 
20      PCB's.  And, on behalf of my fellow peers, I think 
21      that these suits and ties should consider us.  Thank 
22      you.
23                MS. PASTOR:  Number thirty.  Thirty-one on 
24      deck.
25                MS. HELGESEN:  Gusta Helgesen, 2372 

                                             108

 1      Jubilee Drive, Green Bay.  H-e-l-g-e-s-e-n.  I am 
 2      also speaking on behalf of the Environmental Club at 
 3      Green Bay East High.  I am 18 years old and I am 
 4      currently a senior.  I plan to go to college, and I 
 5      have decided to (inaudible) to help environmental 
 6      problems like this problem right here get solved.  
 7      All my life I have had to deal with the 
 8      contamination of the Fox River.  I have seen 
 9      families fish in the river, families that do not 
10      have enough money for food but need to fish in the 
11      water to eat.  My dream is to swim in this water and 
12      to be able to fish in this water without worrying 
13      about PCB's and other contaminants.  It's not only 
14      my own dream, but also many in this community, many 
15      people in this room.
16                The caps are temporary solutions, not a 
17      permanent one.  We need to clean this water.  I know 
18      my 18 years of experience in life may not seem as 
19      much, but I have learned one important thing in my 
20      life.  There are no shortcuts in it.  Why take a 
21      chance in a shortcut for the Fox River to clean up 
22      this plan?  That would pose more problems for future 
23      generations when we can take care of it the right 
24      way, which is now.
25                The caps might cost less, but in the long 

                                             109

 1      run where will it put us?  It will cost more money 
 2      if it screws up.  But money shouldn't even be a 
 3      factor.  It will cost more then, more time and more 
 4      money.  We need to clean up, not cover up, as 
 5      everyone basically here said.  For future 
 6      generations, for me, for you, for everyone, the 
 7      person next to you, the world.  People need water.  
 8      We need to clean it now.
 9                MS. PASTOR:  31.
10                MR. KRIEG:  My name is Rich Krieg.  I live 
11      in Green Bay at 118 South Washington Street.  First 
12      of all, I just want to talk as somebody who loves 
13      rivers.  I've been looking at that picture all day, 
14      and I just think it's morally and ethically wrong to 
15      turn a river into a landfill.  To me, a river is 
16      sacred, and this will just be one more insult to 
17      this natural system that we have.
18                And, secondly, I guess I'm more a man of 
19      science.  I understand how science works.  I 
20      understand science, I have a science degree, and I 
21      do know one thing:  You can find a scientist to say 
22      just about anything.  I can find a Ph.D. scientist 
23      to tell us tonight that the earth is flat.  And 
24      that's the truth.  I can find a Ph.D. scientist to 
25      tell us tonight that the earth is only three 

                                             110

 1      thousand years old.  That's the truth.  But I'll 
 2      tell you I couldn't find one scientist in this 
 3      country or in the world that says a cap on the 
 4      bottom of the river is a permanent solution to this 
 5      problem and that those caps would last forever.  And 
 6      that's where we stop with science and go to values 
 7      and ethics.
 8                People, the citizens, want a permanent 
 9      solution to this problem.  Businesses want a 
10      permanent solution to this problem.  That's what's 
11      going to be good for our economy and good for 
12      business.  And I just think this is morally -- the 
13      solution is morally wrong.
14                And I do have a problem with the process.  
15      I wanted to talk about that last.  Something is 
16      wrong with the process when they propose a landfill, 
17      and it's a state of the art landfill, and because 
18      some wealthy influential people don't like that 
19      proposal, within a couple of weeks we are not going 
20      to use that landfill.  Now, maybe it's that we 
21      shouldn't be doing that, but, still, in a couple of 
22      weeks all of a sudden we are not going to use that 
23      landfill.  But it takes citizens like this hours of 
24      signing cards and petitions and having meetings and 
25      going to hearings and writing to lawmakers to get 

                                             111

 1      anything done and to get people to do the right 
 2      thing.  There is something wrong with the process.  
 3      Thanks.
 4                MS. PASTOR:  32.
 5                MR. GLEASON:  My name is Ryan Gleason.  
 6      I'm on behalf of the Ecology Club at DePere East 
 7      High School.  I may not be the strongest voice and  
 8      I may not be the most experienced person.  I'm only 
 9      15.  But I would rather, I don't know, I would 
10      rather decide not to do this only because of certain 
11      reasons.  I read this only cleans up 74 percent of 
12      the river.  74 percent.  That's impressive.  That's 
13      a great way to get rid of it for to the maximum of 
14      two hundred years.  Two hundred years will last 
15      through us, so a few people consider this a good 
16      idea.
17                Well, you are just saying well, instead of 
18      fixing the problem, how about we wait another two 
19      hundred years and maybe a better scientist could 
20      figure a way out, when we could actually wait, spend 
21      less money and time and effort for this, and try and 
22      figure out a different solution.  If I have to spend 
23      the rest of my life, and this thing has actually got 
24      me very interested into ecological sciences, I would 
25      spend the rest of my life working to find a cure for 

                                             112

 1      this permanently than to actually help spend money 
 2      towards fixing it for temporarily.  I would rather 
 3      decide not to do this, because it's unethical.  
 4      There is no real reason to do this.  You are just 
 5      wasting time and money on a solution that will wait 
 6      to be fixed.  Thanks.
 7                MS. PASTOR:  33.  I just sent one of my 
 8      colleagues out to see of the library will really 
 9      throw us out at ten o'clock or if we can go a little 
10      bit longer.  We gave out 58 numbers, we are only 
11      halfway there, so we will see if we can go a little 
12      while longer.
13                MR. SCHALLER:  Good evening, ladies and 
14      gentlemen.  My name is Mark Schaller.  My residence 
15      is 1500 Greenfield Avenue in Green Bay, Wisconsin, 
16      and I have been a life-long resident of this 
17      community.  My wife and I have enjoyed the bay, we 
18      have boated on it for over thirty, forty years, and 
19      we are very concerned with the waterways.
20                We find your plan reasonable and well 
21      thought out.  We support this plan wholeheartedly.  
22      It's time that things get under way and that the 
23      river begins to be cleaned up.  There are no perfect 
24      solutions, there is no one hundred percent 
25      guarantee, and there never will be, but it's time we 

                                             113

 1      get this started.  This plan makes sense.  It makes 
 2      sense in dollars and cents and it makes sense in 
 3      common sense.  We support this plan, and I believe 
 4      the vast majority of the community does as well.  
 5      Thank you for your efforts to bring the plan to this 
 6      point, and we hope it goes forward.  Thank you.
 7                MS. PASTOR:  33.  
 8                MS. DELACRUZ:  Denise Delacruz.  
 9      D-e-l-a-c-r-u-z.  I don't believe the capping is the 
10      right way to go.  I believe that we should get this 
11      problem over with, get it done, clean it up, do it 
12      for generations to come, do it for us, do it now.
13                MS. PASTOR:  34.  35.  36.
14                MR. REIGEL:  Jim Reigel, R-e-i-g-e-l, from 
15      Oneida or Hobart.  I would like to add another bit 
16      of piece to the puzzle, so I'll be very brief and 
17      very quick and add a couple of pieces.  There is one 
18      entity here that has escaped any focus or any 
19      criticism, and that is the Brown County Solid Waste 
20      Board.  They are active participants in this plan.  
21      They are at ground zero point.  They are the ones 
22      who own the landfill that they want to take the 
23      spoils to, and they have been very quiet in the 
24      meetings but very, very active behind the scenes.
25                You may not have any leverage with the 

                                             114

 1      EPA, you may not have any leverage with the DNR,  
 2      but I would strongly encourage you to contact your 
 3      County Board Supervisor, because the Brown County 
 4      Solid Waste Board is influenced by what the County 
 5      Board does.  They are gambling in this because they 
 6      will make tens of millions of dollars for every ton 
 7      of spoils which goes to the Holland landfill.  So 
 8      this is a gigantic crap shoot by the Brown County 
 9      Solid Waste Board, and if anybody wants the details 
10      I'll be glad to give it to you.
11                It's been going back, it started with the 
12      Town of Holland agreement in the eighties all the 
13      way up to the Tri-County agreement.  The reason we 
14      are hauling our garbage to Oshkosh is for the PCB's 
15      to go to Holland, just so they will (inaudible) in 
16      terms of caps and dredging versus dredging.
17                I just wanted to raise one additional 
18      point, that even though the caps may now handle a 
19      short-term problem, it makes remedial action later 
20      very difficult.  If 10, 20, 40 years down the way 
21      there are additional contaminants in the river, what 
22      do you do?  Add on another foot and a half to the 
23      cap?  Pretty soon you have berms going down the 
24      middle of the river.  Correction for additional 
25      contamination becomes extremely difficult, and the 

                                             115

 1      higher you go with these caps the more likely they 
 2      are to be affected by turbulence.  The University of 
 3      Wisconsin at their (inaudible) complex uses the most 
 4      complex computers in the world to deal with 
 5      turbulence, and they can't get a handle on it.  And 
 6      so it's a little bit arrogant to think that with 
 7      lesser computers we can deal with the turbulence 
 8      matters of the Fox River and be so sure much how 
 9      they are going to move sediment around.  Thank you.
10                MS. PASTOR:  37.
11                MR. HARBATH:  Thank you.  My name is Randy 
12      Harbath, H-a-r-b-a-t-h.  I live at 3101 Westview 
13      Road in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  I have lived here in 
14      the Green Bay area for the past 29 years.  I'm 
15      employed at Georgia Pacific for those 29 years.  I 
16      have worked at the Broadway facility in a number of 
17      technical and management positions, including the 
18      operation of the wastewater treatment plant, as well 
19      as the recycling facility there.  Over those years, 
20      the folks that work for me and work with me are 
21      extremely proud of our operation of our treatment 
22      plant, which for years has operated well below our 
23      discharge permit levels.
24                The PCB's that we discharged into the 
25      river were not done out of spite.  They were not 

                                             116

 1      done -- they came to us in the waste paper that we 
 2      recycled that we kept out of the landfills.  In 
 3      fact, Green Bay and many of the municipalities sent 
 4      their waste paper to us to be recycled.  We did this 
 5      and went through this and operated our plant at 
 6      extremely low efficiencies and, as I said, well 
 7      below the discharge limits.
 8                I believe that, if you look at it, you 
 9      look at this plan, it's got the technological base 
10      that's necessary.  In the years of being in 
11      management, I've learned that you listen to the 
12      technical experts, you look at the things that have 
13      been done elsewhere in the country, and you follow 
14      these leads.  Therefore, I wholly endorse this plan 
15      and urge you to get on with the clean-up of the 
16      river.  Thank you.
17                MS. PASTOR:  38.  39.
18                MR. CRADLER:  Fred Cradler, C-r-a-d-l-e-r, 
19      3418 Nicolet Drive.  I don't understand the science, 
20      I worry about my politicians, and really don't know 
21      about you guys, but I do know one thing.  If you put 
22      a certain provision into this plan I'll buy it 
23      wholeheartedly, and it's made up of two parts.   
24      One, you have the corporations sign a warrant of 
25      liability that if this plan doesn't work that they 

                                             117

 1      pay for the remediation; and, secondly, that you 
 2      have an independent agency do the evaluations of how 
 3      well the plan is working.  Thank you.
 4                MS. PASTOR:  40.  41.  42.  43.
 5                MR. HERMANSON:  I'm 42.  John Hermanson, 
 6      and I live in Luxemburg, Wisconsin.  And I just 
 7      wanted to comment on making sure that all the things 
 8      have been thought of.  And one of those, like the 
 9      sediment washing, is something that can be done, 
10      even to detoxify the PCB's rather than try to, of 
11      course, bury them.  I think people are not too happy 
12      about that plan.  And so I think that's something 
13      that should be strongly considered.  I know that it 
14      costs from forty to two hundred dollars a ton, from 
15      the literature I have seen, to process sediment to 
16      get rid of the PCB's.  So I hope that that's looked 
17      into and I hope that was considered in this plan.  
18      If not, I think it should be revisited.  If we are 
19      going to revisit this whole plan, I hope that that's 
20      been currently considered.  Thanks.
21                MS. PASTOR:  43.  44.  45.  46.
22                MR. SERVAIS:  James Servais, 4607 
23      Reforestation Road, Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Just a 
24      few notes, I guess, in listening.  I have been 
25      following this thing for a long time.  Born here, 

                                             118

 1      raised here, raised a family here.  I, too, am a 
 2      fisherman, canoeer.  Been sailing on the bay off and 
 3      on for over 40 years.  Even with George's brothers.  
 4      My point is I got a few little points here.  Where 
 5      were all these people that gathered all of this 
 6      recent data over the last 18 months?  Where were 
 7      they with all the money and engineers and sampling 
 8      power for the decades before the plan was made?  If 
 9      they were that interested in the river, seems to me 
10      they would have been on deck themselves.
11                Capping was sold to the people in Michigan 
12      on a river that flows from the Selon (phonetic) bay.  
13      They planned for I think a hundred-year storm, 
14      figured that capping would do it, but they got a 
15      storm bigger than that just within a year or two of 
16      the time they put it in, and I guess it's scoured 
17      the river bottom right down to the bedrock.  We have 
18      been told they will do monitoring on all of these 
19      caps, but what good does it really do to look at a 
20      cap after a storm has taken it off out into the bay 
21      along with the PCB's?  All the monitoring does is 
22      say yes, there it goes.  It doesn't stop it.
23                Rivers change, they have been changing for 
24      thousands, millions of years, and they will continue 
25      to.  This is truly temporary.  I don't want my 

                                             119

 1      children exposed to it.  It is a cheap way to get 
 2      out.  It was a loophole put into the original 
 3      contract so that they could pull this stunt.  For 
 4      all we know they had it planned that they are going 
 5      to swoop in, gather new data, and secretly hold 
 6      their meeting and then descend upon us suddenly with 
 7      this whole new idea that would save them tons of 
 8      money and we should buy it.
 9                I think we should keep in mind that some 
10      of the people promoting this thing or many people 
11      promoting it or people working for people promoting 
12      it have an interest in the money and some people's 
13      jobs depend on it.  And I can understand that, but  
14      I also know, and I can't quote this directly, 
15      probably, but something to the effect that when a 
16      man's job depends on understanding something you 
17      won't be able to.  If it threatens his job, he can't 
18      quite get his mind around it, if it is going to get 
19      him out of work or lose money.  
20                MS. PASTOR:  47.  48.  49.  50.  51.  
21      Anybody got anything in the fifties?  What do you 
22      have?
23                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  57.
24                UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  52.
25                MS. PASTOR:  52, come on down.  

                                             120

 1                MR. WESTBERG:  Randy Westberg.  I live at 
 2      1815 East Shore Drive.  We live on the bay, right 
 3      across from the toxic dump.  My main comment is it 
 4      kind of boils down to a matter of trust here.  
 5      What's been presented tonight sounds good to me.  It 
 6      could work.  I'm not a scientist, so I don't know.  
 7      What I do know is removing the PCB's will work.  So 
 8      everybody has got to search their own conscience.  
 9      And where do you see your trust lie?  In a maybe or 
10      a yes, this will definitely work?  Thank you.  
11                MR. WANG:  Louis Wang, W-a-n-g.  I live in 
12      Green Bay.  I am a mechanical engineer, and I live 
13      in Green Bay.  I have two of my kids sitting back 
14      there, and I believe that this solution that has 
15      been shown to us today is very solid.  One of the 
16      things I do like about this is that I've heard it 
17      termed as an engineered armor cap, and a lot goes 
18      into that term.  And some of the people have talked 
19      about this.  The algae, the cyanobacteria growth 
20      that help to adhere to the PCB particles in the 
21      sediment and then be able to cover that and hold it 
22      down and then make sure that it is sound.  That is a 
23      very, very solid idea, especially that you can have 
24      wildlife growing there within two years.
25                I'm thinking of my kids, and if it was not 

                                             121

 1      that, if the other alternative was taken where 
 2      dredging was done and then you are talking 15 years, 
 3      I'd like to fish, and with my kids there, very soon.  
 4      And if I wait 15 years, my kids, my daughter, Jade, 
 5      she would be 22, my other daughter, Tiffany, she 
 6      would be 26.  And by then the thrill, they would be 
 7      gone, they are in college.  They are carrying on 
 8      with their lives.  And I would like to take 
 9      advantage of this time to enjoy the river now.
10                So then I think also I've heard, and 
11      correct me if I am wrong, that the level of PCB's 
12      that we are talking about capping with this 
13      engineered capping is about one part per million.  
14      And then I also know, understand, that the fish that 
15      we eat, I love to eat fish, fish makes up the 
16      majority of my diet, the limit for commercial fish 
17      is above that, several times above that.  I'm 
18      thinking if we have a scientific, engineered and 
19      proven technology, we haven't heard anything that 
20      showed otherwise, that this, that the levels of 
21      PCB's around one part per million can be permanently 
22      capped with the 74 percent removed.  I would say 
23      that that is the best solution.  
24                We talk about economics.  I mean I am an 
25      engineer.  Of course, what we do design, we don't 

                                             122

 1      design the ideal, most expensive, throw in all the 
 2      bucks and make this happen, no.  We want to be 
 3      feasible.  We are Americans.  I am American.  I am 
 4      American born.  I am Chinese, but I'm American born.  
 5      And we know that we do want to preserve our 
 6      business.
 7                And the lady before earlier had talked 
 8      about how we want a solution that's good for the 
 9      business as well as the public.  Well, Green Bay, 
10      Wisconsin, makes up the bulk of our paper industry.  
11      Right here in Green Bay.  And, like I said, I am 
12      Chinese.  I just read today that China is invading 
13      the tissue business.  Kimberly-Clark, Proctor & 
14      Gamble, Georgia Pacific, we are all going to be 
15      affected.  Heavy infiltration of low-cost paper.  
16      This is only one thing that is affecting the entire 
17      economy.  And so if we are this close to a solution 
18      for a multi-million dollar armored engineered 
19      capping along with 75 percent of dredging, that's 
20      the best of both worlds and the best of both 
21      technologies.  Let's pool together and make that 
22      happen and focus our attention towards preventing 
23      our economy in other places.  Thank you.  
24                MS. PASTOR:  54 still here?  55.  56.  I 
25      know 57 said he was here.

                                             123

 1                MR. LAURENT:  Allen Laurent.  153 North 
 2      Breeze Drive, Appleton.  I'm representing myself, 
 3      really, but I'm also a Sierra Club member and one of 
 4      their leaders.  I worry, I guess, about the 
 5      permanence of the solution.  I worry about the 
 6      quality of the job and will it last forever, and I 
 7      worry about who will pay for any future monitoring 
 8      and clean-up, which it sounds like the capping is 
 9      something that will last forever.  I think that is a 
10      private system and stuff that for several hundred 
11      million dollars of cost we had better be able to 
12      demand a very good job.  I don't want something 
13      that's just temporary.
14                I worry that capping becomes future 
15      dredging and future disposal problems down the road.  
16      I worry that capping takes lots of material, lots of 
17      trucking, lots of fuel, lots of highway traffic.  
18      The stuff that they want to cap with, the stone, the 
19      gravel, the sand, that all has to come from 
20      somewhere, and that's a bad environmental thing 
21      also.  I worry about putting stuff in the river.    
22      A river wants to carve out.  That's why it's there.  
23      It's dug out the ground for millions of years and it 
24      will continue to do that.  I worry that putting 
25      stuff in it changes the shape of it, the depth of 

                                             124

 1      it, the width of the flow, flooding the ecology.  
 2      Who knows what it will do.  It's not going to be 
 3      something that we like.
 4                Landfilling ought to be local.  It's our 
 5      problem.  We have to deal with it.  We should not 
 6      ship it to Michigan.  It's not reasonable that we 
 7      should have to go that far.  We should not allow 
 8      local landfill problems to dictate the type of 
 9      clean-up that we are doing here.  Landfilling is 
10      believed to be safe and relatively permanent, but 
11      burning or vitrification at high temperatures can be 
12      even safer and is very permanent and offers very 
13      minimal landfilling needs.
14                I understand that there are also other 
15      kinds of contamination other than PCB's in the 
16      rivers.  I don't know that much about them, but they 
17      are there.  Dredging certainly also deals with those 
18      things.  The proposed changes to the clean-up plan 
19      are based on higher-than-planned cost, and I wonder, 
20      partially because I've seen all the trucks going to 
21      the little Butimore place where they are doing some 
22      of this stuff, I have seen hundreds, maybe many 
23      hundreds of trucks hauling stuff, and I wonder how 
24      can we be sure that their money is not actually 
25      being wasted in this effort?  Hundreds of millions 

                                             125

 1      of dollars ought to be able to do a very good job, 
 2      and maybe it's being wasted somewhere.  That's not a 
 3      good reason to change the clean-up plan.
 4                We need to make sure that people, 
 5      businesses, whatever, are accountable.  So for 
 6      hundreds of millions of dollars we should be able to 
 7      demand a good job.  Thanks.
 8                MS. PASTOR:  Thank you.  And thank you for 
 9      hanging in there.  We're right up to ten o'clock.  
10      If you didn't get a chance to make a comment and you 
11      want to, if you want to say more, e-mail us, fax us, 
12      write us.  You've got till January 1.  Any questions 
13      or anything, give us a call, e-mail us.  We are 
14      there, we will be happy to answer your questions.  
15      Thank you.  
16                (The hearing concluded at 10:00 p.m.)
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 

                                             126

 1                   C E R T I F I C A T E
 2 STATE OF WISCONSIN)
 3                   )
 4 COUNTY OF KEWAUNEE)
 5 
 6                I, Nancy M. Baux, Certified Professional 
 7 Reporter, hereby certify that I reported in shorthand the 
 8 proceedings had at the Public Meeting for the Lower Fox 
 9 River/Green Bay Site and that I have carefully compared 
10 the foregoing with my stenographic notes and that the 
11 same is a true and correct transcript.
12                Dated this 18th day of December, 2006.
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19                     ________________________________
20                     Nancy M. Baux
21                     Certified Professional Reporter
22 
23 
24 
25 

                                             127