The public meeting will be held at 7 p.m. September 1, in the Door Community Auditorium, Door County, Wisconsin (on Highway 42, north of downtown Fish Creek). Topics planned for this meeting include, impacts of PCBs to Green Bay and Lake Michigan; roles of Federal and state agencies, and tribal governments; an overview of Lower Fox River cleanup and restoration efforts; risks from eating fish and waterfowl, including fish and duck consumption advisories; proposed designation of the Lower Fox River as a Superfund site, status of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment; and demonstration projects on the Lower Fox River.
The Lower Fox River, flowing from Lake Winnebago into Green Bay, is a major source of PCBs to Green Bay and Lake Michigan. PCBs were released into the Lower Fox River, from the 1950s 70s, through the manufacture and recycling of carbonless copy paper by some area paper mills. PCBs are hazardous because they are known to persist in the environment and concentrate in the natural food chain, posing health hazards to humans, fish and wildlife. Fish and wildlife consumption advisories have been in place on Green Bay and the Lower Fox River for more than 20 years.
The meeting is sponsored by the Fox River Intergovernmental Partnership, a group of six Federal and state agencies and two tribes, who under a July 1997 Memorandum of Agreement, agreed to work together to clean up and restore the Lower Fox River. Partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System which encompasses more than 530 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies. For further information about the programs and activities of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region, please visit our home page at: http://midwest.fws.gov
