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Groups petition court for right to fight state's Fox River pollutant permit

By Kelly McBride
kmcbride@greenbaypressgazette.com

Local and national conservation groups are claiming that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has overstepped its legal authority by attempting to limit their right to challenge a Fox River discharge permit.

The Clean Water Action Council of Northeastern Wisconsin, along with the National Wildlife Federation, on Thursday filed a petition for judicial review in Brown County Circuit Court.

The petition relates to the DNR's handling of a state permit that allows Georgia-Pacific's Broadway Mill to release pollutants into the Fox River.

The groups charge that the permit, filed in October, allows for the near-doubling of phosphorus outputs into the river. It also allows violation of federal limits on discharge of mercury with only a monitoring requirement, critics charge.

At issue is whether members of the public have the right to challenge the state-issued permits if they don't initially do so during a designated public comment period.

Charles Hammer, an attorney for the DNR in Madison, said his agency and the groups challenging the permit have a difference of opinion in interpreting the laws at issue.

"What we did we believe was legal and authorized," he said.

Duane Schuettpelz, chief of the DNR's wastewater section, said the agency has issued 1,160 wastewater discharge permits to industrial companies and municipal governments, and it's rare for outside groups to challenge the decisions.

Critics claim that allowing the mill to put more phosphorous into the Fox River will lead to more algae growth, doing more harm to the river and the bay of Green Bay.

Schuettpelz said the mill has the same concentration limit for phosphorous in the new permit as in the old one, but because of some plant changes, the mill can discharge more wastewater at that limit into the river.

"We can't impose a more stringent concentration limit," he said.

Neil Kagan, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, said the permit also allows the mill to discharge wastewater with mercury in it into the river at levels that are not safe for people or wildlife.

Kagan said the DNR should have imposed limits on the mercury discharge rather than allowing the company to monitor the levels for two years before a proper limit is decided.

Schuettpelz said three years ago, regulations were changed allowing the monitoring "to collect some good data so we can determine whether we need limits."

Mercury accumulates in muscle tissue of fish, and the state has warnings about eating fish from waters known to have been polluted with mercury. Mercury has been linked to serious brain injuries, particularly in unborn and young children.

The dispute over phosphorous and mercury going into the Fox River comes as seven paper companies, including Georgia-Pacific, are paying millions of dollars to remove harmful PCBs dumped into the river decades ago. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used in making copy paper until the chemical was banned in 1979.

— The Associated Press