Herb Kohl: “the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is well aware of the concerns that Senator Feingold…”

“the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is well aware of the concerns that Senator Feingold and I have raised about the concentration of contaminated sediments in the Lower Fox River of Wisconsin. As a result of a high concentration of PCB's and other toxic pollutants in the sediment of the Lower Fox River, the area has been designated by the International Joint Commission as 1 of 43 toxic hotspots in the Great Lakes. Most of these 43 hotspot areas are characterized by contamination which cannot be cleaned up through existing routine programs. Because the contaminated sediments at these sites oftentimes disperse throughout the Great Lakes ecosystem, it is believed that remediation is critical for environmental restoration of the Great Lakes. The Fox River is known to be the biggest source of PCB loadings into Green Bay, a fact which has been documented by the Green Bay mass balance study conducted by EPA between 1988 and 1992. Further, it is believed that the Fox River may also be the biggest source of PCB contamination to Lake Michigan. Specifically, the Green Bay mass balance study, conducted by EPA, estimated the volume of contaminated sediment with high concentrations of PCB's to be 7 to 9 million cubic meters. It is clear that the potential for continued dispersion of the sediments throughout the Great Lakes ecosystem is great.”