USA: Judge Orders NCR to Resume Fox River Dredging

The Republic reports that a federal judge’s ruling has opened the door to full-scale cleanup of a Wisconsin river polluted by toxins from a bygone papermaking era.

Judge William Griesbach ruled Friday that NCR Corp. alone is responsible for the costs of cleaning up the Fox River in northeastern Wisconsin. He said the harm caused by toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the river can’t reasonably be divided among all of the paper companies likely responsible for discharging them.

The judge ordered NCR to begin running at least three dredges 24 hours a day, five days a week, through Nov. 12.

Dredging work ended last season and was to have resumed this month. But NCR and Appleton Papers Inc., which held the majority share of the company doing the actual work, stopped paying for cleanup, arguing that other parties should be helping with the cost.

State and federal regulators had asked the judge to order NCR to keep paying for the cleanup.

The overall project is expected to cost more than $1 billion.

[mappress]

Dredging Today Staff, April 30, 2012; Image: dnr.wi.gov