Board Opposes PCBs in Landfills

Posted Jan. 13, 2004

Supervisors want to maintain ground water quality

By Jeff Bollier
of The Northwestern

The town of Oshkosh Board of Supervisors is just as concerned about the potential for disposing of polychlorinated biphenyls in a landfill as everyone else in the area.

Town of Oshkosh Chairman Gerry Frey said the town learned how dangerous polychlorinated biphenyls, also called PCBs, were when limited amounts were disposed of in Winnebago County’s landfill in the town.

“Landfills leak. They’re going to leak no matter what,” Frey said during the town board’s monthly meeting Monday night. “The landfill here, that was originally in the township, it’s already not working. They already found PCBs in the runoff.”

The town board restated its opposition to disposing of PCBs in a landfill proposed by the Georgia Pacific Co. in the town of Vinland, the town of Oshkosh’s neighbor to the north.

“We went to Vinland and signed the letter they had drafted opposing this,” Supervisor Jim Erdman said.

The town board also approved a resolution Oct. 27 opposing disposing of PCBs from Little Lake Butte des Morts in the Vinland landfill.

“We were involved in this when the county’s landfill was in our town,” Erdman said. “The concern for this town is the quality of ground water.

“We’ve got a lot of people in this town who use wells to get water and we want to maintain a high quality of ground water,” Erdman continued.

The manufacture and recycling of carbonless copy paper created PCBs, a byproduct that was released into the Fox River from the mid-1950s until 1971.

Frey said he hoped the area’s state and federal elected representatives would be able to persuade the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to reverse its decision to dispose of PCBs from Little Lake Butte des Morts in landfills.

Jeff Bollier: (920) 426-6688 or jbollier@thenorthwestern.com.