Restoration project for river, bay habitat announced The plan will help restore ecology along the Lower Fox River and bay of Green Bay By Monique Balas News-Chronicle A final plan outlining restoration projects along the lower Fox River and bay of Green Bay is complete and available to the public. The final Joint Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment provides a general framework for how funds will be used to restore the area's ecological balance after it was contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls emitted from seven paper companies during the 1950s-1970s. The companies are required to compensate the public for the environmental damage under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. It is a parallel but separate process from the Environmental Protection Agency and DNR-controlled sediment cleanup; the final plan for that process is due later in the month. The restoration plan was developed by the Fox River/Green Bay Natural Resource Trustee Council, which is charged with restoring the river and bay. The council is comprised of representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Oneida and Menominee tribes, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the state of Michigan. "It will restore a lot of the damaged habitat," said Rachel Levin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Alternative C" was selected instead of two other options for restoring the assessment area, which includes 39 miles of the lower Fox River, its adjacent floodplain and ecologically associated uplands, the bay of Green Bay, adjacent coastal wetlands, and upstream tributaries. "The other alternatives were taking less action, or action in smaller areas, so this is a good alternative for the affected environment and wildlife because it covers a larger area," Levin said. "It's going to really allow us to restore habitat throughout the whole watershed and really get the most benefit out of the restoration projects." Rebecca Katers, who directs the Fox River watchdog group Clean Water Action Council, said the plan was the most ecologically viable of the three options. "That is the choice that most of the environmental community would support," said Katers, adding the plan addresses restoring significant headwater areas that would have been excluded in the other two plans. "All throughout northeastern Wisconsin, there are little remnants of native plant and animal habitats in headwater areas, streams feeding into the Fox River and the bay," Katers said. "The way Alternative B was written, it wouldn't consider any projects upstream above the first dam, and that was foolhardy. We believe we at least had to have the option of going upstream, based on the criteria for projects." A draft of the plan was released in October for a 30-day public-review and comment period, and the comments received and their responses are included in the final plan. Levin said more than 150 comments obtained at the forum were used in selecting the restoration plan, which includes 17 projects approved Tuesday during a meeting of the Trustee Council. The amount of public input has been criticized by some who are concerned with the restoration process. "When they say the public had input on the process, we only had input on the overall restoration plan," said Katers. "We didn't have any input on any projects, on whether they complied with the criteria, or whether we thought individual projects really were the kind of projects they were focusing on." FYI View the final plan either online at http://midwest.fws.gov/nepa or as a hard copy at the Brown County Central Library, 515 Pine St., or Oneida Community Library, 201 Elm St., Oneida. The plan is available at public libraries in Appleton, Sturgeon Bay, Oshkosh and Escanaba.