Cleanup plan for bay not too fishy, fisherman says One of Green Bay's last commercial fishermen reacts to Fox River cleanup plan By Monique Balas News-Chronicle As one of Green Bay's last commercial fishermen, Green Bay resident Mark Maricque shared his thoughts on the proposed method for cleaning up the bay, which was announced to the public on Monday. "As far as actual fishermen on Green Bay, I don't think you're going to see more than six or eight of us," he said. Maricque fishes for yellow and white perch in the bay of Green Bay, where a proposed cleanup plan for the Lower Fox River has declared monitored natural recovery as the remedy for removing sediment contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls. The $400 million Record of Decision for the cleanup of the Fox River and bay was announced Monday by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It provides a general framework for the cleanup of sediment contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls released into the Fox River by seven paper companies between 1954 and 1971. The plan proposes a monitored natural recovery program for the bay, which means the area will be allowed to heal on its own. "Natural recovery is one thing, but I hope that the monitoring isn't just a case of hiring people just for the sake of hiring," he said. "I think everyone is on the same page as far as they want to see it cleaned up. It's just not possible that they're going to clean up every bit of it." The paper companies must now negotiate how much each will contribute toward the cleanup. The proposed cost of the bay monitoring is about $40 million. "It's not an unlimited amount of money they have to spend and they have to do the best they can with the money available," Maricque said. "Whether their plan is correct or not, I'm not the one to judge." The PCB level in white perch actually went down last year, he said, and his concern now is helping to reestablish yellow perch in the bay. "Yellow perch are far below the tolerance level because of the nature of the flesh itself," Maricque said. The fat where PCBs collect is not in their tissue. "It's in the body cavity, so in the cleaning process, you remove the majority of it," Maricque said. Current fish advisories for the bay allow for no more than one meal of yellow perch per week and no more than one meal of white perch every two months. Maricque said what really concerns him more than the plan for remediation is the how much compensation the public will get from the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, which addresses restoration of natural resources in Wisconsin and Michigan that have been damaged by Fox River PCB pollution. "As far as the cleanup, I'm not qualified to say what is the correct procedure," he said. "The average person says, 'Yeah, they should get (the PCBs) out of there, but I'm a businessman too and you can't break the bank to do it." FYI: PCBs are chemical compounds that attach to sediment in the river and the tissue of some fish. Consumption of contaminated fish has been linked to reproductive, developmental and neurobehavioral problems in people and may also be linked to cancer.