Fox River

The Fox River is a river in Wisconsin. The river cuts through the middle of Green Bay from south near De Pere and Ashwaubenon and north into the Green Bay.

History
Like much of the state of Wisconsin, the Fox River was carved by much of the glaciers that existed 2.58 million years ago. The river had been historically favorable by Native Americans for its clean water, forests, wild rice, and fish. Prior to the 17th century roughly 12,500 Native Americans resided in Green Bay (about half of Wisconsin's Native population). When Jean Nicolet arrived in 1634 and set up his trading post along the Green Bay, he canoed towards the Mississippi River to establish a water route for the French.

During the Industrial period the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company hoped to establish Green Bay as a port city to rival the city of Chicago by making Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River a principal shiping route. Despite damming and dredging, the Fox River was still too shallow to support this. Over the years the Fox helped Wisconsin prosper with flour mills despite it's decline. However the paper mill industry prospered and continues to do so to this day.

Environmental issues
Due to the number of paper mills, pollution has became a troubled source in the northen half of the Fox River. Talks about the contamination began as early as 1923, but little was done to improve the river until the Clean Water Act of 1972.

During the late 19th century, Green Bay had been a popular site for paper mills, giving the Fox River a great bulk of its pollution. During the mid 20th century, paper mills began producing a PCB that began contaminating the waters. Between 1957-1971 250,000 pounds of PCBs were released and contaminating 11 million tons of sediment in and around the Fox. Since the river needed maintenance towards Green Bay's harbor, dredging was done to remove PCBs that aren't naturally biodegradable. Due to the amount of dredging in the northern half of the Fox River, the contaminated sediment has been used to fill local wetlands. Since 1978, these sediments were used to create Renard Island as an engineered holding area.

Since the 70s efforts have been done to clean the Fox and has been cleaner then it was before 1972, however phosphorus, estrogenic compounds, and discarded pharmaceuticals have shown that the river is more polluted than it was in 1972. The debate about the contamination continues between environmentalists, paper mills, Native American tribes, and any elected officials.