Through my Google alert for “Habitat Restoration,” I went to a page on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website. It’s about a project in preparation, I would say: the Lincoln Park/Milwaukee River Channels Phase I area. It “contains the most significant deposits of PCBs [polychorinated biphenyls] known within the Milwaukee River system.”

As part of the process for qualifying for Great Lakes Legacy Act funding, the WDNR must show that upstream sources of PCBs to the project area are identified and controlled. We are currently in the process of identifying potential sources and potential responsible parties. Preliminary information collected does not point to a specific source or parties, but rather a long history of industrial activity within the Lincoln Creek drainage that cannot be attributed to any particular source.

Sounds as if it could take years, doesn’t it? And taxpayers will fund it all, because it will be too difficult to identify any one source.

Source: “Remediation and Habitat Restoration (Phase I),” Lincoln Park and Milwaukee River Channels, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources