Teaching Press folds into action with Lower Fox River PCB Cleanup Book Launch
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Lower Fox River PCB Cleanup Timeline, a new book by Greg Neuschafer, covers one of the most ambitious environmental stability projects in the US to date: the nearly two decades of the removal of contamination in Green Bay’s Fox River.
Published by The Teaching Press of UW-Green Bay, the book will be launched on October 18 2023, at 4:30 pm in Board Room 131 of the Brown County STEM Innovation Center and via Zoom. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP here.
Captain Greg Neuschafer, retired US Navy Oceanographer and University Wisconsin-Green Bay Distinguished Alumni, graduated from UW-Green Bay in 1973 and held a 36-year career creating navigation charts in the Caribbean before returning to Green Bay to record the events of Fox River’s cleaning process.
“I have a deep love and respect for the Fox-Wolf River System and its ancient and current cultures.” Neuschafer states.
Geared to the casual interested citizen, the serious historian or continuing scientist, Neuschafer’s book “invites the reader to travel a 70-year journey from the development of a chemistry of convenience, to a suspected toxin, to environmental threat to cleanup and summary wildlife recovery.”
The book’s subject is a historical landmark. “The PCB Cleanup started in year 2004, removing 6.5 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment…” says Joe Schulz from Wisconsin Public Radio. “10 billion gallons of river water were restored.”
The timeline is also an ambitious project for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Teaching Press, as it is the first book the Press has designed and printed consisting entirely of fold-out pages. Each page features QR codes, scannable by phone cameras, that link to a digital collection housed at Cofrin Library.
“Working on the PCB project has been a difficult and rewarding challenge, and it feels so satisfying now,” says Ethan Craft, a Teaching Press intern who currently oversees the book’s production.
The Teaching Press, a student-managed printing and publishing house, is directed by Dr. Rebecca Meacham. Since its founding in 2019, interns at the Press have successfully produced other community-engaged books, including the recent Wandering Toft Point: A Nature Journal, in collaboration with the Scientific Illustration Club.
Partnering with Neuschafer was an easy decision for Meacham. “I knew our students would learn from Greg’s passion about environmental history and activism. I’m so proud of the innovation, craft, and care they’ve taken in making this book.”
Lower Fox River PCB Cleanup will be available for purchase at the Launch event and through the Teaching Press website.
— Teaching Press intern Zane Petrie.
