A two-year investigation into the Lower Fox River PCB cleanup in Wisconsin describes how workers at the site faced dusty conditions, inconsistent protective equipment, and unsafe practices—issues that contractors say they believed were covered by federal and s
For years, PCBs were treated like something industrial—built to last, engineered into construction materials, plastics, and consumer goods. Then a cleanup began along the Lower Fox River in Northeastern Wisconsin near Green Bay. and for one worker the timeline has felt like a slow. painful collision between “protection” on paper and exposure in practice.
On Friday. June 12. 2026. The Excerpt podcast laid out findings from a two-year investigation into the largest PCB cleanup effort in history. The program traced how PCBs—polychlorinated biphenyls. a group of more than 200 manmade chemicals—were widely used beginning in the late 1920s. later banned in 1979 after evidence accumulated that they were harmful to humans and the environment. and then left behind in waterways.
The cleanup along the Lower Fox River started in 2004 and lasted about 17 years until 2020. More than 6.5 million cubic yards were removed from along close to 40 miles of riverway. The federal agencies in charge were the EPA and OSHA. with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and other state agencies involved.
But the investigation’s focus quickly turns to a more uncomfortable question: how could a project overseen by the EPA and OSHA proceed with protective equipment that workers described as inadequate—especially when oversight agencies and the investigators describe that there is no “safe” level of exposure.
More than 6.5 million cubic yards later, the story landing in listeners’ laps is not only about chemicals in sediment. It is about what workers say they were asked to do inside a facility where dust was constant. masks were often missing. and protective equipment decisions were tied to a lowest-level standard.
Inside the facility, workers not only faced visible grime—they described conditions that limited basic safety signals. Investigators reported that when TetraTech initiated the cleanup process. there was early talk about which protective equipment would be effective for workers. The company chose the lowest level standard. Workers at the facility were not wearing masks, sometimes only wearing gloves, according to union workers discussed in the reporting.
Scientists interviewed in the investigation said PCBs are “incredibly dangerous” when airborne or when not controlled—a core reason cleanups require strict containment. Workers described an environment so dusty that they could not see the lights above them. Air filters were sometimes clogged.
The reporting also described daily patterns that increased exposure risk. Workers were often working in the facility and inhaling dust, and workers also said they ate lunch inside the facility.
One incident the investigation highlights adds a specific turning point to the broader picture. A foreman asked Scott Meisenheimer to fix a floor sweeper after it broke. Floor sweepers mattered because it was important to keep the floor clean and to prevent water from pooling. Meisenheimer said he was asked to clean up a puddle of water near the floor sweeper. He put down cardboard, which soaked through almost immediately, as well as his denim coveralls. He worked on the repair for about an hour.
A few months later, after he was no longer working at the facility, he developed a pimply reddish rash known as a chloracne rash, and studies show PCBs can cause that kind of rash. About a year and a half later, the investigation says he got melanoma in about the same spot.
The investigators describe a structural problem embedded in the way protection levels were selected. Companies taking on cleanups can choose the level of protective equipment employees wear at a site. TetraTech’s health and safety planning. as described in the reporting. asserted that employees working at the facility would not be exposed to a high enough level of PCBs to be unsafe.
The investigators stress a contradiction: OSHA. the EPA. and other environmental oversight agencies have said there is no safe level of PCB exposure for humans. They also point to an ethical and scientific limit—PCBs are so dangerous that it is not safe to test them on people to determine how harmful specific exposures can be. That leaves a gap in how protections are laid out.
At the center of the day-to-day exposure picture were the coveralls themselves. Workers described denim coveralls worn every single day. They became crusty with dust and were not washed as frequently as workers were told they would be. The reporting says there wasn’t clear training for how workers should remove PPE to prevent dust from getting onto their faces. and from being transferred into their cars as they drove home.
As the investigation portrays it, workers said the message they received was that doing the job and showing up every day would be enough—that there was a kind of machismo or assumption that survival was guaranteed by routine effort, even when conditions were clearly not controlled.
The broader question is whether the protections described in plans matched the conditions workers actually experienced. The reporting says TetraTech’s safety plan outlined that if conditions changed—like when it became dusty—requirements should change as well. Workers also said the conditions did not line up with the personal protective equipment they were wearing. The plan also did not outline where it was safe to eat. and the investigators say workers described eating in close proximity to where the PCBs were.
Scott Meisenheimer’s life since then has been dominated by that gap. The investigation says he received four different cancer diagnoses, and that his illnesses have left him unable to work.
He described the day-to-day consequences as severe: even standing for 15 minutes or going to the grocery store could be physically taxing. While undergoing medical treatment—including chemo—his body grew weaker. He has scabbing and scars on his arms from treatments, and he often feels lethargic and tired.
He also described a financial fall. The reporting says his income dropped from about $50. 000 a year to $24. 000 a year. and that he has been caring for himself and his son while unable to work. He never anticipated retiring this early, and the financial strain, the investigation says, has been significant.
Even after a workers’ compensation agreement, the battle did not end. The reporting says that in 2017 Meisenheimer filed a workers’ compensation case against TetraTech. The goal, the investigation says, was payment for his medical treatment. It described how it became difficult for him to find an attorney because workers’ compensation cases can be financially unrewarding for attorneys and for the person seeking relief.
Meisenheimer represented himself in court, according to the reporting. Under the deal. the company agreed to pay him a $50. 000 lump sum and cover any reasonable and necessary future cancer-related treatments. Yet the investigation says he has not been able to get any money from the company. The reporting states he has received over a million dollars in medical fees. and that he remains in a fight with TetraTech to have the company take responsibility for this type of illness.
The investigation also addresses whether other workers were affected. It says Meisenheimer is the only worker who has publicly spoken out about becoming sick at this site. though investigators said they spoke with union workers who shared similar concerns. It also notes that an OSHA investigation of the facility identified similar patterns. including that workers did not have clear decontamination plans. that they were often not washing hands and faces when exiting contaminated zones. and that masks were not always being worn.
The reporting concludes with the national reach of a local story. The investigation says it is hard to nail down a single. up-to-the-minute national count of PCB cleanups in operation. but cites EPA data and state inventories showing “hundreds” of active PCB cleanups and monitoring projects around the country.
It adds that since PCB cleanups began, there have been about 10,000 facilities throughout the country that have handled PCB waste. It also references major hotspots in New York’s Hudson River. Massachusetts’ Housatonic River. cleanups in Indiana along PCB landfills. and efforts stretching along rivers and harbors in places throughout the Great Lakes. It also notes cleanups going on in Milwaukee, more in New England, and in the Pacific Northwest.
This is not presented as only a PCB problem. The investigation says the story extends beyond PCBs to a wider class of industrial pollutants communities have dealt with over time—PFAS or “forever chemicals. ” mercury. and microplastics. It describes uncertainty about what pollutant may come next and frames PCBs as a reminder that chemicals allowed into air and water can become someone else’s future cleanup.
Across the broader landscape of chemical remediation, the reporting describes thousands of sites. It says there are about 1. 000 Superfund cleanup sites across the US—cleanup sites where a city. county. or state affected by a chemical contamination site can hold a company liable for cleanup costs. It also says there are dozens of other smaller cleanups where communities pay.
The program closes the loop back to the present tense of discovery: PCBs are still being found in new ways, alerting public authorities that these issues need to be faced and resolved as the years go on.
All of that leaves listeners with the same question the investigation seems to keep circling: if the EPA and OSHA were among the federal agencies in charge. and if the oversight message is that there is no safe level of exposure. then why did workers describe dusty conditions. inconsistent masking. and unclear training—especially in the years when the cleanup was meant to be bringing the hazard under control.
PCBs Lower Fox River EPA OSHA TetraTech Wisconsin cleanup chloracne melanoma workers compensation Great Lakes PFAS Superfund