Once upon a time, people did not care about wetlands. Paul Mineau was a man who helped the people of the East River watershed learn how important wetlands were. Mr. Mineau (pronounced Mee-no) told people that they should not fill up the wetlands with garbage. He organized people in his neighborhood to save a patch of wetlands so the wetlands could remain a home for wildlife as they were intended to be.

As a boy, Mr. Mineau lived near the East River in the city of Green Bay. He went to East High School, and later to the school that is now call Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. He made his living operating a machine shop. The shop produced parts for the machinery used in some of the paper mills in the area. In 1962, Mr. Mineau was bothered by something he saw going on along the East River. Near his home, trucks were unloading construction waste into the cattail marsh. Mr. Mineau knew this wasn't right. Marshes along rivers act as filters. When water runs off fields and streets, the marsh slows the water down. The cattails and other plants living in the marsh filter soil particles (sediment) and other pollutants out so the water that goes into the river is cleaner. Even though the East River was very polluted at the time, Mr. Mineau knew it would only get worse if the marsh was destroyed.

Mr. Mineau talked to his neighbors. Together they worked to change the minds of the city government. At that time, the government (and many citizens) wanted the wetlands filled in. Most people referred to marshes as "swamps" and thought the land was worthless if they could not walk on it. Mr. Mineau knew better. With the help of local conservationists, Mr. Mineau and his neighbors were successful in getting the government (and some of his neighbors) to change their ways. The government stopped filling the wetland marsh. Today it is still there.

Source: Oral history archives of the Fox/Wolf Rivers Environmental History Project Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin at the UW-Green Bay Area Research Center.

There is a river in northeast Wisconsin that has a monster living in it. The river flows through eastern Brown County before it joins the Lower Fox River. The river is called the East River, but long ago, Native Americans living near the river called it "Manitou." European Americans translated this as "Devil River." The Native Americans said a monster with a very long tail lived in the river. When the monster flapped its tail in the air, the wind blew hard. Big waves created by the wind made it dangerous to travel on the river and in the bay of Green Bay. The people threw tobacco in the water before they left on their journeys to satisfy the monster. Sometimes, the people thought, it seemed to work.

Years later, a large city grew on the banks of the river, and a different kind of monster lived in the waters of the East River. It sent bubbles of gas and raw sewage to the top of the river. It made a great stink during certain times of the year, especially summer.

At times, it smelled so bad that the people who lived near the river sometimes went elsewhere to sleep. Students and teachers at nearby Green Bay East High School closed their windows to try to shut out the stink. Closing the windows didn't work very well.

It wasn't hard to tell where the problem came from. Breweries, meat packing companies, paper mills, fish processors, canneries and people living nearby all dumped garbage in the river. Even toilets were flushed right in the river. Instead of tobacco, the people poured perfume in the river to save them from the stink. It didn't work. So people in the community put their money together and built a wastewater treatment plant to take out the garbage before it got to the river. The water monster became weaker, but it still lives and there is still more work to be done.