Port of Green Bay¶
Overview¶
The Port of Green Bay sits at the southern tip of Green Bay (the bay) on Lake Michigan, in Brown County, Wisconsin. The port is governed by the Brown County Port and Resource Recovery Department, with multiple private terminal operators along the lower Fox River and the bay shoreline. Cargo is dominated by paper products, petroleum, coal, salt, and limestone — reflecting the region's pulp-and-paper industrial base and downstream commercial demand.
The City of Green Bay has a population of approximately 107,000, with the metropolitan area surrounding 320,000. Port-adjacent neighborhoods on the lower Fox River sit within the Fox River Area of Concern (AOC) — one of the most contaminated of the Great Lakes AOCs, defined by historical PCB contamination from the upstream paper mills. The federal-state PCB sediment remediation has been one of the largest Great Lakes Restoration Initiative investments to date.
The historical pattern parallels Duluth-Superior's St. Louis River AOC: hundreds of millions of dollars in public remediation investment directed at water quality and sediment contamination within an AOC where vessel at-berth emissions remain entirely uncontrolled. The two AOCs are the most direct system-level analogs in the Great Lakes for the gap between water-quality investment and air-quality regulation.
Emissions Profile¶
| Source | Estimated Annual Emissions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| At-berth vessel emissions (CO₂) | ~12,300 t (screening estimate) | Scaled from Duluth at-berth CO₂ baseline using ~220 estimated vessel calls |
| At-berth criteria pollutants (PM2.5, NOx) | ~62 t (screening estimate) | Scaled from Duluth (~190 t / 687 calls = ~0.28 t/call) |
| Port equipment & terminal operations | Not characterized at screening level | Multiple private terminal operators |
| Total port-attributable | Not finalized at screening level | Full assessment required |
Methodology
Estimates are screening-level, derived from the ICCT Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway Ship Emissions Inventory (Meng & Comer, March 2022) and scaled relative to Duluth-Superior's fully characterized profile. Vessel call counts and tonnage figures are estimates; a full assessment would reconcile against Brown County Port and Resource Recovery Department records and USACE Waterborne Commerce Statistics for the Green Bay Harbor.
Community Exposure¶
Port-adjacent neighborhoods include working-class areas of the lower Fox River corridor and the eastside of Green Bay. The Fox River AOC overlaps with several census tracts in the city.
| Community/Tract | Population | Median Income | EJ Indicators | Distance to Port |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower Fox River corridor (multiple tracts) | ~25,000–30,000 | Mixed; several below state median | PCB contamination history; AOC zone | <2 miles |
| Greater City of Green Bay | ~107,000 | Below state median in port-adjacent tracts | 2–5 miles | |
| Brown County | ~270,000 | At/above state median (county-wide) | 2–25 miles |
CDC PLACES tract-level data is available for all Brown County census tracts, enabling port-adjacent vs. county comparison of asthma, COPD, cardiovascular, and other measures relevant to vessel emissions exposure. EJScreen census-tract analysis is not produced at screening level.
Regulatory Jurisdiction¶
| Agency | Authority | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WI DNR) | State air and water quality | Same agency overseeing the Wisconsin side of Duluth-Superior |
| EPA Region 5 | Federal oversight | Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Restoration Initiative |
| USACE Detroit District | Navigation, dredging | Federal channel maintenance |
| Brown County Port and Resource Recovery Department | Port governance | |
| City of Green Bay | Land use, zoning |
At-berth emissions controls: None.
Wisconsin has independent legal authority to adopt CARB's at-berth standard following EPA's October 2023 Clean Air Act authorization. WI DNR has not initiated rulemaking. A Wisconsin-side rulemaking would simultaneously affect Green Bay, Milwaukee, and the Wisconsin side of Duluth-Superior — a significant package effect that would warrant any cost-benefit analysis at the state level.
Health Impact Potential¶
A full health impact assessment for the Port of Green Bay would quantify:
- Premature deaths attributable to port PM2.5 emissions
- Cardiovascular and respiratory hospitalizations
- Childhood asthma emergency department visits
- Monetized annual health damages using EPA Value of Statistical Life methodology
- Health benefits of at-berth emissions reduction scenarios
- Cumulative-burden interaction with Fox River AOC contamination history
The Fox River AOC overlay is methodologically distinctive for any Green Bay assessment. Port-adjacent residents have already absorbed decades of PCB sediment exposure; layering air-quality burden onto that population is the kind of cumulative-exposure analysis that EPA EJ grant criteria reward. A full assessment would produce both the standalone air-quality health damages and the cumulative-burden EJ overlay.
Comparison to Duluth-Superior¶
| Metric | Green Bay | Duluth-Superior |
|---|---|---|
| Annual tonnage | ~2M (screening estimate) | 25.3M |
| Vessel calls | ~220 (screening estimate) | 687 |
| Metro population | ~107,000 (city) / ~320,000 (metro) | ~115,000 |
| AOC overlay | Fox River AOC | St. Louis River AOC |
| At-berth controls | None | None |
| Assessment depth | Screening | Full Assessment → |
Green Bay is the closest system-level analog to Duluth-Superior in two respects: comparable city population, and a port operating area sitting inside an active EPA Area of Concern. The cargo profile is more diversified (paper products, petroleum, salt, limestone, coal) than Duluth's iron-ore-and-coal profile, which produces a distinct vessel-mix and berth-time pattern. Both ports share WI DNR jurisdiction on at least one side, which means coordinated Wisconsin rulemaking would affect both ports simultaneously.
This is a screening-level profile using publicly available data. A site-specific health impact assessment with census-tract resolution, FOIA-enhanced data, and monetized health outcomes is available through our research services.
Data sources: ICCT GL-SLS Ship Emissions Inventory (Meng & Comer, 2022); ICCT Nationwide Port Emissions Screening (September 2024); EPA EJScreen; CDC PLACES; EPA Great Lakes AOC program; USACE Waterborne Commerce Statistics; U.S. Census ACS.