79 has been significantly reduced within the past few years. The usage of chlorine in the paper making process has also become less prevalent since the 1990s, which means that much of the wastewater that is still dumped isn’t as dangerous as it has been in the past. In order to fulfil the demand for the massive amount of paper that the people of the Fox River Valley and surrounding areas that the paper was exported to wanted, the paper milling companies would need more and more pulp. This means that the pulping mills would need more and more wood chips to process into pulp, and in order to get the massive amount of wood required for this production. Since the most efficient way to make money as a paper mill is to have the logs for the production cut in the surrounding area to avoid transportation costs, the areas around the mills would begin to be cut down. Looking at maps of virgin forests in the United States you can clearly see that around the 17th to 19th centuries that a majority of, in fact, nearly all, the forests have been cut down or in some other way touched by humans.6 This is especially evident in the area around the Fox River, where there was nothing but untouched forest up until around the 18th century. Since the roots of trees are so important in the way that the banks of rivers form, when the trees in the surrounding area were cut, it caused significant changes in the shape and flow of the river. Trees also have a very important role in helping filter the water runoff that makes it into rivers, this means that the quality of the water suffered as well. Around 1820 the first mills were being built on the river, originally most of the industry was sawmills, but eventually as the towns around the river grew so did the industry around it. These mills, and the paper mills that followed them changed the river drastically. Since these mills were water powered, there had to be parts of the mills that were in the water disrupting the flow of the water. Slightly diverting the flow of water caused the sediment at the bottom of the river to begin to 6 Evyn Magenbauer, “Map of the Week: American Deforestation over the Years,” Map of the Week: American Deforestation Over the Years | Mappenstance., April 18, 2022, https://blog.richmond.edu/livesofmaps/2022/04/18/map-of-the-week-american-deforestation-over-the-years/.
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