GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) - A federal judge has upheld the EPA’s costly strategy for cleaning toxic industrial chemicals out of the Fox River.

Companies ordered to pay for the cleanup had challenged the federal agency’s demands, which could cost more than a billion dollars.

U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled last Wednesday there was no evidence of a government plot favoring the use of dredging in combination with capping, rather than capping the PCBs alone.

Dredging pushes the cost much higher, but it also removes the contaminants permanently.

The lower Fox River in northeastern Wisconsin is the site of the biggest cleanup of PCBs in a U.S. waterway.