First, a little background…
Part I described how Kraft Heinz purchased the Hartmeyer property, and how our current “remediation and redevelopment” regulatory approach is intended to protect polluters like Kraft Heinz and facilitate development as quickly as possible without fully cleaning up sites–often creating and exacerbating disparities in exposures to toxic pollution (environmental injustices).
A followup post describes the role the Wisconsin Department of Health Services is playing in this “polluter protection” approach, by assessing risks at the proposed housing developments at Oscar Mayer and Hartmeyer with inappropriate “industrial” standards, even though the agency is well aware that “affordable” housing is planned there.
Northside residents, meanwhile, have been asking many great questions. But not being part of the DNR-polluter-developer “Green Team,” they have been left in the dark and their questions mostly dismissed. For a taste of how the Green Team process goes, see here and here. Can the community ask DNR for a citizen Green Team to help address our concerns? Could we join the polluter-developer-consultant-DNR Green Team?
Haha. Of course not. The process isn’t meant to help us, it’s meant to help the polluters cover their poisons up so the developers can hurry up and make money developing over it.
Here’s a bit about what happened in recent weeks…
Consultant hired by California developers assures Northside residents that contamination at Hartmeyer is nothing to worry about–it’s “low level” and will be covered up!
On October 3rd, 2022, the city held a Zoom meeting at which Eric Oelkers from SCS (a consulting firm that does environmental site investigations) discussed the environmental contamination at the Hartmeyer site. Oelkers was contracted by the developer, Lincoln Avenue Capital; SCS investigations were also directed by Kraft Heinz, the responsible party and owner of the land.
Mr. Oelkers shared his firm’s findings in the most recent testing done in summer 2022 and outlined in a September 21, 2022 report. Below is one of the slides he presented:
Oelkers explained to attendees from the neighborhood that very low levels of contamination were found. DNR is “fairly satisfied with investigations to date,” he said, and therefore “is not requiring any additional sampling at this time.”
Further, he added “[t]hese groundwater data are consistent with our previous understanding of the site conditions. Since no NR 140 standards were exceeded, DNR is not requesting any additional actions based on these groundwater results.”
Part I outlined how limited–sparse and shallow–these investigations were, and some of the significant testing gaps. One critical gap is the fact that neither arsenic nor benzo(a)pyrene, two of the contaminants found at levels orders-of-magnitude above the soil-to-groundwater pathway “residual contaminant levels” (RCLs), were tested in shallow groundwater.
Other contaminants found in previous testing, such as several metals (lead, barium, chromium, cadmium) and many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), were also not included in the summer 2022 groundwater investigations.
Cap the pollution!
But no worries! Here’s the slide Oelkers presented on how contaminated soils will be handled:
In sum, this is the “cap the pollution” method embedded in the “redevelop to remediate” regulatory approach designed to facilitate developments as quickly as possible: Move the contamination around onsite, haul away the worst poisons (who decides what that means?), but cover up the rest. Cap the contamination with buildings. In other words, sweep it under the rug.
What about the contaminated groundwater? “Dewatering water will be managed by city and/or DNR permit” (no panacea). Whew. Everything will be under control. Contamination will be buried deep below people’s homes.
The community was skeptical, rightly so.
Community asks great questions
One attendee noted, correctly, that volatile organic contaminants can move miles away from their sources, and asked, “is there a concern about that?” VOCs can be pretty mobile, Oelkers admitted. “We normally see a gradient of contamination. It’s possible that a really old source has moved offsite,” but it’s “localized.”
As Oelkers knows full well (having done environmental investigations in this city for decades), this is BS. Chlorinated contaminant plumes can spread for miles. The documented chlorinated VOC plumes at the Oscar Mayer site have moved well offsite by now (including beneath the Hartmeyer site), but their offsite migration has never been assessed, per NR 716. This is one of the huge gaps we outlined in our many letters to the city in 2020, and our letter to DHS in 2022. The DHS report released on November 29 admitted that.
This attendee also mentioned that animals (presumably hogs) were at the Hartmeyer site in the past, and asked about the potential that there could be “biologics” (pharmaceuticals, hormones, etc) contamination there. Oelkers said “there’s no DNR protocol for that” so testing for biologics is “not likely to happen.” (This isn’t a crazy question. If the animals kept there were given hormones, these substances could be in their wastes deposited onsite; Oscar Mayer also used insecticides it manufactured on its animals to keep flies down, so they could be there as well.)
Other meeting attendees raised good questions about the dewatering that would very likely be needed at the apartments and how it would affect the nearby wetlands. Oelkers dismissed these concerns, assuring them that no “deep dewatering” would be needed, beyond some dewatering needed to get the building footings in the ground and for the elevator pits. This dewatering wouldn’t “propagate a cone of depression,” he asserted, and the pond at the site “comes and goes already” so “the area can tolerate a little bit of fluctuation.”
Relatedly, an attendee asked this important question: “How deep was the sampling?” Excavation for pilings would be dug down many feet. Would the DNR be sampling before or after that to see what levels of contaminants are there and how the excavations affect that? Oelkers said no–DNR wouldn’t ask for any sampling before or after excavations for pilings. “We have not seen things that are likely to become mobilized” by these activities, he assured. (This comment makes no sense; several of the contaminants at the site, such as arsenic, are very mobile in water and/or attached to sediments and could be mobilized by excavations).
The soil contamination, Oelkers explained, is primarily associated with the historic fill brought in some time in the past (by unknown entities). DNR has agreed with that. Yet previous reports state clearly that the contamination is from the coal stored there and fuel oil spills, and the data support that. Why are they pretending it’s all from historic fill? To protect Kraft Heinz and Oscar Mayer, the corporations responsible for this.
Again, the DNR isn’t planning to ask for any more testing before development. The “Materials Management Plan,” Oelkers said, would describe how materials will be managed. In places with “elevated levels of arsenic” (which he didn’t define), a cap would be placed over the soils that would be maintained “in perpetuity.”
Who is going to assure that this cap will be maintained in perpetuity?
What about PFAS? PCBs? Other contaminants?
Another meeting attendee, Dr. Henry Anderson, former Chief Medical Officer of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, who lives in Maple Bluff and has been engaging on this issue with the community, asked if there had been any major fires on the property, requiring the use of firefighting foams there. Clearly his question hinted at concerns about PFAS, though he never identified that contaminant by name. Oelkers said he wasn’t aware of any fires at Hartmeyer, but based on the work he’d been doing in the area, there “has been push by people to request sampling for foam byproducts on the Oscar Mayer property” (indeed, MEJO asked for such sampling), but “DNR has not found sufficient evidence to require that kind of sampling.” He added that, based on his conversations with DNR about the property, “DNR is satisfied.” In other words, no PFAS testing would be done.
Several important contamination concerns were carefully avoided in these exchanges. What wasn’t said by Anderson and Oelkers is more telling than what was. One or more of several different manufacturing processes and activities at the former Kraft Heinz-Oscar Mayer property (pesticides, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and more) likely included and/or released PFAS, and previous Environmental Site Assessments (ESA) done for the site identified PFAS as a potential contaminant there. Reich Rabin, the current owners of most of the former factory site, have worked hard to avoid measuring it there to date, and the DNR has not asked them to.
But that may be changing in the future. At a DNR “R2-Oscar Mayer” meeting on August 3, 2022, one item on the agenda, under “site investigation,” was “getting comfortable with PFAS.” So clearly DNR knows that in the future, responsible parties at the Oscar Mayer site (Kraft Heinz, Reich Rabin) will be asked to test for PFAS. (The Aug 3 meeting was with R2 Companies, apparently interested in development there, and their attorneys Foley & Lardner. Is the community aware of these plans? Of course not.)
PFAS compounds, like chlorinated solvents PCE and TCE, are very mobile in groundwater. PFAS most certainly went down storm and sanitary sewers offsite onto surrounding properties. PFAS is found all over the former Burke sewage site, which Oscar Mayer operated and spread its sludge on for years. If PFAS was used at Kraft-Heinz-Oscar Mayer, was also very likely emitted from many air stacks at the company–and then deposited on soils all around the area. Pesticides can include PFAS. It should be measured at Hartmeyer.
But will it? DNR’s Green Team won’t ask for it. As described in Part I, Oelkers submitted an Emerging Contaminants Statement (based on reviewing aerial photos from 1942, 1950, and 1986) assuring DNR that “there is no evidence or reason to suspect that PFAS-containing substances or chlorinated solvents such as 1,1,1-trichloroethane were used, stored, or otherwise deposited on the Property. None of the various Phase 1 ESAs completed for the adjacent OM plant property reviewed by SCS suggested other potential contamination sources on the Property. Based on the evidence discussed above, SCS does not believe that further evaluation of PFAS or 1,4-dioxane on the Property is necessary.” (highlights added)
DNR said OK.
Voila. Problem solved. Have the consultant hired by the polluter and developer state that there’s no contamination. Don’t ask them to investigate to prove it.
Don’t measure it, and you won’t find it!
Sherman Neighborhood residents write to the Urban Design Commission
After this meeting, concerned Northside residents who had attended put together a letter to the Urban Design Commission for its November 30 meeting:
Dear Plan Commissioners: Northside community residents are requesting a delay consideration of Lincoln Avenue Capital’s residential project on the former Hartmeyer farm until the public has had a meaningful opportunity to study and comment on the design of the buildings’ foundations and on a Materials Management Plan that has been approved by Wisconsin’s DNR. These two documents should be posted on the City’s Legistar database before your meeting to consider conditional approval of the project. We want to know that any buildings are safe from contamination and that the critically important wetland for mitigating climate change due to flooding and clean water is protected. The community requested the environment reports prior to our meeting on October 3, 2022, but only got verbal discussion. We want to see the Materials Management Plan, as approved by the Wisconsin DNR, because it must reveal in writing all the toxic chemicals present at the site and where they are. So far, Kraft Heinz has not been forthcoming with information about contamination at the site, but Kraft Heinz cannot hide information required by the Wisconsin DNR. The Plan Commission and Madison’s Common Council need to know how badly the Hartmeyer site is contaminated in order to make decisions that protect the safety of future residents of the site. Affordable housing for seniors and families must be healthy and safe housing. If the area that was under consideration for a City bus barn was too contaminated, then we must be particularly careful for vulnerable residents. Those decisions should be based on hard facts, not on blind faith.”
The above paragraph was followed by a list of the contaminants found at the site and their health risks, as well as gaps in the investigation.
Other Northside community members, including some who do not live in the immediate neighborhood (including myself and other MEJO members) also sent comments to the Urban Design Commission.
These community comments were ignored. The Urban Design Commission didn’t even discuss them.
Why isn’t Kraft-Heinz facing the community directly? Why isn’t DNR?
Nobody representing the giant corporate polluter Kraft Heinz was present at this meeting. Instead, Lincoln Avenue Capital and the hired consultant faced the community’s questions and downplayed risks on this corporation’s behalf.
Why are the consultants and developers who don’t even own the land and aren’t responsible for the pollution (but are making money from investigating and/or developing it) the ones brought in to engage with the community? Why is the city letting them serve as surrogates in this context–protecting the giant corporation responsible for this toxic mess in the first place?
Also, where are the DNR officials on the Green Team, who are making critical decisions about what will and will not be measured at the site, and how contaminated soils and groundwater will be handled? Why do they get to stay safely in their offices, behind closed doors and away from the public’s questions? They are public servants, after all.
The community should demand, per NR 714, that the DNR ask Kraft Heinz to hold a public meeting to answer people’s questions–not their consultants and/or the developers. DNR officials involved with this site, the Green Team, should also be there.
Would DNR do this? Not likely. As with most of the NR 700 rules, NR 714 is discretionary, with many decisions up to the project site manager and his/her boss. As described in Part I, the DNR, in line with the “regulatory streamlining” approach, is trying to get the site towards closure so it can be developed as quickly as possible.
Involving the public would muck that up, slow things down. That’s the last thing the Green Team, especially the developers on the team, want right now.
Why are our public agencies serving polluters and developers and not the public and the environment they are paid to protect? If they think they can serve both at the same time–as they might say if this question was posed to them–that is bologna. Doublespeak.
Tomorrow the Madison Plan Commission will decide whether or not to approve “conditional use” zoning for this proposed housing. Will commissioners listen to community’s concerns?
To be continued…
~~~
Here is the letter MEJO submitted to Urban Design Commission:
Dear Urban Design Commissioners:
Please vote no on 2007 Roth Street approvals. I know contamination is not your purview, but this is not a healthy place for anyone to live, and that is your purview. Approving housing for seniors and low income people at this location is knowingly creating an egregious environmental injustice situation.
You have already received the Wisconsin Department of Health Services/ATSDR report on the Hartmeyer and Oscar Mayer properties. The DHS used inappropriate industrial standards in the risk assessments–not the appropriate non-industrial or residential standards. Still, in the Hartmeyer section of the report, the DHS concluded the below about the levels of arsenic and benzo(a)pyrene in soils at the site. These cancer risks are likely underestimated for a number of reasons, including the fact that the
DHS didn’t have data on many of the other toxic contaminants that are likely there or important exposure routes.
“We also investigated cancer risk from these concentrations. The cancer risk from benzo(a)pyrene assuming the same exposure above for children from birth to 21 was 5.3×10-6, or 5 cases of cancer per 1,000,000 individuals, which just exceeds the cumulative carcinogenic PAH target excess cancer risk threshold of 1×10-6.29. The potential risk of cancer-related health effects due to exposure to arsenic was 2.0×10-5, or 2 cases of cancer per 100,000 persons, for individuals exposed from birth to age 21, which is above the acceptable excess cancer risk of 1×10-6 outlined in NR 720.12(1)(a). With this risk being above the acceptable margin, it is important to follow safe recreation guidance, outlined below, to minimize direct contact with the soil—this will reduce exposure and decrease cancer risk.
The current vegetative cap should effectively prevent any incidental exposures to contaminated soil, and visitors to the land should not be digging in the soil for any reason. Individuals should thoroughly wash their hands with soap and clean water if they come in direct contact with the soil. Any workers that may come into contact with the soil should also wear gloves and avoid contact with soil. Following these recommendations should eliminate the cancer risks outlined above. Any future development on the land that opens potential exposure pathways to soil or groundwater would be required to be reviewed by DNR and DHS prior to approval to ensure that any potential exposures during or after action are appropriately mitigated.“
