The photo above depicts the “gas house” and “bridge” (red) Kraft-Heinz built on the Hartmeyer property west of the factory site, to pump natural gas to its power plant after removing two large fuel oil tanks south of this area (Photo-Maria Powell, November 16, 2022).
This is what people living in the very dense “affordable” senior and family housing a California developer has proposed there will see from their windows and outdoor courtyards.** Madison’s much-touted Oscar Mayer Special Area Plan-OMSAP designated this location as an appropriate place for people to live.
The developer’s depiction of the planned affordable housing ironically omits the tangled pipes and other grimy, ugly industrial factory infrastructure–instead showing nice white buildings surrounded by grass (see below).
These apartment buildings will be built over soils that are heavily contaminated with high levels of petroleum compounds, arsenic and other toxic metals. Many other toxic contaminants very likely to be there have not been tested. The shallow groundwater is also likely extremely contaminated, based on soil contaminant levels, but has barely been tested. The DNR doesn’t plan to ask Kraft Heinz to do any more testing (see next story for more details).
Some day the Oscar Mayer factory area will be redeveloped–but how long will that take? While it is being redeveloped, people living at these apartments will be living next to a major industrial demolition and toxic site remediation, likely for many years–and exposed to noise and contaminated water, soils, and air released during this process.
They will also be living next to active railroad tracks, with screaming-loud, earth-shaking F-35s whizzing by on their takeoffs and landings at the nearby Truax Air National Guard base.
Is this a healthy place for anyone to live? Would city planners and leaders propose market rate housing at this location? Would they be willing to live there themselves?
This is how environmental injustices are created…
Sadly, this clause added to the OMSAP in summer 2020 (after community advocacy convinced Alder Abbas to make it happen) is apparently meaningless: “To address racial justice and social equity during the OMSAP redevelopment process which must include assessing and preventing human exposures to toxic chemicals at the site and/or released from the site among all people and particularly at-risk low income people and people of color.”
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To be continued. Coming up: Oscar Mayer & Company and other corporations, including Kraft Heinz polluted a huge swath of Madison’s north side for over 100 years, while the city and state let them ignore most environmental regulations. Now, Kraft Heinz, a giant multinational corporation, has quietly purchased the adjacent Hartmeyer property, after contaminating it in past years while leasing the property. Kraft Heinz is calling the shots about the site’s investigation and cleanup (or lack thereof) behind closed doors, pushing to move it along as quickly as possible so it can be developed (while spending as little money as it can on investigations). The city and DNR, anxious to develop the area with “affordable” housing, are again taking a lax regulatory approach (or looking the other way) as the corporation again sweeps its poison messes under the rug. Same old story…
**”Workforce level” of affordability means $1000/month for a one bedroom apartment, and more for 2, 3, 4 bedroom units (but the developers didn’t say what the rents would be for these larger units). The housing will include no market rate units. Only people making 50% (60%?) of the “area median income” (AMI) or below can qualify for units there (around $40,000).
