Oscar Mayer in 1947 (Wisconsin State Journal photo)
In May 2020, a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) contracted by the City of Madison, while it was preparing to purchase the northern parcel at Oscar Mayer, stated clearly that Oscar Mayer had EPA patents to manufacture three insecticides.
The ESA also said the company was authorized by EPA to use chlordane, an extremely toxic chlorinated insecticide. It’s likely that Oscar Mayer used other pesticides–both insecticides and herbicides–at the factory site over the nearly 100 years it operated on Madison’s north side. (Note: the term “pesticides” includes both insecticides & herbicides). Some pesticides, the ESA noted, include the highly toxic forever chemicals called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).
After MEJO, No Bus Barns, and other north side residents raised concerns about contamination, the city wisely dropped it’s plans to purchase the northern Oscar Mayer parcel. At this point, neither pesticides nor PFAS were ever tested there as far as we know. They should be.
Oscar Mayer’s past insecticide experiments
Oscar Mayer did insecticide experiments at the adjacent Burke sewage treatment plant, which it used to treat its sewage wastes from 1950 through 1978 to save on sewage disposal costs (the company also spread its sewage there for decades).
During that time, Oscar Mayer sprayed DDT and several other organophosphate insecticides (including Malathion, Baytex, and Phosdrin) into Burke sludge lagoons and this water was used to irrigate fields nearby. Leachates from these experiments went directly into Starkweather Creek. (Above: diagram of Burke site and insecticide experiment plots next to Starkweather Creek and community garden plots. See bigger diagram here. Below: former sewage tanks at the Burke sewage plant).
Persistent insecticides are likely still at Burke & Oscar Mayer
The insecticides produced and used at Oscar Mayer, including those listed above (and probably others they manufactured or purchased) were used both inside the factory and outside in animal yards. Some of them, like chlordane and its breakdown products, are highly persistent and could still be there in soils and groundwater.
Also, the ESA notes that “the Interstate Technology & Regulatory Council (ITRC) has included pesticides in its list of products which can contain PFAS.” The former Burke sewage treatment plant is known to be contaminated with significant levels of PFAS. Did any of this come from Oscar Mayer’s sewage and wastewater? We don’t know for sure whether pesticides used at Oscar Mayer included PFAS compounds, but if they did they would have ended up in their wastewater/sludge and then at Burke. The fact that the ESA called this out as a possibility, because of the documented presence of PFAS at the Burke site, indicates that PFAS should also be tested at the factory site.
Some of the sludge remaining at the Burke site now (currently owned by MGE) is up to 24 feet deep (if not more). Below is a diagram from a consultant report on the DNR’s website. The building at the lower right corner is Pick N’ Save; Bridges Golf Course is visible on the upper right hand corner; the former Oscar Mayer site is just off the bottom left-hand corner of the map to the southeast of the HW30-Packers interchange visible there.
Despite the abundant historical evidence indicating they should be, insecticides and/or their breakdown products have never been tested for in soils or groundwater at Oscar Mayer, in Burke sludges, soils, or groundwater, or in Starkweather water or sediments.
PFAS compounds have also not been tested in soils or groundwater at Oscar Mayer. Minimal PFAS testing has been done at Burke and in Starkweather Creek water, but other than MEJO’s testing with East Madison Community Center teens, no PFAS testing has been done in Starkweather Creek sediments where the Burke “golf ditch” (which drained the sewage lagoons) drains into it, nor in the ditch itself. PFOS, the PFAS compound that builds up most in fish, also builds up in sediments. MEJO’s testing found the highest levels of PFOS in sediments right where the golf ditch drained into the creek.
MGE owns the Burke site now and Dane County owns the land around it (Bridges Golf Course and Truax Landfill). The DNR should require these responsible parties to thoroughly test for pesticides (both insecticides and herbicides) and PFAS in MGE/Burke sludges and soils as well as the golf ditch and creek sediments. DNR should also require Reich Rabin Worldwide, the current owners of the Oscar Mayer site, to test for pesticides and PFAS there before redevelopment.
Drainage ditch (golf ditch) from former Burke lagoons into Starkweather in 2019:
See new page here –> Oscar Mayer’s insecticide experiments and manufacturing
