For 100 years, Oscar Mayer & Co. and corporations that purchased it have polluted the land and groundwater beneath the site–as well as Starkweather Creek, Yahara River, and Lake Monona. Will Madison’s leaders face up to this toxic history before redevelopment? Or will they knowingly create another north side environmental injustice situation?
Photo above : Defunct Oscar Mayer factor viewed from the south, looking up Pennsylvania Ave (Wisconsin State Journal, 2020)
The City of Madison recently dropped its plan to locate the Madison Metro bus storage facility at the northern end of the old Oscar Mayer factory site—finally realizing, after two years of pursuing this location, that cleaning up the toxic contamination there would take years and would be very costly.
Without collective advocacy by MEJO, No Bus Barns, and other north side residents in bringing these issues to light, and demanding that they be addressed, the city would likely have gone forward with this very unwise decision. Though downplayed by city officials, the change of plans was an implicit admission that activists were right about the seriousness of the contamination.
Meanwhile, the city is working to re-zone the entire 72-acre Oscar Mayer site for future development of high density low income and affordable housing (as outlined in its “Oscar Mayer Special Area Plan” or OMSAP). Like the northern part of the site, much of the former factory land, as well as groundwater beneath it, remains contaminated, though largely uninvestigated and unremediated.
In summer 2020, after months of MEJO and north side resident advocacy, the Common Council approved the incorporation of environmental justice language in the OMSAP–requiring developers “[t]o 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.”
Potential exposures to vulnerable people cannot be understood or prevented unless the contamination is thoroughly assessed in the first place. If the city and DNR approve the creation of low-income and affordable housing on the Oscar Mayer site without requiring the current corporate owners, Reich Rabin Worldwide, to fully investigate the toxic contamination on and offsite—per state laws–they are knowingly helping to create another glaring environmental injustice on Madison’s north side.
Buried history: Huge amounts of sewage and toxic chemicals from Oscar Mayer drained into Lake Monona for decades—and some still do…
For 100 years, Oscar Mayer and other corporations that owned the site polluted Starkweather Creek, the Yahara River, and Lake Monona, largely with impunity. Though most people think the majority of the nutrient load in Lake Monona has been from agriculture outside of Madison, history shows clearly that Oscar Mayer’s sewage wastes also played a significant role in the eutrophication of Monona and downstream lakes. The city, and later the state, aided and abetted this powerful corporation, a major employer in the city, in this pollution.
Oscar Mayer grew and expanded dramatically after it was founded in 1919. Its animal processing and sewage wastes quickly proved to be too much for city sanitary systems and the adjacent city sewage treatment plant at Burke (just to the northeast of the factory, where Pick n’ Save is now), causing frequent sewage overflows into Starkweather Creek and the Yahara River.
Oscar Mayer’s excess sewage was also spread over the Burke sewage plant site to save on sewage disposal costs. For some time, the city, Oscar Mayer and UW scientists did various “experiments” to figure out how to dispose of and/or chemically treat the wastes, but they largely failed. Oscar Mayer, the city and UW also collaborated on mosquito control experiments in Burke wastewater lagoons, which leached DDT and other insecticides into Starkweather Creek.
Photo: Burke sewage treatment plant around 1916
The Burke plant was defective and designed to send effluent overflow into a ditch that discharged to Starkweather Creek. For some time, a large open sewage ditch also drained from Oscar Mayer (and possibly Burke) directly to the Yahara River near the E. Johnson Street bridge.
The “golf ditch” going through Bridges Golf Course now is the same ditch that drained the Burke sewage plant since it was built in 1914 (photo on the right).
A UW study done in 2005, and a nearly identical study done by consultants in 2016, found that the part of the creek where the “golf ditch” discharges is more toxic than any other area of the creek.
Old factory “process water” pipes remain at the factory
In the 1930s, while trying to figure out a better way to handle the company’s greasy animal wastes (which clogged city pipes and impaired sewage treatment processes), the city worked with Oscar Mayer to construct a complex labyrinth of pipes and drains at the factory—both underground and above ground– to separate process wastes from other sanitary wastes. These pipes routed all “process water” collected from indoor floor drains (which included greases, oils, and myriad hazardous chemicals, especially after World War II) to an inadequate onsite wastewater treatment plant for pre-treatment and then through other large city sanitary mains for further treatment at the Burke plant.
When Kraft Heinz abandoned the site in 2017, it left thousands of feet of these old “process water” pipes in place throughout the site. Contamination drained down these routes for decades, leaked through cracks and seams all along their pathways, and seeped into groundwater below.
Now, to keep the site from flooding, “sump pumps” at the factory remain on, pumping up groundwater known to be contaminated with high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) and other chemicals. The pumped water is sent to the old onsite wastewater treatment plant (now presumably defunct) and to sanitary and/or storm drains that eventually discharge to Starkweather Creek and/or the Yahara River.
A myriad of chemicals such as PCBs, PFAS, pesticides and plastics compounds, are also certain to be on the site and draining down these pathways, but they have not been tested due to corporate and political resistance—and because our government agencies have not enforced their own laws.
The Burke site that Oscar Mayer used for sewage treatment, sludge disposal, and experiments for decades is known to be contaminated with PFAS. How much of this came from Oscar Mayer’s activities? Plastics, pesticide, and food packaging manufacturing–all of which could involve PFAS–occurred at Oscar Mayer for decades. How much PFAS is at Oscar Mayer now?
The city and DNR aided and abetted this pollution (or looked the other way) for decades
The city and DNR have known about these drainage pipes at Oscar Mayer for decades, but as far as we know (other than some recent, highly inadequate and incomplete VOC testing in storm drains) neither the city nor DNR have ever asked Oscar Mayer or other owners to investigate these pathways for contamination, assess where they discharged, and/or to assess ecological and human health effects. In fact, based on the very sparse Oscar Mayer stormwater file, the DNR paid little attention to stormwater management at the site, even after numerous fish kills were attributed to the site over the years. The city also didn’t use its authorities under stormwater laws to assess pollution coming from the factory into its stormdrains.
Will the city and state face up to Oscar Mayer’s toxic past and ask Reich Rabin to do the right thing now?
Now, after decades of ignoring these huge problems, before the site is redeveloped, responsible government agencies must ask current owners of the site, Reich Brothers–Rabin Worldwide , to fully investigate the sanitary, storm, and other utility drainage pathways at Oscar Mayer and offsite. What contaminants remain in them, and beneath them in soils and groundwater, and where are they discharging? Are these contaminants causing vapor intrusion along these pathways, especially into nearby homes and businesses? Are they still getting into Starkweather Creek and the Yahara River? If these investigations are not done, remediation will not be comprehensive and cleanup costs cannot be estimated. Most importantly, without this information, risks to public and environmental health cannot be assessed and exposures cannot be prevented.
If the DNR and city do not require Reich Rabin Worldwide to thoroughly investigate all the contamination at the former Oscar Mayer site, including the utility lines and their pathways on and offsite, they are knowingly ignoring their own laws and making a total sham of any claims that they care about environmental health and justice. Further, in line with their predecessors, they are creating more environmental injustices on Madison’s north side.
If you’re interested in more details, read PART 1 of the long, convoluted history of how Oscar Mayer spewed pollution into our waterways here.
