Not with a Bang: Badger Ammunition Plant Mini-Tour

(Photo: Tour-goers take notes and photos at an overlook of the plant)

In 1941 – months before Pearl Harbor -- the federal government seized 10,000 acres of prairie farmland in Sauk County Wisconsin (northwest of Madison) to build an ammunition plant. The Badger Army Ammunition Plant first produced sulfuric acid and then gunpowder and rocket propellant during World War II. The complex geared up again during the Viet Nam War, but in 1975 it was put “on standby status,” all but shut down.

The Army will soon turn over those 10,000 acres to other federal agencies, but first it must clean up an alphabet soup of toxic substances left behind by the manufacturing process. On the Saturday afternoon mini-tour, Army representative Joan Kenney said that the site is one of 25 Superfund-level sites owned by the Army across the United States. However, these sites are not Superfund sites, she explained, because the federal government was already responsible for their clean-up.

Laura Olah, a neighbor of the plant and executive director of Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger, said that the group recently has been meeting with other grassroots groups near some of these other sites.

Complicating the clean-up is the fact that it was explosives that were manufactured at the site. The residues mean that it is quite possible that in knocking down a building, you will also blow it up. In the past burning these types of buildings has been the safest way to remove them. This, however, releases toxics into the air, so Citizens for Safe Water pressed the Army to find another way to remove the buildings. The buildings are now being carefully deconstructed instead of demolished, and appropriate materials are being decontaminated and recycled.

Comments

[Сумерки Сага Затмение]

I keep quoting these dead white guys for a reason. We seem to be repeating some particularly nasty history, right now.

[valtrex online]

I really enjoyed this information: "On the Saturday afternoon mini-tour, Army representative Joan Kenney said that the site is one of 25 Superfund-level sites owned by the Army across the United States. However, these sites are not Superfund sites, she explained, because the federal government was already responsible for their clean-up..."