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Former munitions factory near Baraboo, Wisconsin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Badger Army Ammunition Plant (BAAP or Badger) or Badger Ordnance Works (B.O.W.) is an excess, non-BRAC, United States Army facility located near Sauk City, Wisconsin. It manufactured nitrocellulose-based propellants during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. It was a large munitions factory during World War II.[1][2] As of 2013, the facility was in the end stages of demolition and remediation in preparation for property transfer.
| Badger Army Ammunition Plant | |
|---|---|
| Sauk County, near Sauk City, Wisconsin | |
General view toward west, Badger Army Ammunition Plant before demolition | |
| Coordinates | 43°22′05″N 89°45′14″W |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1942 |
| In use | World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War |
On 29 October 1941, U.S. Representative William H. Stevenson announced the construction of a powder and acid works to be built by Hercules Powder Company.[3] On 19 November 1941, despite protests from those living on Sauk Prairie, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized $65,000,000 to build the plant. By 1 March 1942, the farmers who lived there had left their farms.
Construction of Badger Ordnance Works, as it was known in World War II, began in March 1942. Before the works were built, a 75,000 foot fence was erected around approximately 7,500 acres (30 km2) of the 10,500 acres (42 km2) acquired by the U.S. Army. When the plant was finished, it contained smokeless powder and rocket grain production facilities, housing for 12,000 construction workers and their families for six months, housing for 4,000-8,000 production workers and their families for the length of World War II, a school, a recreation center, a child care facility, a hospital, cafeterias, and a transportation system. By December 1942, 24 miles (39 km) of standard gauge railroad were completed.
Within the first ten months of construction, the first production area went into operation.[4] The plans originally called for production lines to make smokeless powder, diphenylamine, and sulfuric acid. In the end, the facility's production lines included smokeless powder, acid, sulfuric acid, rocket propellant, and Ball Powder.
During the 33 years it produced ammunition for World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, the Badger Army Ammunition Plant employed over 23,000 workers.
During World War II, Badger was managed by Hercules Powder Company. It produced rocket propellant, smokeless powder, and E.C. powder. Smokeless powder had been patented a decade before World War II by DuPont and Hercules Powder Company had the rights to make it at Badger. E.C. Powder was used in hand grenades, tear gas canisters, and blank cartridges. Badger also produced acid and oleum which are necessary for the production of these forms of ammunition. The acid and oleum produced at Badger were used both on site and at other Army ammunition plants in the area.[3]
On 10 May 1943, the first train load of finished product left Badger; 60,000 pounds of smokeless powder was sent to the Twin Cities Ordnance Plant in Minnesota where it was used in M-1 rifle cartridges.
After World War II, the facility was placed on stand-by and subsequently placed into excess federal property status. The Hercules Powder Company began the process of demolishing and burning contaminated buildings, scrapping equipment, and donating office furniture and supplies to area schools. This led to some difficulties when Badger was reactivated for the Korean War.
| Periods of Operation[3] | ||
| Production Area | Start Date | End Date |
| Acid | January 1943 | August 1945 |
| Oleum | January 1943 | August 1945 |
| Smokeless powder | March 1943 | July 1945 |
| Rocket propellant | March 1945 | September 1948 |
| E.C. powder | July 1943 | October 1945 |
| Production[3] | ||
| Ammunition Type | Pounds | |
| Smokeless powder | 257,968,900 | |
| Rocket grain | 13,394,700 | |
In 1951, during the Korean War, Olin Industries was awarded the contract to manage Badger; the company continued to operate Badger until 2004. To get the plant into operational shape, Olin replaced machinery, office furniture and supplies, and added building production areas and capabilities such as the Ball Powder plant. At that time, Olin Industries was the only manufacturer of Ball Powder in the United States. Ball Powder, which was a trademarked name, had been introduced by Western Cartridge, a subsidiary of Olin Corporation, in 1933, but was not accepted by the U.S. Army until 1944.[3]
Ball Powder is a fine-grained, spherical gunpowder coated in graphite that is easy to store and transport in any climate and ideal for modern infantry small arms ammunition cartridges. Because the time it took to build the Ball Powder plant at Badger was too long to enable any of the Ball Powder produced there to be used in the Korean War, it was put into storage and eventually used during the Vietnam War.
| Periods of Operation[3] | ||
| Production Area | Start Date | End Date |
| Acid | July 1951 | November 1957 |
| Oleum | October 1952 | October 1956 |
| Smokeless powder | October 1951 | December 1957 |
| Rocket propellant | November 1951 | October 1954 |
| Rocket propellant (2nd Run) | March 1955 | September 1955 |
| Ball Powder | September 1955 | September 1956 |
| Production[3] | ||
| Ammunition Type | Pounds | |
| Ball Powder | 5,758,600 | |
| Smokeless powder | 235,832,900 | |
| Rocket mortar | 35,845,200 | |
| Mortar | 17,400 | |
During the Cold War years between the Korean War and the Vietnam War, Badger was held in stand-by status. It was believed that Badger would not be reactivated unless a war was imminent because the threat of a nuclear strike existed. Badger was important to the United States because of its location far from large cities, its water source, small reactivation costs, and the fact that it had the greatest ammunition manufacturing capabilities in the United States; Badger had the capability of producing most of the ammunition necessary for a land war. These qualities of Badger also made it a likely target of a nuclear attack if it were to be reactivated. Therefore, Olin Corporation maintained Badger on stand-by status until the United States announced its intent to send troops to Vietnam.[3]
Before the Vietnam War began, the army was testing the new M16 rifle which used Ball Powder ammunition. DuPont and Olin Corporation each developed Ball Powder that was compatible with the M16 rifles used in the Vietnam War and were used interchangeably. Hercules Powder Company also developed a Ball Powder for the rifles; however, it was not selected by the rifle manufacturers or the U.S. Army.
Olin Corporation also had another, smaller, plant in East Alton, Illinois where it could make Ball Powder. It was believed that the East Alton plant would produce the Ball Powder necessary for the Vietnam War. However, when workers at the East Alton plant went on strike, the entire Vietnam operation was put into jeopardy. Therefore, Badger was reactivated on January 3, 1966, and Olin Corporation prepared to make what would be millions of pounds of ammunition before propellant production ended in 1975.
By September 1966, Badger was producing and shipping oleum, a highly concentrated sulfuric acid, to the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant near Chicago, Illinois, in addition to using it locally.
| Periods of Operation[3] | ||
| Production Area | Start Date | End Date |
| Acid | August 1966 | June 1975 |
| Oleum | September 1966 | June 1975 |
| Smokeless powder | August 1967 | August 1973 |
| Rocket propellant | June 1967 | June 1975 |
| Ball Powder | May 1966 | May 1975 |
| Production[3] | ||
| Ammunition Type | Pounds | |
| Ball Powder | 99,985,600 | |
| Smokeless powder | 302,151,100 | |
| 5" Navy gun | 12,869,500 | |
| MK-43 Rocket mortar | 71,718,600 | |
Olin Corporation continued to maintain Badger on stand-by status after the Vietnam War. The plant was initially laid away in 1977 and placed in stand-by status. In 1997, the U.S. Army declared Badger to be excess to its needs. Until 2004, Olin Corporation led the clean-up of Badger. In 2004, SpecPro, Inc.,[5] an 8(a) Certified Alaska Native Corporation (ANC) and subsidiary of the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, was awarded the contract to operate Badger, including all maintenance, demolition, and remediation activities.[5] In 2012, Badger Technical Services, LLC became the sole contractor at Badger. Demolition of the Army manufacturing infrastructure began in 2004 and is expected to be complete in 2014.
In early 2000, the Sauk County Board of Supervisors acted to establish a locally driven reuse planning process with the assistance of then-U.S. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and funds provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, establishing the Badger Reuse Committee (BRC). The 21-member BRC included representatives from neighboring communities, local, state, and federal governments, and the Ho-Chunk Nation. In its mission statement, the BRC charged itself with the task of developing "a common vision for the reuse of the Badger property that can be meaningfully considered and realistically implemented by the appropriate local, state, and federal agencies." It sought to achieve a community-based consensus for use of the site.
Early meetings were devoted to gathering and reviewing basic information about the Badger property and its role – past, present, and future – in Sauk County's landscape, community, and economy. In the past, the Badger lands had been a place of division and conflict. The committee identified nine key values and detailed criteria for each value to guide consideration of future uses. The BRC chose one plan that best fit the parameters of the values out of 25 different proposals. The reuse plan calls for all 7,275 acres to be managed as a whole. The land uses include conservation, prairie and savanna restoration, agriculture, education and recreation.
The Badger Reuse Plan established the need for a Badger Oversight and Management Board (BOMC),[6] which meets bi-monthly to facilitate collaboration around the future uses of the Badger properties.
Once the installation was declared excess to the Army's needs, the General Services Administration (GSA), the federal government's real estate manager, received applications from other federal agencies interested in acquiring the land. Six applicants with federal sponsorship were approved but only five have agreed to accept property.
The Badger Army Information Repositories are located at the Sauk City Public Library, Ruth Culver Public Library, and at the Badger Army Ammunition Plant. The Badger Repositories include Army publications, RAB meeting minutes, groundwater monitoring data, and reports on remediation projects.
The mailing address is: Badger Army Ammunition Plant, S7560 Highway 12, North Freedom, Wisconsin 53951.
Originally over 10,000 acres in size, in 2004 Badger consisted of 7,275 acres of land in Sauk County. It is bounded by Devil's Lake State Park and the Baraboo Hills to the north, the Town of Merrimac and the Wisconsin River to the east, the Town of Prairie du Sac to the south, and the Town of Sumpter and the Bluffview community to the west.[9][10]
Badger is located on the terminal moraine of the outwash plain of a glacier that stopped in the area during the Wisconsin Glaciation approximately 12,000 years ago. The bedrock in the area consists of quartzite, sandstone, shale, and limestone. Groundwater flow is influenced by the Baraboo Hills to the north and the Wisconsin River to the east.
This area originally consisted of oak savanna and prairie habitat. After settlers populated the area, agriculture became predominant and few prairie and oak savanna remnants remained. Under Army management, the open spaces at Badger consisted of a few prairie remnants, some agricultural lands, and open grassy spaces around buildings maintained by grazing. Prairie restoration began in the 1970s and these areas were maintained by fire. Grazing ended in 2003 when demolition started, and the open areas are now growing up into shrubs such as autumn olive and honeysuckle.
32 areas within the plant are polluted with solvents, toxic metals and explosive wastes. Groundwater beneath the plant is contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride, trichloroethylene and dinitrotoluenes. An area known as the Propellant Burning Grounds is the source of a three-mile long plume of contaminated groundwater that has migrated offsite, polluting private drinking water wells in its path and flowing into the Wisconsin River.[11] Since December 2003, dinitrotoluene (DNT) has been found in a number of private wells near the Badger Army Ammunition Plant. DNT was found above the Wisconsin Enforcement Standard in three private wells and three other private wells had nitrates above the Wisconsin ES.[12] As of 2021, regular groundwater monitoring found hazardous levels of contaminants located halfway between Baraboo and Prairie du Sac. Restoration Advisory Board members and the Town Administrator were displeased with the Army s inaction and attempted to lobby Congress for direct funding to create a public water system.[13]
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