In Wisconsin

In Wisconsin #901

Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin #901

Original Airdate: 7 October 2010

Patty Loew:

Welcome to a brand new season of “In Wisconsin” and in our new time slot, 7:30. I’m Patty Loew. This week, an investigation into an environmental threat.

Woman:

I asked, if you get in contact with this, how long does it take to kill you?

Patty Loew:

What secrets are below the surface in Ashland. Plus, the hunt is on. An update on the controversy surrounding Wisconsin’s black bear hunt. And it’s homecoming in Madison.

Patty Loew:

So how did this fight song almost become a Minnesota fan favorite? Strike up the band. “In Wisconsin” is next.

Announcer:

Major funding for “In Wisconsin” is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy. We’re on for you. And by the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee and Oshkosh, a veterinary specialist working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. With additional funding provided by Bike Wisconsin.

Patty Loew:

On Monday, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a decision on how to clean up a toxic waste site in one of the most pristine areas of Wisconsin. Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay was declared a superfund site in 2002, but the problems in the bay go back decades. In Wisconsin reporter Art Hackett and Kate Golden with the University of Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism go in search of answers to a controversy that’s been simmering just below the surface in Ashland.

Art Hackett:

Ashland may offer the most idyllic setting ever for a hazardous waste site. It’s surrounded by a marina, a neighborhood of tiny houses adorned with flowerbeds and a beach where children play. The water has been tested and found safe. But not so on the other side of this jetty. Nearby is another beach. It’s kind of unusual in that it’s not made out of sand. It’s made out of wood chips. But what’s of more importance is what’s under the wood chips, a gooey, tarry substance. The compounds include benzene, a cancer-causing component of gasoline, and agents known as poly aromatic hydrocarbons.

Kim Bro:

The same compounds that are in chimney soot. Some of the earliest studies on cancer associated with creosote were studies of chimney sweeps in England.

Art Hackett:

Kim Bro was a toxicologist with the Wisconsin Division of Health at the time the Ashland investigation began.

Kim Bro:

The cancers typically are associated with skin contact with it and so you’ll get the melanomas.

Art Hackett:

In 1995 he recommended posting warning signs for fear swimmers would come in contact with the tar.

Jamie Dunn:

If you were to dig down through this material, the deeper you get, the more tar you run into.

Art Hackett:

DNR project manager Jamie Dunn says the mix of wood chips and chemical sludge extends through a park-like area all the way to the base of the bluff which borders Ashland’s downtown.

Jamie Dunn:

In 1989 I was working in Madison for the Bureau of Wastewater Management.

Art Hackett:

Which is why Dunn was sent all the way from Madison to investigate the problems at the city of Ashland’s sewage treatment plant. City employees like John Radloff were encountering problems while digging ditches for a new sewer line.

John Radloff:

Mostly when we would be digging we would run into this oily slick that would always be on top of the water, the groundwater. It would be on your boots and clothing and stuff like that. And, yeah, it was — it was — it was a pain. We often wondered if this was anything that could harm us in the long run.

Art Hackett:

Where did the tar come from? People who live in the neighborhood say it’s been on the site for decades.

Joyce Kabasa:

I’ve seen the black gooey stuff when I was a kid down here because there was pits.

Art Hackett:

Ashland city councilwoman Joyce Pepe Kabasa has lived in the neighborhood above the treatment plant for her entire life. Her husband Joe is also familiar with the tar.

Joe Kabasa:

We played on it a lot. We even — we even picked up gobs of it and chewed it.

Art Hackett:

Many Ashland residents assume the tar ponds were used to creosote timbers by the huge Schroeder Lumber Mill which was on this site until 1931. Ed Monroe is the former mayor of Ashland.

Ed Monroe:

There were open pits of tar kind of built right into the beach, and they literally would dump the railroad ties and the timbers in there to treat them.

Jamie Dunn:

I went into it looking for a creosote operation. We even called it the creosote investigation.

Art Hackett:

But as testing continued to assess the extent of the contamination in the fields next to the treatment plant, Dunn found another possible source.

Jamie Dunn:

This area here in the documents is always denoted as the seep area, and up until not that many years ago water would bubble to the surface. Tar would actually bubble to the surface here. Everything led us up to the mouth of that ravine, all of it, just the concentrations kept getting higher. We could tell the mouth of the ravine was the source for the contamination down here and at the top of the ravine was a manufactured gas plant and it all fit together.

Art Hackett:

Manufactured gas was used to light houses before the advent of electricity. The Ashland plant heated coal and liquid petroleum products in an oxygen-free reactor vessel to generate gas until 1947. Coal tar is a waste product of gas manufacturing. As recently as 1987 there was coal tar on the site of the gas plant. According to this handwritten report from a DNR inspector, workers installing a sewer line had struck a 15-foot diameter pit full of tar under this parking lot across the street from the Kabasas’ house. This 1994 memo stated the contaminants are coal tar waste from the plant.

Jamie Dunn:

In 1998 the state of Wisconsin DNR came up with a draft feasibility study for the city-owned portion and the bay. We — I guess there was a lot of resistance to that plan.

Art Hackett:

From whom?

Jamie Dunn:

Well, the utility.

Art Hackett:

The utility is NSP Wisconsin, a unit of Xcel Energy. They feel there was another source for the contamination.

David Donovan:

I think the information that we’ve been able to generate and provide to the EPA has shown that Schroeder Lumber Company was a major industrial facility on the bay, right where this contamination is located. We believe that they did operate a wood treatment facility, a rather extensive wood treatment facility, and that they did contribute large quantities of contaminated material and contamination to the site.

Art Hackett:

The state of Wisconsin disagrees.

Jamie Dunn:

The state of Wisconsin’s feeling is, no significant wood treatment happened at Schroeder Lumber Company.

Art Hackett:

The standoff over where the tar came from and thus who picks up the tab for cleaning it up has gone on for 15 years. People who live and work near Kreher Park wait and wonder.

John Radloff:

I myself have had skin cancer, but with my fair skin that would be something that would be hard to point a finger at and say that it’s directly from the superfund site.

Joyce Kabasa:

I asked the question when they first started this. I asked, how long if you’re — if you get in contact with this, how long does it take to kill you? And, well, we don’t know that it does.

Patty Loew:

Just this week, the Environmental Protection Agency came up with a three-pronged plan of attack. First, a section of Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay would be drained and then dried so sediments and wood waste on the bottom could be dredged. Two, contaminated soil on the shore will also be removed. And, third, a system to treat contaminated groundwater will be required. Next week, the investigation continues as Art Hackett explores the blame game. Why has this case dragged on for decades? And where is the DNR pointing the finger now? The answer is next Thursday at our new time, 7:30. Our partner, the University of Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, will release its findings on the Ashland superfund site later this month. In the meantime you can go to its website, WisconsinWatch.org to check out other investigations. Another legal fight might be the only way to settle this next dispute. Wisconsin’s black bear hunt is underway right now, and that’s creating a clash in the northwoods. The return of the gray wolf to its natural hunting grounds in our state has been contentious at best. “In Wisconsin” reporter Jo Garrett shows you what’s on the line near Clam Lake.

Jo Garrett:

Deep in the heart of the Chequamegon National Forest, Rod of New Richmond is checking his bait station as a part of the prep for the bear hunting season. He checks the sandy scratch pad for tracks.

Rod:

This is his pad. His toes are right there.

Jo Garrett:

Rod and his fellow hunter and friend Amy checks another bait station.

Amy:

We have a bear track here. Its a good-size track. It’s about a three-inch pad.

Jo Garrett:

Other animals will walk through, but the one track they don’t want to see is this one.

Rod:

This is a timber wolf track right here in the bait. You can see he’s going this way. This is his pad on this side here. It’s kind of a triangular pad, two front toes, side toes.

Jo Garrett:

Rod and Amy hunt bear with hounds

Rod:

We bring the dogs out and run the bear and hopefully tree him.

Jo Garrett:

Of the surrounding states, Minnesota and Michigan, that have wolves, Wisconsin is the only one that allows bear hunting with hounds.

Jo Garrett:

Here’s the problem. When the hunting pack is let loose to track the bear —

Rod:

Sounds to me like they got it.

Jo Garrett:

Even on a training exercise like this one, these hounds are on their own in these woods, woods that may have wolves.

Rod:

I lost dogs in August of 2004. I saw the bear cross the road. You know, it was a long straight away. I saw my two dogs cross. Drove up there. Didn’t hear any barking, which is not normal. I walked in thinking I was going to find them struggling to find a bear track along the swamp. About 200 yards off the road I found them dead. It was probably a 75-pound hound ten minutes before that and the only thing left is ten pounds worth of legs and spine.

Jo Garrett:

Wolves tend to be very shy, timid, but by nature they are canines and they can be very territorial when they cross other canines.

Rod:

That is a future bear hunter right there.

Jo Garrett:

Particularly like other canines when their pups are small. Wolves will kill a wolf from another pack that crosses their territory and they’ll kill hunting hounds too.

Amy:

There’s times when we ran dogs and they’ve crossed the road and wolves start howling and we have to run and get the dogs. They’re like our kids to us and we dont want anything to happen to them.

Jo Garrett:

Hound hunting is a family tradition. Rods dad put on demonstration hunts when the DNR was first considering bear hunting with dogs back in the 1960s. But back then there were no wolves in these woods. Wisconsin’s wolf recovery plan has met its stated goal. The target population was 350 wolves. Wisconsin now has more than 136 wolf packs, and estimates place the population at more than 700.

Adrian Wydeven:

Now, in a case like this I’m assuming this is probably the alpha pair right here where the male is following the female.

Jo Garrett:

Adrian Wydeven is the point man for Wisconsins wolf recovery program, a mammalian ecologist for the DNR. He has labored for decades to return this iconic animal to our state. And he’s not unsympathetic to the concerns of hound hunters.

Adrian Wydeven:

I’m a dog owner. I guess I’d hate for some predator to kill my dog as well.

Jo Garrett:

Is bear hunting with hounds on a collision course with this increase in wolves?

Rod:

The dogs and the bears have gone east into this next section, five or six miles wide, three or four miles tall. That’s also a pretty good size section.

Jo Garrett:

These dogs are alone in big tracts of land. It’s the nature of hound hunting.

Rod:

You’re not right with that dog.

Rod:

Here, boys.

Rod:

People that hunt with a dog for grouse or pheasant, they’re within eyesight of that dog. Running hounds is different.

Jo Garrett:

By law, bear hunters can have up to six dogs out at one time.

Rod:

Where are you?

Amy:

I’m right by the Iron River bridge.

Rod:

You want to do me a favor? When you get to where the dogs crossed the road here, can you stop?

Jo Garrett:

Keeping track of those dogs in these deep woods can be a tangle. They use radio telemetry. They listen for barking.

Amy:

I can hear them pretty good. They’re not far off the road.

Rod:

Okay. Let me know if you think they’re moving or not.

Jo Garrett:

They call.

Rod:

Come on, buddy.

Amy:

You’re always worried about your dogs.

Rod:

Here comes a couple of our last dogs. I think the bear officially just won this race.

Jo Garrett:

While they’re in the woods, really the only deterrent from wolves is this $2 bell.

Rod:

It’s a nonnatural sound, it’s a man-made sound that they’re not used to hearing in nature and they perceive this dog as just another canine and no other canines have a metal — when they run, it makes quite a bit of noise. Probably the first few times they come across with a dog with a bell on it it works.

Jo Garrett:

These dogs are out for a long time.

Rod:

Out, moving, chasing the bear for probably over five hours today.

Jo Garrett:

What are we willing to give up or tolerate for the return of an endangered species?

Rod:

Used to be kind of care-free.

Jo Garrett:

Rod is on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, which has pushed for wolf de-listing for years. That may happen. The Wisconsin DNR has requested that the gray wolf, an animal once trapped out of our state, be de-listed as a federal endangered species. It’s the third time that the wolf has been on and off the endangered species list as the process of de-listing has wound through various court challenges. Will it go through this time?

Rod:

That’s a toenail mark there. That’s another one there.

Jo Garrett:

The northwoods are different now for hound hunters. There are wolves on these public lands where they run their dogs. There are risks that weren’t there before.

Rod:

I think there’s two kinds of risks. If I come out here and put a dog out and try to chase a bear and if the bear mauls that dog, that’s kind of an acceptable risk. But if I’m out here in pursuit of bear and six timber wolves chase my dog down and kill it, that’s outside the scope of what I was doing.

Jo Garrett:

But what if there was a season on wolves and wolves mauled his dog?

Rod:

If there’s a wolf hunting season where you can use hounds to hunt wolves, then obviously not. That goes back to me putting a dog out after a bear. That’s acceptable.

Jo Garrett:

What’s acceptable in bringing back an endangered species? What numbers will the public support?

Patty Loew:

Wisconsin is the only state that compensates bear hunters who lose a hunting dog killed by a wolf. Last month the US fish and wildlife service said it would investigate petitions from Wisconsin and Minnesota asking that the gray wolf be removed from the endangered species list. A final decision will come within the next year. Hunting is one fall tradition. Homecoming is another. This is homecoming week for those who like to wear red in Madison. Bucky takes on the Gophers Saturday. So to honor the Badgers, we take a look at the “On Wisconsin” fight song. Videographer Chuck France shows us how it almost became a Minnesota fan favorite. Say it isn’t so!

Mike Leckrone:

Exactly 100 years ago today in a Red Gym just down the street a little bit, the glee club

performed for the first time the song that John Philip Souza called the greatest college marching song ever written and I think you all agree with that. I certainly do.

Mike Leckrone:

“On Wisconsin,” it’s such a great little four-note fragment.

Patty Loew:

Maybe it’s more than a march song and a two-step.

Mike Leckrone:

One of the things we like to do is show the versatility of “On Wisconsin.” We play it in all

different sorts of modes. We played it as if an 18th century chamber music group might have

played it. Then we played it as a Russian composer might have written it. We played it as if a

Latin American composer would have written it or an Asian composer would

have written it. You’re going to find it — you may have to look for it, but it’s going to be there.

Patty Loew:

The very first version was written and arranged by William T. Purdy for a contest, but not for

Wisconsin. The contest offered a $100 prize for a new University of Minnesota football song.

Carl Beck overheard Purdy’s melody, penned a few verses and “On Wisconsin” was on its way to

100.

Mike Leckrone:

It had an immediate acceptance and so from that point on every sporting event you could think

of, there’s a part of it.

Patty Loew:

It’s hard to guess how many times “On Wisconsin” has been performed.

Mike Leckrone:

I don’t even know if I want to know the answer because it’s such a staggering amount. We could

play “On Wisconsin” depending on the number of touchdowns, 50 to 70 times on a given

Saturday. Then multiply that by seven or eight games a season, times 40, and that’s just Saturday.

Patty Loew:

He’s referring to his 40 years at the helm of the UW marching band. But there were other band

directors who played “On Wisconsin” going all the way back to the first regiment band.

Mike Leckrone:

Sort of a loosely knit group of people, largely under the military since it was a land-grant school.

Patty Loew:

It’s probably fair to say that back then Beck and Purdy had no idea how many times their song

would be performed. Carl Beck lived long enough to be honored at the 50-year anniversary of

“On Wisconsin” in 1959.

Man:

Now let’s all hail the champion.

Patty Loew:

There was also a good year for Badger football.

Man:

Wisconsin wins its first title in 40 years.

Patty Loew:

Also in 1959 “On Wisconsin” became the official state song.

Mike Leckrone:

Great songs like that are really timeless. Today students I think get just as much enjoyment out of

seeing it and performing it as they did in 1909.

Patty Loew:

As part of the centennial celebration for “On Wisconsin” the greatest college fight song shows its

flexibility again in the hands of students, musicians and filmmakers who are entering a video

contest. One YouTube entry came from uwhip-hop.com. It starts with a scratchy glee club

recording of “On Wisconsin.”

Patty Loew:

Only time will tell if this entry wins. Either way, the catchy hip-hop version could become a fan

favorite just like House of Pain’s “Jump Around.”

Mike Leckrone:

That’s going to stick around for a long, long time. Easily another 100 years.

Patty Loew:

The University of Wisconsin held a video contest last year to celebrate the song’s 100th anniversary. To watch those “On Wisconsin” videos, just go to our website, wpt.org and then click on “In Wisconsin.” Another interesting note, Michael Jackson’s estate owns the international rights to “On Wisconsin.” We have more football, a crisis for Wisconsin bats and our continuing investigation into the environmental threat in Ashland. Those reports are in the works for the next edition of “In Wisconsin.”

Jo Garrett:

This is Jo Garrett. Wisconsin researchers are working at warp speed, trying to gather research information ahead of a deadly epidemic that’s decimating bat populations. They fear it’s headed our way.

Man:

I think everybody is just sort of in a hurry.

Jo Garrett:

What could it mean for Wisconsin’s bats?

Art Hackett:

I’m Art Hackett in Ashland with the story of an energy industry which went out of business over half a century ago, but it still causing environmental headaches today.

Patty Loew:

Football pride runs deep at this perennial power house.

Man:

Super high knees.

Patty Loew:

It’s the little church school that could in Cross Plains. Those “In Wisconsin” reports next Thursday at our new time, 7:30, right here on Wisconsin Public Television. Finally, a weekend adventure suggested by one of our viewers. “In Wisconsin” videographer Frank Boll and reporter Jo Garrett found a spot where you can find a waterfall or take a rugged trek for a breath-taking fall view of the Penoke range near Mellen. Have a great week in Wisconsin.

Jo Garrett:

Some claim it’s the prettiest waterfall in all of Wisconsin. It’s called Morgan Falls. It’s nestled deep in the forest. It tumbles 70 feet, pool by pool. The falls are hidden sometimes behind this granite uplift. It concludes here. It’s an easy walk to Morgan Falls, just over a half mile, and handicap accessible. If you continue, the trail divides and becomes more treacherous. You’re on your way up 1,565 feet. To the top of st. Peter’s dome. It’s the tallest point in the whole Chequamegon Forest. It’s at the west end of the Penoke range, formed some 1.8 billion years ago. And you’re surrounded by the St. Peter’s Dome state natural area, over 5,000 acres. Up top this granite dome, this place the locals called Old Baldy.

Announcer:

Major funding for “In Wisconsin” is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy. We’re on for you. And by the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee and Oshkosh, a veterinary specialist working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. With additional funding provided by Bike Wisconsin.