In Wisconsin

In Wisconsin #906

Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin #906

Original Airdate: 11 November 2010

Patty Loew:

Welcome to “In Wisconsin.” I’m Patty Loew. This week the demolition of what used to be the world’s largest ammunitions plant and it is still packed with explosives.

Man:

It made it harder to find the explosives and I guarantee you they’re out there and we’re finding them every day.

Patty Loew:

Plus, whatever happened to those missing miles along Wisconsin’s highways?

Man:

When you get to Tomah, Madison it’s 99 miles away; it doesn’t add up.

Patty Loew:

And well dig into our archives as we go in search of Wisconsin’s wolf man.

Woman:

It was hair-covered, had pointy ears.

Patty Loew:

Those reports as we celebrate the 30 year career of Wisconsin Public Television reporter Art Hackett next on “In Wisconsin.”

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 Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Oshkosh, Milwaukee and Minneapolis, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.

Patty Loew:

This week continuing coverage on the demolition of the Badger ammo plant. Opening in 1942, it’s a massive military installation built on prairie between Sauk City and the Baraboo hills, at one time the worlds largest ammunitions plant. Twelve years ago, the army announced plans to close it. In Wisconsin reporter Art Hackett is here to tell us what happens next.

Art Hackett:

Thanks, Patty. It was in 1998 when they made the decision they were going to close Badger Ammo and now after years of legal wrangling they’re in the final years of demolition. This week we’ll show what it takes to dismantle the war machine that is so packed with explosives and 70 years of history in Sauk County.

Art Hackett:

Over the years, an estimated 50,000 people have worked here.

Frank Anstett:

It is a huge facility. I believe it was probably at one time the largest propeller manufacturing facility in the world by capacity, not so much landmass but by capacity.

Art Hackett:

A somber, almost musical sound seeps into the cavernous wooden buildings at Badger. They still contain most of the equipment that helped fight World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The sound is the hydraulic pumps and pistons on an excavator ripping into the building next door. Mechanical groans echoing through nearby structures that will soon see the same fate. When Badger’s final administrator Joan Kenney was hired in 1989, it appeared Badger would survive and, if needed, fight another war. The hope lasted only a few years.

Joan Kenney:

Then in 1997 we got the first inkling we were among the ammunition plants they didn’t want to maintain at all. The situation changed.

Art Hackett:

During World War II, it took less than a year to get the first of the assembly lines up and running and producing ammunition. The process of tearing the plant apart is taking six years.

Mike Sitton:

With a war on it was obviously a national effort. They were able to get almost 11,000 people focused on making this plant operate. Today tearing it down somewhere around 90 folks are involved on a day-to-day basis in this process.

Art Hackett:

Sitton is referring to the process of dismantling a city. The decommissioning of Badger doesn’t just involve buildings. They’re crushing 83 miles of paved roads and 1500 concrete foundations. They are shredding wood from the buildings, along with 28,000 utility poles. A network of pipes above and below ground connected the buildings. At first the army thought the buried pipes could stay buried but some of the chemical residues in them are highly toxic and known to cause cancer. Kenney says if the compounds leached into the groundwater it would add to the army’s already significant long-term environmental liability issues. The pipes are now being dug out of the ground. Even though Badger was called an ammunition plant, it made propellant to be included in rifle cartridges and rockets.

Mike Sitton:

This is a nitrating house where the chopped cotton was introduced to the nitric acid. This is the beginning of the process of making nitrous cellulose. This is where the cotton becomes explosive and then it is further processed until it becomes actual gun powder at the end of this production line.

Art Hackett:

Which is one of the reasons why removing the plant has taken so long. The buildings and the equipment within them have become explosive themselves.

Mike Sitton:

We have to deal first of all with the asbestos. We have to deal with the relative age of especially the wooden buildings. Some of them are fairly decrepit which makes, from a safety perspective, demolition a lot harder and most of the equipment was still here, piping still here, explosives are still in the equipment and the piping, etc., from whenever they stopped production. When they laid the place away the standard was to clean it up to the point where there were no visible contaminants. That made life harder because it made it harder to find the explosives and I guarantee you they’re out there and we’re finding them every day.

Art Hackett:

When the army closed other ammunition plants around the country, they solved the problem of explosive residues by simply burning the buildings. They wanted to burn Badger, too. But open burning generates dioxins. The Wisconsin DNRs limits of how much dioxin could have been released in a year would have prolonged the demolition.

Joan Kenney:

Based on the large amount of wood in some of these bigger buildings it looked like we would be here for at least ten years just in trying to burn a little bit each year.

Art Hackett:

Excavators work under a spray of water intended to keep any explosive residue from detonating on impact. While metal from the buildings can be recycled, the wood chips and crushed concrete are going to a landfill on site. That landfill will remain the army’s responsibility. While some of the land has already been transferred to the DNR for use as a park, demolition work on the remaining acreage is expected to continue into 2011. One year short of what would have been the plant’s 70th birthday. The cost to the taxpayers for wrapping up the army’s presence in Sauk County’s town of Sumpter? $125 million and counting.

Art Hackett:

Within the next year almost all traces of the plant will be gone and prairie plants will take its place.

Patty Loew:

Art, the property is what, 4,000 acres?

Art Hackett:

About.

Patty Loew:

What’s in the future?

Art Hackett:

Half of that will go to the Department of Natural Resources for the Sauk Prairie Recreation Area which will connect Devil’s Lake state park and the Wisconsin River. The US Department of Agriculture’s dairy forage research center will get a piece of land, and the remainder will go to the Ho-Chunk nation to establish a buffalo grazing area. Patty?

Patty Loew:

Thanks, Art. Stick around, we have a surprise for you. The rest of the program is all Art all of the time. Some of you may not know this, but Art Hackett is retiring, so this week we wanted to surprise Art and give you a look at some more of his more memorable reports over the course of his 30-year career here, including a portion of this very first report about home mortgages when interest rates stood at 15% in Madison.

Dave Iverson:

Wisconsin Magazines newest producer, Art Hackett, recently purchased a home in Madison. Art was lucky. He was able to assume an older mortgage with a correspondingly lower interest rate. If Art had been faced with a new mortgage at 15% interest, he would have had to have searched for alternative methods of financing and he just might have wound up doing some flips and rollovers.

Art Hackett:

The mortgage I’ve just assumed is a so-called fixed rate mortgage. It locks me into payments over the next 27 or so years at the same price each month. Due to inflation, there may not be many more mortgages like this to assume in the near future.

Patty Loew:

Wow. A 30-year mortgage at 15% interest, what a deal. Did rates get even higher?

Art Hackett:

Yes, they did. They went into the 18% rate. When you think of buying your house on a really bad Visa card.

Patty Loew:

Are you still in that house?

Art Hackett:

Still are and it’s paid for.

Patty Loew:

Hey, all right. Who was the little one in that report?

:

That would be our son, Jim. And to show you how much time has gone by, he now has a 3-year-old son of his own, our grandson, Leo.

Patty Loew:

Well, when we ask people which of Art’s reports they remembered most, one came to mind. The missing miles story. You remember that one?

Art Hackett:

I sure do.

Patty Loew:

We’ll give it a look – Dragnet style. A report from 1991 when Art investigated why highway mileage signs didn’t add up as he takes you on a road trip through western Wisconsin.

Voiceover:

Ladies and gentlemen, the story you’re about to see is true.

Woman:

Somebody actually got paid to do this?

Art Hackett:

This is the city, Los Angeles, California. It was hazy in Los Angeles but that doesn’t make any difference…since we were in Eau Claire. We were working the day watch out of public affairs. Our photographer is Bruce Johnson, my sound mans Tom Naunas. My name is Art Hackett. I’m a reporter.

Bruce Johnson:

Say, Artie.

Art Hackett:

Yeah, Bruce?

Bruce Johnson:

Did you ever notice about these signs?

Art Hackett:

What about them?

Bruce Johnson:

They don’t add up.

Art Hackett:

What do you mean?

Bruce Johnson:

When you’re in Eau Claire, Madison is 95 miles from Tomah.

Art Hackett:

So?

Bruce Johnson:

When you get to Tomah, Madison is 99 miles away. Doesn’t add up.

Radio:

One Adam 12. A 415 man with a gun. One Adam 12.

Art Hackett:

A check of the signs along I-94 showed Bruce was right. Somewhere along the way, six of those miles were missing and the list of suspects was a mile long. Maybe it was part of an elaborate CIA disinformation campaign. An effort to confuse Canadians in case they invade. Or maybe they vanished as part of a cheap space-time trick, pulled by Ponz and Fleischman after they were turned down for a cold fusion research grant at UW-Eau Claire. Maybe they were moved to Milwaukee by way of a late night amendment by the joint finance committee. Maybe they had been vetoed by Governor Thompson. To check it out we headed to the district DOT office in La Crosse. One guy there didnt want to give his name, but claimed it might be because sometimes distances get measured from different points. Says it happens all the time.

Man:

We have one right here just down highway 14 between Westby and Viroqua, which are only five or six miles apart. On one sign it says it’s five miles from Viroqua to Westby. From Westby to Viroqua is six miles. Thats because of from where they measured the destination point.

Art Hackett:

So what happens when a mile is missing?

Man:

It’s not really missing.

Art Hackett:

And there was another fellow, said he was retired, name of Orv Salander. He wasnt sure that was the case here.

Orv Salander:

That shouldnt be, because every time they tell you so many miles, it should be the same spot in Madison, I would say. And the same spot in Tomah.

Art Hackett:

You’re retired, you said? What are you doing here?

Orv Salander:

Selling chicken fry tickets. You want some?

Art Hackett:

The guys in La Crosse were right about one thing. Westby is closer to Viroqua than Viroqua is to Westby.

Art Hackett:

It still just doesn’t add up.

Art Hackett:

Our investigation dragged on for several weeks. We eventually wound up at the top, state DOT headquarters, talking to a guy named Chuck Spang. He claims he’s in charge of signs.

Art Hackett:

When you’re in Eau Claire, it says that Tomah and Madison are about 96 miles apart. By the time you get to Black River falls they’re 100 miles apart. Doesn’t add up.

Chuck Spang:

Right. Human error. You’re going through two different highway districts and as the plans are prepared, one district does their set of plans and then you go to another district and they do their signing plans. There is a lack of coordination occasionally back and forth.

Art Hackett:

A simple explanation, two DOT districts, two sets of numbers, numbers that just don’t add up. Something else didn’t add up in Spang’s office, more signs.

Art Hackett:

I see you still have some former governors here, too.

Chuck Spang:

Uh-huh.

Art Hackett:

Is this in case those guys get back in again?

Chuck Spang:

No, were just cleaning up bins and corners of different buildings and came across these.

Art Hackett:

In the following weeks more investigations were held. In a moment, the results. The mileage sign near Eau Claire was found to be in error. It really is 100 miles between Madison and Tomah, not 94. The sign was scheduled for alteration. Orv Salander was commended for outstanding sale of chicken dinner tickets and Chuck Spang was implicated in a plot to return Martin Schreiber and Lee Sherman Dreyfus to the governors chair.

Patty Loew:

You still checking out road signs as you drive across Wisconsin?

Art Hackett:

I’m afraid so. After every time I go past those same signs I try and do the math in my head to see if it’s still off, and I’ll be honest, at this point I don’t remember if they’re fixed or not.

Patty Loew:

It gets harder the older you get.

Art Hackett:

It does.

Patty Loew:

Finally, Art, we wanted to share a report that many consider one of your classics. A precursor to the popular Twilight series. Do you remember the Beast of Bray Road?

Art Hackett:

Sure do. It was actually the result of trying to check out something you see in a supermarket tabloid.

Patty Loew:

A perfect setup. Roll tape from April 1992.

Art Hackett:

With all the stories about Bill Clinton, judging the credibility of supermarket tabloids is now more important than ever. The problem is, the stories usually involve outer Mongolia or northern Siberia or someplace where there aren’t a lot of reporters hanging around. But sometimes a supermarket tabloid story happens right in your own backyard. Take this story here. It says there is a wolf man hanging around Elkhorn, Wisconsin, just off of Bray Road. Bray Road is about two miles long, winding between the farms east of Elkhorn. Along it you’ll find a man named Jeff Hubbard.

Jeff Hubbard:

I would think so. People see deer and don’t know what they are, you know? Get excited.

Art Hackett:

A man who thinks he knows how the werewolf allegations began.

Jeff Hubbard:

Happened Halloween. Halloween is the night a gal killed my cat out here in the road and the night she claimed she saw a werewolf. She pulled off to the side of the road and got out and that’s where she claimed she saw a werewolf chasing, coming up on her car and scratched her car and it’s just hard to believe.

Art Hackett:

Hubbard says the marshes along the road are home to lots of coyotes – hes seen plenty of them while hunting. But no werewolves. But there is something out there. Scott Bray saw it.

Scott Bray:

When I first saw it, it was on the rise just south of the stone pile.

Art Hackett:

Bray owns a farm west of where Hubbard lives. He said he saw something in the fall of 1989.

Scott Bray:

It had a rough coat, a lot of long hair. It seemed to be real large and strong through the front end. And it just moved with kind of an unusual gait. It just didn’t act like a normal dog. I went out and walked around. It left an unusually large footprint. That was the one thing that surprised me the most, is the size of the print. I thought it was some kind of a dog, but it just didn’t really look like a shepherd and it, but that was the type dog it was.

Art Hackett:

These are exclusive interviews. Astonishingly, the tabloid never interviewed either of these two people who actually live on Bray Road. In fact, the tabloid never interviewed some of the people quoted in the article. They just rewrote local newspaper clippings. The article quotes this woman that manages a tavern in Elkhorn.

Lori Endrizzi:

Never, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen anything like it since or before. It was something else.

Art Hackett:

She went by the pseudonym of Barbara Holt in a local newspaper and showed up with the same name in the tabloid. Her real name is Lori Endrizzi. Her case is the one referred to in the grisly but accurate tabloid headline.

Lori Endrizzi:

I saw a thing. I thought it was a human being at first on the side of the road. So I slowed down to look and it was hair covered. Had pointy ears and I drove by real slow. He was just right on the side of the road and I got a good look at him. Brown and silver colored hair. He was kneeling. Thats why I thought it was a human being, because he was kneeling. When I looked at him I could tell he was eating road kill and had his paws up like this, like he had elbows. Most animals would get spooked, but this one just didn’t get spooked at all. He looked at me and had glowing eyes. And very long claws. And I would say just by looking at him he was probably the size of an average man.

Art Hackett:

But it didn’t look like this picture.

Lori Endrizzi:

Not at all. The picture itself is ridiculous. Keeping Elkhorn people locked in their homes, that’s ridiculous. Nobody is locked in their homes. They made it sound very dramatic like this thing was out killing people and as far as anyone knows it’s never hurt anybody.

Art Hackett:

Her case, like Scott Bray’s incident, happened a few years ago. She says she didn’t talk about it until the reported sighting last Halloween become public.

Lori Endrizzi:

Who would believe it? So we kept it hush-hush for two and a half years.

Art Hackett:

Some people still don’t believe it.

Jeff Hubbard:

I think it was younger kids that thought they saw things, maybe a coyote out here. There are a lot of deer out here but there is no werewolf as far as I’m concerned.

Art Hackett:

Local game warden Bob Bramer doubts coyotes were involved since they’re not big enough.

Bob Bramer:

I don’t doubt that they may have seen something or a shadow or, you know, at night your mind plays tricks with your eyes. Who knows what may be going on or what caused this action or what they did possibly see? But there is no animal or no — nothing whatsoever.

Art Hackett:

Except for a song on the jukebox at Lori’s bar and the remaining souvenir t-shirts in a store window, there is not much evidence that werewolves were once a big deal in Elkhorn. But as for the tabloid’s account, there really is a Bray Road near Elkhorn and the people you read about do exist, although by different names, and they really did see a werewolf, or claim to have seen a werewolf, or something like a werewolf, something with hair, anyhow. Now that we’ve cleared up this issue I wonder if there are any other good tabloid-type stories here in Walworth County?

Patty Loew:

For the record, Art Hackett has contributed reports throughout the years to these Wisconsin Public Television programs. The American Journey, Legislature, On TV, Wisconsin Magazine, 7 Central, Wisconsin Week, Weekend, Here and Now and In Wisconsin. Art, I want to take this moment to thank you for 30 years of service to Wisconsin Public Television. It’s been such a joy to work with you.

Art Hackett:

Thank you.

Patty Loew:

We miss you already. Any parting words for the viewers that have watched you all these years?

Art Hackett:

Well, one of the truisms in life is that there are certain things that are guaranteed to get you fired. And one of them is to get caught lying during your job interview. One of the questions I was asked was, how long do you plan to stay here? And I said, Well, five years. So yeah, I was lying through my teeth. Now, to be fair, the rest of that answer was that this was right after CNN had started up. And I said, you know, I think this is going to cause some major shake-ups in the TV news business, which is certainly true. But what I said was, I figured five years here, I can do quality work and then figure out–

Patty Loew:

Off to CNN.

Art Hackett:

And figure out where I want to go from there. I never did.

Patty Loew:

We’re so happy you didn’t. We’re so happy you spent those 30 years with us. We really appreciate it.

Art Hackett:

Thanks, everybody.

Patty Loew:

Well, Art is retiring. You will still see some of his reports from time to time, including next week on “In Wisconsin” when he explores the new glacial heritage trail.

Art Hackett:

This is Art Hackett. The DNR is buying and preserving this parcel of land southeast of Waterloo.

Man:

The property has a beautiful topography, great views.

Art Hackett:

It is unlike other preservation projects. It’s described as a pearl on a string. I’ll explain why.

Liz Koerner:

This is “In Wisconsin” reporter Liz Koerner. It’s a subject many would prefer to ignore. But along with taxes, our own death and burial will arrive someday. You may not have a choice when it comes to death, but new environmentally friendly burial options may surprise you.

Jo Garrett:

This is “In Wisconsin” reporter Jo Garrett. Andy Janecke has kayaked around the US. We caught up with him on the Turtle Flambeau scenic waters area.

Man:

No one from the shore would realize I have a disability.

Jo Garrett:

He’s a quadriplegic. Find out how this special boat and this campsite have set him sailing.

Patty Loew:

Those reports next Thursday at 7:30 right here on Wisconsin Public Television. A quick reminder about our interactive blog called the Producer’s Journal. Find out in advance about reports we’re working on, the people we’ve met and the places we’ve been. Check out the Producer’s Journal at wpt.org and click on “In Wisconsin.” It’s updated each week day by the people who work in front of and behind the scenes. Finally this week we head north to Florence County. That’s where you’ll find one of the original wild rivers. Now, there hasn’t been a wild river designation in Wisconsin in more than 40 years until last year. To learn more about these two new wild rivers, just go to our website at wpt.org and click on “In Wisconsin” for a look at our wild river reports. Have a great week “In Wisconsin.”

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 Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Oshkosh, Milwaukee and Minneapolis, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.