from Poisoning Paradise: An Environmental History of Madison
By Maria C. Powell, PhD
Chemicals aren’t eliminating the algae problems—it must be the sewage
As they had failed to do for years by then, the repeated chemical treatments did not alleviate the algae problems, and the lower lakes were getting worse. In July 1940, the Dane County Board adopted a resolution to appoint a special committee to study past surveys and “report on what can be done to prevent pollution in the lakes,” particularly Kegonsa and Waubesa. Funds for chemical treatments that year had already been exhausted, and more funding was needed “if a stench that would drive cottagers away from the lakes is to be combated,” supervisors reported.
County supervisors placed blame squarely on the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District’s discharges to Lake Waubesa and Kegonsa. “It’s about time that we either force the sewerage district to stop pouring sewerage into these other lakes or make them build a plant that will reduce the sewerage in an effluent that the lakes can take,” one supervisor argued. “Do the people in the southeastern part of the county—on Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa—have put up with this situation any more than those on Lakes Mendota and Monona? We must force the issue. And once and for all, we must see if the sewerage department is bigger than the public health or the conservation of our lakes.” As for chemical treatments, he argued, “[i]t would be better for the county to spend $100,000 if necessary to correct, legally, the pollution of the lakes, instead of paying thousands each year for temporary treatment.”[i]
At the next county board meeting, supervisors unanimously supported more funding for chemicals in the lower lakes. New debates arose about treating insect pests that had arisen in Lake Mendota, bothering swimmers.[1] Some supervisors were worried that treating Mendota would give the impression that the lake was polluted, which might weaken their argument that the cause of the problems in the lower lakes was sewage. “I object to the spraying of Lake Mendota,” a county supervisor argued, “because it is our one clean lake and because we have a big fight on our hands if we’re going to stop the continued pollution of the other lakes. If we put one ounce of chemical into Lake Mendota, where no sewage enters now, I fear it would be a beautiful argument for our opponents in this fight against pollution.” Another supervisor, supporting Lake Mendota treatment, pointed out that the Lake Mendota treatment was for a different reason and “the county is seeking to advertise itself as a recreation center and said it would be poor business to infect visitors.” [ii] By a large majority, the board voted for a “War on Lake Insects.”[iii]
Meanwhile, Lake Monona algae problems also persisted. In September 1940, a Capital Times reporter, responding to resident complaints, took a boat trip around the lake and reported “large patches of algae scum covering wide expanses of the lake,” bays “blanketed with the bright green scum,” and the shoreline “coated a brilliant green where high water had washed the scum against rocks.” In stagnant places, the scum was “beginning to foment, turning in color to a bright blue green” and resembling “huge patches of mold.” A 50-year lakeshore resident reported that the scum smells, “despite large quantities of chemicals” applied to the lake in the last few years.[iv]
As they had for years, local papers printed passionate, articulate letters from Kegonsa and Waubesa residents about the horrible state of the lakes and demanding that no more sewage be discharged into them.[v] In September 1940, seventy Lake Kegonsa residents petitioned the Dane county board asking for legislation to prevent further lake pollution, naming the sewerage district as the first offender, along with “any other corporations or individuals” as potential offenders. “It is our belief that the effluent from the Madison Metropolitan Sewage Disposal plant should be piped away from any lake, and that private, public, and other sources of possible pollution should be inspected and the sanitary laws enforced.” The residents’ petition was referred to the “lakes and streams improvement committee”–formerly the “water pollution” committee but renamed at the insistence of a Madison committee member who feared that the title might scare away tourists.[vi] [2]
At the end of 1940, the county legislative committee introduced a resolution “recommending broad legislation to prevent any raw or treated sewage being emptied into any Wisconsin lake or stream used for recreational and living purposes.” According to the newspaper, the proposed legislation “would prevent such organizations as the Metropolitan Sewage disposal plant, Oscar Mayer and Co., and similar firms from using present sewage systems, and also would be directed at individuals.”[vii]
In early 1941, 550 delegates of the southern Wisconsin Lakeland association voted unanimously in favor of a three-point resolution to present to Governor Heil and the legislature for “the improvement of southern Wisconsin as a vacationland.” The first point was “prevention of any individual, firm or corporation, either public or private, or the state government or subdivisions, from emptying raw sewage or treated effluent into any lake or stream of Wisconsin whose environs are used for recreational or residential purposes.” The 2nd point was to increase advertising for recreation and vacation attractions in the state, and the third was for funds to control “injurious and undesirable fish, especially carp.”
Assemblyman Palmer F. Daugs, the secretary of the Lakeland Association, presented the resolution at the meeting. “The perpetuation and utilization of fish life in our waters, the promotion of recreational facilities and attractions in our southeastern counties and throughout our state, and the financial value which is derived annually from these vacation assets should be of the utmost importance to us,” he said. The Lakeland Association president declared: “To the vacationist, tourist, and business, this ‘Garden of Eden’ in southern Wisconsin is in a class by itself. We are here to further promote the good work so well begun, to familiarize the residents of ‘Blackhawk Vacationland’ with the privileges and opportunities before them.”[viii]
Madison’s sewage is “the best and purest,” but “the best scientific minds” can’t figure out what is causing the algae
A little over a month later, new sewage legislation in line with the Lakeland Association recommendations was introduced in the Senate.[ix] Testimonies at the hearings echoed the tense and at times comical sewage debates during the 1930s. Stoughtonites trashed the City of Madison for causing an “unholy stink” in Waubesa and Kegonsa. Madison’s sewage, they said, was causing fish to die, normal vegetation to vanish, and a two-inch scum blankets the surface of the water. The lakes had become “nothing but cesspools,” a Stoughton alderman said. “You can’t kill the unholy stink with chemicals. The fish are dying out and people won’t swim in a lake where there’s sewage.” They proposed that Madison should pipe its sewage below Lake Kegonsa.
At one hearing, the Town of Dunn chairman charged that Madison’s sewage disposal plant wasn’t designed properly and couldn’t handle the amount of effluent it was receiving—and the chemical treatments were like putting lipstick on a pig. “It’s like putting powder on a dirty face to hide the odor,” he said “[i]t’s a shame that right here at the gateway to vacationland you’ve got scum-covered lakes.”[x]
The attorney representing the Madison Metropolitan Sewage District adamantly denied that Madison’s sewage caused the Lake Waubesa and Kegonsa problems. “We have the best and purest effluent of any city in the entire country,” he claimed. “The cause of the trouble is in dispute—the best scientific minds can’t agree.” Madison, he said, spends $250,000 a year of sewage disposal and the Madison plant was approved by the state board of health as modern, efficient, and entirely effective. He discounted the pipeline as not feasible, because it would cost between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000. As for the proposed bill, he told legislators, if they passed it, “the university would have to close, the legislature would have to adjourn, and we’d have to move back to the country. All you could do would be to go back in the old outhouse.”
State sanitary engineer L. F. Warrick advised the legislators that the algae was “a natural condition” and advocated for more chemical spraying. State health officer Dr. Harper deferred to scientific uncertainties and unknowns. “The more nitrates, the more algae,” he explained, but “if the nitrates are the only reason I cannot say. There is the same condition in lakes which have no sewerage system outflows. Though our treatment of sewerage is the best we know in the United States, the nitrates have not been taken out. I don’t know how this can be done. It is a problem of modern science at this time.”[xi]
A week later the Senate passed a bill that prohibited cities of more than 45,000 people from dumping sewage into lakes from two to six square miles in area within 10 miles of the sewage plant; the only city it would apply to in the state was Madison. Senator Fred Risser (P-Madison) voted for the bill, but advised caution because “if this bill is passed, the city will be violating the law in not doing immediately what it can only accomplish after the expenditure of $1,000,000.”[xii]
The bill was approved by the Assembly a couple weeks later and sent to Governor Heil.[xiii] Not surprisingly, the measure was strongly opposed by Madison city officials. After conferring with Madison Metropolitan Sewage District’s attorney, Heil said he would meet with scientists before deciding whether to sign or veto the bill. “I don’t want to be unjust to Dane county or the city of Madison,” he said.[xiv] A few days later, after meeting with Mayor Law, the sewerage district attorney and engineer, and the state laboratory of hygiene chemist, the governor accepted a resolution by the sewerage district to spend $10,000 to appoint a committee to study whether its sewage was responsible for the growth of algae in the lower lakes and, if so, spend up to $200,000 to correct the problem.[3],[xv] With this agreement in place, Governor Heil vetoed the sewage bill.[xvi]
Waubesa and Kegonsa residents confront city and state scientists on lake tour
Kegonsa and Waubesa residents didn’t give up after Heil vetoed the legislation. In August, 671 people signed a petition to the Dane County board, forwarded to the committee the governor had assigned to study the sewage problem, along with 487 individual complaints about the horrible condition of the lakes. The petition, like the vetoed legislation, asked that the state “secure legislation or take whatever action is necessary to prevent pollution of Lake Kegonsa by the Madison metropolitan sewage disposal plant, any other corporations or individuals.” The undersigned, it stated, “feel that the lake is public property held in trust for the people and no city, corporation, group of persons, or individual should be allowed to contribute to its pollution, any more than any agency or individuals should be allowed to dump refuse on the public highway.” The petition repeated their proposal that effluent from the sewage plant be piped away from the lakes, and also that “private, public and other sources of possible pollution should be inspected and the sanitary laws enforced.” The 487 individual complaints focused on lowered property values, odors, poor swimming conditions, negative effects on tourism, and deteriorating fishing conditions the highest number of complaints were about the effects on fishing.[xvii]
. Just days after receiving the petition and complaints, Heil’s committee took a boat tour of Waubesa and Kegonsa. Reporters from the State Journal and Capital Times accompanied them. The trip “suddenly turned into a lively adventure,” according to the State Journal, when angry lakeshore residents surprised them at a Waubesa beach with face-to-face accusations of “human manure,” “no more fish,” and “unbearable smell.” In addition to the committee, the boat tour included observers–Madison’s biochemist Domogalla (also the boat trip guide), state laboratory of hygiene chemist E. Starr Nichols, and the state board of health publicity director John Cutnan.[xviii]
The scientists took water samples to visually observe, and for later analyses. According to the State Journal reporter, Monona’s sample was the clearest. Dr. Domogalla took a sample of water near where the old Burke plant discharged into Lake Monona; the sample “showed evidence of algae and water fleas,” but Domogalla explained that it wasn’t more than was natural in a body of water that size.” Each year, he told the party, the 31-billion-gallon lake was sprayed with 45,000 pounds of copper sulphate (previous year’s reports actually documented more than that).
Water clarity noticeably declined when the group travelled downstream of where the sewage plant discharged from Nine Springs Creek into Lake Waubesa. Waubesa’s water downstream of the discharge was “bright green” with algae—so green that the chair of the committee said “we ought to save that for St. Patrick’s Day.” Domogalla explained that the lake, which received 25,000 pounds of copper sulphate per year, needed another copper sulphate treatment soon. Kegonsa’s water was brown, which the chemists explained was a “bright sign” that “proved algae were in states of decomposition because of recent treatment.” At that time Kegonsa was treated with about 15,000 pounds per year, Domogalla reported. [xix]
Stink is from algae, not sewage, scientists claim
Lakeshore residents, confronting the lake-touring scientists on a Waubesa beach, blamed the chemical lake treatments, the sewage plant system, and “government officials in general for laxity in the whole matter.” One resident, asked by the committee if lake conditions had gotten better or worse in recent years, said “Worse? Hmph!—It’s been rotten! Years ago we had a clear lake. Then along came all these schemes and today we have no fishing, no business. We just sit at the lake and take in the odor…” She admitted that things were slightly better that year, noting that “about six years ago conditions were so bad turtles walked across our bay on a crust of human manure.” Another resident reported that conditions were slightly better that year, but not much. “All I know is that we had a lot of business here a few years ago and a lot of fish. Today we haven’t got anything…The lake is dead.” [xx]
Domogalla told residents they were “mistaken” about seeing raw sewage; what they saw was actually “decomposed algae, weeds and muck from the bottom of the lake. Further, he explained, the algae itself causes odors—especially algae in the lower lakes, which was a bigger, “evil-smelling” variety than that in Monona. The committee, observers, and reporters also toured the sewage plant, where officials demonstrated that the water coming out of the plant was crystal clear. Its effluent, they said, was free from even the smallest sewage particles—though they admitted that “effluent was probably rich in nitrates and phosphorous.” Two of the three committee members were satisfied by the quality of the sewage effluent, but according to the Capital Times reporter, the chair of the committee remarked as the group disbanded that “no matter in what form the sewage was dumped into the lakes, it still smelled like raw sewage on a hot day.”[xxi]
The scientists in the group outlined several reasons for the ongoing lake odors and algae, including carp seining and carp pens, “fish fleas,” hard water, nitrate-rich springs feeding the lakes, shallowness of lakes (they had apparently not been sufficiently deepened by the dams) and “rich Dane county soil washing into the lakes”–one of the first mentions of what came to the fore in later years as a top cause of the lake problems.
In response to the angry lakeshore residents, who felt that the solution was to pump the sewage somewhere else, the scientists asked: “If Madison is forced to discontinue its present sewage system, where will it pump the effluent? Into the Rock River? Residents along its banks certainly will complain. If not there, where will the effluent go?[xxii]
“Kegonsa & Waubesa–The Polluted Lakes Law Should Drink”
About a week after the infamous lake tour, Aldric Revell, the Capital Times journalist who had tagged along, wrote a column with his observations—humorously tongue-in-cheek, but also deadly serious.[xxiii]
After a brief nod to history, noting that Longfellow’s “naiades” were fouled by sewage, Revell outlined Waubesa and Kegonsa residents’ experiences: “Today, residents of Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa are convinced they have a primordial privy in their front yards. They are equally convinced that the sewage effluent is the cause of the trouble. Where they used to enjoy the yellow lotus gently bowing to the ripples, they now have stinking algae doing a dead man’s float all over the place Where they used to enjoy the sight of game fish breaking the water, they now have to be content with callous carp. Where they used to be able to see deep through the water to the firm bottom sand, they now can’t see the blade of the oar if they ever venture out.”
Revell defended the city on some points. “No proof has been forthcoming that the effluent has been responsible for the conditions of the lakes,” he wrote. He also agreed with the city scientist’s opinion about the causes of the fish declines: “We are inclined to agree with Bernard Domogalla, Madison bacteriologist, which spraying the lakes with copper sulphate isn’t the sole cause of the absence of fish life. We believe that the presence of millions of carp, the spraying, and the decaying algae are all contributing factors.” Having seen the effluent from the sewage plant, further, “we can testify that it is clearer than the waters of Waubesa and Kegonsa.”
At the same time, he hinted, albeit indirectly, that arguments of city and state scientists were nonsensical. “The chemists also insist that what the residents smell is not sewage but decomposing algae” –while they also “admit that the effluent is rich in nitrogen, which is the food on which algae feed.”
Revell made no attempt to hide his conclusions about who he, and presumably his newspaper colleagues, believed. The boat trip was on an unseasonably cold day, so “while the committee came and saw, it could not smell.” Meanwhile, Waubesa and Kegonsa residents “have had to sleep with duffle-bags over their heads to keep out the smell” and had observed turtles walking over sludge. “We believe it is a fact that years ago Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa were beautiful bodies of water teeming with fish life. Hundreds of residents can’t be wrong about this. We also believe it to be a fact that today there are no fish in the lakes and that on hot days the lakes are odoriferous. Hundreds of residents can’t be wrong about this either.”
A rose by any other name
Revell’s damming, tongue-in-cheek conclusions further supported the Waubesa and Kegonsa residents’ charges, scientific uncertainties about the causes of odors notwithstanding, “For our part, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet or vice versa,” he penned, “and were we a resident of the lakes, it would not matter to us whether the source of the odor was attar of roses, carp, copper sulphate, or one of Mayor Law’s old hockey shirts. The fact of the matter is that the waters of Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa are saturated with algae almost beyond the point of human endurance. We wouldn’t want to swim in those lakes, which should be the ultimate test for any individual.”
Revell then turned his irony directly to Mayor Law. “Mayor Law has been insisting violently, before legislative committees and before the governor, that the two lakes are in good condition and that the residents would crab no matter what happened. We think if the mayor is sincere about this, that as a gesture to the residents, he should publicly drink a glass of Waubesa water before noon and Kegonsa water after noon. This would convince lakeshore dwellers that they have been crabbing without any reason. Who knows, perhaps this diet of purified waters would restore the fountain of youth to the mayor. In any event, whether lake conditions are caused by carp, copper sulphate, algae or sewage effluent, we wouldn’t want to dip our favorite aunt in either Kegonsa or Waubesa.”
Stoughton is a dumping ground for Madison’s financial swindles
Two weeks later an anonymous resident, playing along with Revell’s irony, wrote to “Voice of the People” expressing “profound interest” in “Revell’s report on the law test of Kegonsa water.” He wrote: “Should results be as anticipated and the mayor finds himself rejuvenated, a company will be organized here to place the water in Stoughton bottles and ship it all over the nation so that all the people may be benefited. Who knows what it may do for national defense if a super-race is thus developed to withstand the Nazi onslaught your editor so greatly dreads? Madison’s plan to pipe its sewage around Lake Kegonsa and deposit it in the local mill pond will give it all to Stoughton, thus assuring so voluminous a supply that a portion of it can be diverted into the local drinking water system so that all citizens may share in its curative and invigorating qualities.”
He went on. “But should faith in the healing properties of these waters prove unjustified and the sewage-polluted water seep into this little city’s water supply and an epidemic such as typhoid result, there is nothing of course that can be done about it as mighty Madison must have its way. What matters is if a few hundred, more or less, of these simply Norwegians die so that Madison is not obliged to install a modern and efficient sewer system such as civilized cities have? This town has long been the butz of Madison jokes and a dumping ground for its financial swindles, so is well conditioned to provide it with a chess pool for its slops.”[xxiv]
What was lost in the previous five decades
In March 1941, as he sat in his home on the south side of Lake Monona, Alexius Baas, who by this point had a regular column on the front page of The Capital Times, reflected on “the Madison of 50 years ago.”
“Let me go back in my memory of those happy times and draw for you the picture of Madison and her lakes in 1890,” he began. “The Yahara connecting the lakes was a succession of deep pools and patches of pickerel weeds. Around almost the entire shore of Monona grew a fringe of bull rushes and the shallower portions of all the lakes were thickly spread with luxuriant growths of all kinds of fresh water vegetation which furnished ideal feeding grounds and spawning beds. There were plenty of carp, suckers, and other rough fish which furnished food for the game fish and thus were held down to their proper place in nature’s scheme. If a man in those days couldn’t go out, and in a few hours return with fish enough to supply his table for a week it was because he was a dub. Many a time I have caught eight or ten black bass in two hours fishing and I have often, as a boy, helped to carry strings of 60 to 100.” He also made a point to say that “[t]he conditions of Monona were duplicated in the other lakes.[4]
In his usual scathing style, he minced no words describing what became of this paradise and who was responsible. “Then came the great Destroyer—Man—in ever increasing numbers,” he explained. “The city grew. A succession of city governments aided and abetted by university “experts” filled the lakes with sewage filth and then combated the stench they created (and the algae the sewage created) with chemicals which not only killed the fish but also the vegetation upon which the fish lived. All but the carp!…Where these lakes were once the home of countless millions of game fish, Monona, for example, does not contain more than two or three hundred in all its extent.”
He proposed the same remedy he’d urged for over twenty years by then. “Stop using these lakes as cesspools. Take the sewage out. That’s the first step. As a consequence the use of chemical sprays can gradually be abandoned.” Even more radically, he recommended that for at least five years, all fishing be prohibited in Madison lakes so the fishery could recover. But he was cynical about the prospects of this happening. “Is this program impossible?” he asked, rhetorically. “It is not. Will it—or anything like it—be followed? Not a chance! Why? There does not exist in all our sportmen’s leagues plus the conservation commission the horse sense to adopt it and put it into effect.”[xxv]
[1] According to the Wisconsin State Journal, the insects “come first from red wing blackbirds, wind up on snails, and eventually bite bathers, causing a rash.” A supervisor opposed to the spraying said “he had inquired around Lake Mendota and had not found anyone who said the bugs had caused infection. Another supervisor supported him, saying “By the time you get the spray out the bugs will be dead, anyway.” 1940.7.27. WSJ
[2] At the end of 1940, the lakes and streams improvement committee approved funding for a county lakes study, but a county supervisor introduced another strategy–a county resolution for a $1,000,000 pipeline, funded with state and federal aid, to pipe the effluent from the Metropolitan Sewage Disposal plant south of Stoughton. He argued that the committee’s plan to use the funding for “chemical analyses of the lakes,” and then start court action, was inadequate. 1940.11.16
[3] Before this meeting, Heil had asked the director of the state planning board and a representative of the Wisconsin Manufacturers association to take samples of water in Waubesa and Kegonsa and have them analyzed by private chemists. The chemists reported to him that “there was no evidence that the effluent from Madison sewage was responsible for the conditions of the two lakes and that the tests showed a negligible amount of nitrogen in the water.” Dr. Nichols from the state lab told Heil the sewage effluent was “among the cleanest in the state.”
[4] Baas: “With wild ducks and geese in season it was the same story. Both in spring and fall the hunters would return at night with boats laden to the gunwales by mallards, teal, canvasback. Father kept our table supplied with these in season and with rabbits all winter. Many a time he and I rowed to the east end of Monona, threw out a few wooden decoys, and returned in a few hours with all the ducks we could use. And these conditions were not confined to Madison and the Four Lakes. They were duplicated all over Wisconsin.”
[i] 1940.7.17. WSJ, CT
[ii] 1940.7.27 CT
[iii] 1940.7.27 WSJ
[iv] 1940.9.4 CT
[v] 1940.9.8, 9.9, 1940.9.20, 1940.10.11, 10.12.
[vi] 1940.9.24 WSJ
[vii] 1940.12.19 WSJ
[viii] 1941.1.10 CT
[ix] 1941.2.28 WSJ
[x] 1941.5.1 WSJ
[xi] 1941.5.14 WSJ
[xii] 1941.5.23 CT
[xiii] 1941.6.6 CT.
[xiv] 1941.6.17 WSJ
[xv] 1941.6.21 WSJ
[xvi] 1941.6.26 WSJ
[xvii] 1941.8.19 WSJ
[xviii] 1941.8.22 WSJ, CT
[xix] 1941.8.22 CT
[xx] 1941.8.22 WSJ
[xxi] 1941.8.22 CT
[xxii] 1941.8.22 WSJ, CT
[xxiii] 1941.8.4 CT
[xxiv] 1941.10.14 CT
[xxv] 1941.3.10 CT
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