from Poisoning Paradise: An Environmental History of Madison
By Maria C. Powell, PhD
Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District created
In 1926, in a long op-ed in The Capital Times, William Newton Nichols’ proposed that Lake Monona could not be “de-odorized” by dredging alone, pointing out that Burke plant was still dumping sewage into Starkweather Creek.[i] He argued that the only way this problem would be solved would be by forming a sanitary district with taxing authorities and ability to pay for lake-weed cutters, chemicals sprayers, and dredgers. “There is no justice in the City of Madison shouldering all the expense involved in a general lake cleaning,” he wrote. He argued, further, that though the rivers and lakes commission had done some commendable work, it didn’t have enough power—that these pollution problems should be addressed like “all other matters of public safety…with full police powers to enforce needed regulations on the careless and law-despising.”[1]
After years of planning, Nichols’ suggestion was finally fulfilled; in 1928 the Nine Springs sewage plant was finally in operation and in 1930 the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) was formed. The city of Madison still owned and operated the Burke sewage treatment plant, the Nine Springs plant, and the sewer mains, pumps, and other sewage infrastructure in the city.
Clean Lakes Association formed, locks and dams south of Lake Monona proposed
While the new Nine Springs plant prevented some sewage from entering Lake Monona, it was too small to handle all the city’s sewage, and the highly inefficient Burke plant was also still in operation. The lakes continued to be in a horrible, smelly state. Downstream lake residents were increasingly unhappy about this and started to organize with Lake Monona shoreline property owners.
In 1931 town boards from four townships around Madison’s lakes– Blooming Grove, Madison, Dunn and Pleasant Springs—met in Blooming Grove to discuss creating a new drainage district so dams and locks could be installed between Madison and Stoughton to increase lake and river levels—which, they believed would reduce algal and weed growth. About a hundred property owners and citizens attended the meeting to protest the lack of city action to clean up the lakes—calling their efforts a “call to arms” and threatening lawsuits.[ii]
Testimonies were heated—and most of the ire was directed at the City of Madison. Alexius Baas—a well-known Madison singer who had grown up on Lake Monona and had become one of its most passionate citizen defenders—shared his observations on the increasingly polluted state of the lake.[2],[3] “I can remember, when I was a boy, when we were fishing on Lake Monona we never thought of coming ashore when we wanted a drink of water. We drank directly out of the lake. It was so clear that you could see bottom in 20 feet of water. There was nothing offensive about the weed odors or the natural vegetation in the lake even in dog days…” Erecting dams, Baas said, would just treat the symptoms without getting at the root cause of the disease—the sewage discharges.”[iii] [4] Based on his family experiences, he argued, Madison wouldn’t take action unless a lawsuit compelled it to do so. His father had run a boat livery business, he explained, until “[c]onditions became so bad that his business was ruined and he brought suit against the city. John M. Olin was his attorney. The suit was never tried. The city of Madison paid my father a cash bonus and promised to rectify the condition.” [iv]
Frank Weston (former Isaac Walton League?) said “Don’t kid yourself about being good to Madison or Madison being good to us. They didn’t ask us when they built the sewage disposal plants. Now they will double the capacity, and Stoughton will get nitrates a-plenty. Weeds don’t bother us, but the rotten stuff at the bottom of the lakes does.”[v]
Robert Nickels, former alderman and member of the rivers and lakes commission, called the condition at the outlet of the Yahara River “deplorable” and William J.P. Aberg, former president of the Izaak Walton League, called the Burke plant discharge “criminal.” “The city of Madison,” he charged, “is operating a plant at Burke which would be a disgrace to any city in the state…putting into Lake Monona affluent only 30 per cent treated, filled with nitrates which encourage growth of weeds and containing some sewage that is almost raw.” He sarcastically called the chemical treatment of the lake “aspirin treatment,” as opposed to a permanent cure, and recommended dredging, raising lake levels, and eliminating the Burke discharge. Storm sewer pollution, he proposed, could not be eliminated, but “deep water” would eliminated most of that problem because algae cannot grow in deep water.
A week before the meeting, an investigative committee outlined suspected causes of Monona’s sorry state; they included Burke “affluent” (sic), decaying vegetable matter from Starkweather, over 40 storm sewers flowing into the lake, weed cuttings left in the shallow bays, and shallow lake water that doesn’t “enable waves to cause circulation.” The committee’s recommendations were: 1. Prevent Burke affluent (sic) from entering the lake; 2. Divert Starkweather south of Waubesa; 3. Treat or filter stormwater into the lake; 4. remove weeds/weed cuttings; 5. Increase lake levels by installing locks and spillways below Lake Monona; 6. Remove decaying matter near Starkweather Creek and use to fill in low lands near city dump; 7. Continue chemical treatment.[5],[6]
The investigative committee concluded that “a permanent organization” consisting of “all persons interested in making the lake clean” should be formed for “investigating and correcting the unhealthful condition” of the lake. It also recommended that chemists be hired to analyze pollution sources. Further, the committee concluded, chemical treatments, though “as effective as can be expected under the circumstances,” did not address or remove the causes of pollution. Temporary officers of the new association included a former alderman, president of the Commercial National Bank, president of the East Side Business Men’s association, Frank Weston (Isaac Walton League?), and Alexius Baas. The group was dubbed the “Clean Lakes Association.”
At a meeting a month later, the rivers and lakes commission agreed that a drainage district should be formed for the area around Lakes Monona and Waubesa, to raise the lakes in attempt to reduce algal and weed growth. Nobody felt that this would be enough to eliminate the pollution, however, and continued to debate solutions. Dr. Tyerne of the Clean Lakes group said as long as Burke effluents continued to go into Starkweather Creek the lake would be polluted, while city biochemist Dr. Domogalla—perhaps defending the city—argued that creeks and springs feeding Lake Monona have more nitrogen than effluents from city sewage system. Storm sewer discharges were also recognized as a significant problem. While recognizing that effluents from sewerage plants had large amounts of nitrogen, city engineer E.E. Parker also blamed street washings into storm sewers, and Dr. Tyerne recommended catch basins at the end of storm water drains. The rivers and lakes commission chairman put forth a more ecological explanation: “the character of the lake is changing partly because of loss of natural economic balance. Certain fish which fed on algae have practically disappeared from the lakes.”
Despite the intense debates, most agreed that the Burke sewage plant discharges must be abandoned. City engineer Parker explained, however, that “the city is financially unable to abandon the Burke plant. The only solution is to turn over the system to the metropolitan sewer district, which, with its unlimited bonding powers, could enlarge the plant.”[vi],[7]
Clean Lakes association demands changes, threatens lawsuit
A month later, over 100 people attended a meeting organized at Lowell School on the eastside by the Clean Lakes Association. Alexius Baas reported the group’s recommendations, which included abandonment of the Burke plant, placing locks at Lake Waubesa to raise the water levels in the lakes, and the purchase of a dredger for Madison lakes.[vii]
In his classic sarcastic style, Mr. Baas reported that, “because the city chemists have a tendency to whitewash the situation,” the group had hired its own scientist to test effluents from the Burke and Nine Springs plants. Dr. Tyerne presented the Chicago chemist’s results, which pointed to the Burke plant as the chief culprit for Lake Monona’s pollution. “The sewage at the Burke plant,” he explained, has been changed in character to some degree since the plant was built. The Oscar Mayer plant discharges waste containing hair, blood, animal tissue, etc., into the sewers, and the plant may require some modification in construction and operation to produce satisfactory results in the course of purification of sewage.” The city estimated that this would cost $500,000. Moreover, Dr. Tyerne said, he believed that the Burke plant was violating state codes because if the plan was overloaded or broke down, raw sewage would go into Lake Monona. He discovered that at 2am every day, a man would go to the plant and open a gate that released raw sewage and untreated waste directly into the river.[viii]
Mr. Baas’ comments about the city’s role in creating (and ignoring) this situation were scathing. “The city spends $15,000 to $20,000 yearly in chemicals dumped into Lake Monona. Outside of that, a few men work with a scoop and scrape some of the muck out of the east end of the lake onto the roadside…” In other words, he continued, “the Burke plant empties 5,000,000 gallons of filth into Lake Monona every 24 hours and the city employs a few men to take it out.” Piling on the criticism, another attendee added that the first thing that should be done is to clean up city hall. “We’ve got a mayor up there,” one said, “whose only interest is in perpetuating himself in office—and there are some aldermen like him. They find enough money to create jobs for ex-aldermen and ex-chiefs of police, but they are always broke when it comes to a proposition like this.”[8],[9]
Wealthy west-side residents and Lake Mendota are protected
As eastside residents had in past years, Baas pointed to the eastside-westside class disparities in political decisions and resulting lake pollution. At an earlier meeting, he noted that “[t]he state installed the first sewage plant in the capitol and dumped its raw sewage into Lake Monona. Then the city began to do the same thing,” he said. “They didn’t dump any into Mendota, probably because property owners on its shore were wealthier and the city didn’t want to antagonize them.”[ix] He again asked “Why hasn’t any of this stuff been dumped into Lake Mendota?” “Our Madison officials have always been tender to wealth and so sewage has never been dumped into Mendota to any extent.”[x]
In a speech on the radio in 1934, a city attorney repeated this assertion. “Sewage and waste has been dumped into Lake Monona as far back as I can remember,” he said, “and although there was considerable agitation, nothing was done about it, until Middleton proposed to dump its effluent into Lake Mendota. Then we had prompt and vigorous action by wealthy and influential citizens owning property on Lake Mendota. A petition was circulated, a hearing was held and the Metropolitan Sewage district created. The sewage from Middleton is carried in a pipeline to the Nine Spring Marsh Disposal plant. That protects Lake Mendota. How about the other lakes?”[xi]
Monona also had far more storm runoff going into it, according to Dr. Tyerne, who said 42 storm sewers discharged into Lake Monona and only two flowed into Lake Mendota.[10] Another attendee launched a more personal attack on a prominent and powerful Lake Mendota homeowner—Governor La Follette, who lived in a mansion on Lake Mendota. He “should no longer remain indifferent to Lake Monona pollution since his home is here and because the state should have more pride in the conditions of its capital city,” the man charged.
While catering to and protecting wealthy Lake Mendota shoreline homeowners, Baas felt city leaders and showed “cocky indifference” to the complaints of the eastside Clean Lakes Association members’ requests. As an example, he said, when the association threatened to sue the city for the illegal situation at the Burke plant, he explained, the mayor and aldermen said to go right ahead–they would just take it to a higher court.
As for the group’s demand that the Burke plant be shut down, Dr. Tyerne said that the Burke plant wasn’t designed for taking the growing amounts of animal processing wastes from Oscar Mayer, but that shutting it down was impossible because the Nine Springs plant wasn’t big enough to handle it and the rest of the city’s sewage. He strongly urged the construction of another unit on the plant to handle more of the city’s wastes.
Who should pay for sewage treatment, what to do about Burke and OM wastes?
In the next several years, as Madison grew and laid more sewer mains, controversial discussions ensued about who should handle, and pay to treat, Madison’s and surrounding suburbs’ growing amounts of sewer wastes. The city proposed that the sewerage district should handle them—taking ownership of all city sewer lines, pump stations, and sewer plants– because it would be more efficient, less expensive, and the district would be more able to incorporate wastes from growing suburban areas in the county. It would also have legal authorities to stop sewage discharges and taxing authorities to pay for sewage treatment and expanding the sewage treatment plant—and given this, the Burke plant could be closed down sooner.[xii]
Mayor Law explained in a Capital Times article that this arrangement was necessary if “citizens of Madison and surrounding territory desire and insist that Lakes Mendota and Monona be maintained free from contamination, it is desirable to pay for the complete elimination of the flow of effluent from sewage disposal plants into the waters of these two lakes and to treat the sewage so that no effluent will be permitted to enter the Yahara river below these lakes.” The city, he wrote, has “police powers over the waters of Lakes Mendota and Monona,” but no legal authority “to compel other communities to keep their sewage effluent out of the lakes,” which the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District did have, based on a law enacted in 1927 when the first Nine Springs unit was built.
Supporting Clean Lakes Association members’ contention that Lake Mendota and its wealthy shoreline property owners got preferential treatment, Law explained that the 1927 law was first used by the city in 1930 “to keep west side sewage out of Lake Mendota.” When Middleton was planning to develop a sewage plant they were going to discharge effluents into Lake Mendota, but “[a]s the city had gone to considerable expense to keep its sewage out of Lake Mendota in order to safeguard its waters, citizens’ mass meetings were held to find a remedy.”
The State Board of Health advised that a district be formed to “protect the health of the community.” Citizens petitioned in support of this, and after a long court hearing, the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage district was created on Feb. 8, 1930.[11] “The commission’s first step was to provide means of keeping sewage to the west of the city out of Lake Mendota,” Law explained, and it began constructing intercepting sewers that kept these effluents out of the lake. Efforts were currently underway, he added, to stop any the few remaining sewage discharges to Lake Mendota—but “it was necessary to continue to discharge into Lake Monona the effluent of the Burke plant.”[xiii]
Many citizens and public officials opposed the sewerage district
Not everyone was enthused about the proposal to transfer all city of Madison sewerage infrastructure to the sewerage district. In early 1933 Alder John M. Reis, after attending meetings about the proposal, raised concerns that the city was being “compelled to join the new system and turn over our Burke and Nine Springs plants to a three man commission and let them do as they please with the city, afterward paying from 80 to 90 per cent of the cost”–and asked “what is there to prevent the system from passing into corrupt hands in the future?”[xiv]
The Clean Lakes association posed questions to mayoral candidates about the Burke plant problems, locks on Waubesa, and whether or not the city sewage infrastructure should be handed off to the district. Incumbent Law admitted that the Burke plant was never designed for packing plant waste and the problem should be remedied “as soon as the necessary financing can be done.”[12] He said he would support whatever served “the best interests of the citizens of Madison” in regards to the sewage district question, was in favor of locks at Waubesa, and supported continued chemical treatment of Monona.
One of Law’s opponents, Theodore Walker had different opinions. “I am fully aware that our facilities are inadequate and that they are creating a health hazard as well as prejudicing the future of Madison as a resort city” he wrote, but said he opposed turning over city sewage plants to the district “where they will not be under the control of the citizens directly” but “under the control of three men not directly responsible to the people.” He pointed out that building locks to raise lake levels would be of no value unless the sewage pollution was stopped and similarly, that chemical treatments were “a very unsatisfactory makeshift” approach because as long as algae had a continuous supply of food (sewage), they would continue to re-appear after chemical treatments (as they did). He suggested using the money for chemical treatments for improvements of sewage disposal plants instead. He concluded: “I am ready to pledge myself to every effort in favor of improving Madison’s lakes, both because they are a great civic asset and because they will undoubtedly be our source of water within five or six years.”[xv]
Alder Joseph A. Rupp, also running for mayor, argued that the city was adequately taking care of its sewage there was no evidence of raw sewage entering the lakes from city sewage plants. He blamed the pollution primarily on runoff from streets into the storm sewer system and implored the Clean Lakes Association to provide evidence that it was raw sewage from the treatment plants. He opposed transferring the city’s sewer plants to the district, arguing that property owners on the south and east shores of Monona, and on Waubesa, should pay the expense of building locks at Waubesa if they wanted them. He strongly defended the city’s chemical treatments of the lakes, but said the State of Wisconsin should share the costs.[xvi]
In April, after hours of contentious debates, the Common Council voted 11-7 for the transfer of city sewage works to the Metropolitan Sewerage District. One hundred citizens attended the council meeting and according to the Capital Times, the majority of the speakers in three hours of testimony were “violently opposed” to the transfer. Citizens were concerned about the separate taxing authorities of the district, its abilities to issue bonds without supervision of the city council, and the fact that it would be under the control of a small group of people not accountable to citizens. Many alders, an alderman-elect, and a former mayor supported the citizens in opposition. Sixth ward Alder Reis said he was opposed to the district until citizens were assured that they would retain control, and asked why Maple Bluff and Middleton sewage were handled for free by the city.
Alexius Baas of the Clean Lakes association said he neither supported nor opposed the transfer, but that he wanted immediate action taken to improve the lakes. “In 1895 we drank Lake Monona water. Would anyone want to drink it now? Now there are some millions of gallons of sewage entering the lake daily.” Saying he had “reached the end of his patience,” he added, “[t]he real cause of the trouble is the Burke plant which is not efficient.”
A sewage district commissioners pointed out that “the commission was created and the district formed to do something that a single community has not power to do” and the city can’t make a contract with the state board of control. Responding to citizens’ concerns about the political accountability of commissioners, he explained that “any one of the commissioners can be removed by the county court at any time the commissioner’s conduct is not proper.” Another supporter of the district transfer, Dr. D. H. Kessler, representing a committee of the Madison Technical club, said that among the committee’s reasons for favoring the transfer was “the need of protecting the beauty of the lakes” and “the fact that Lake Mendota is the city’s future water supply and therefore must be guarded.”[xvii]
Debates go on, citizens submit petition opposing the transfer
Debates did not end with the council vote. Two days after the meeting, the Metropolitan Sewerage Commission held a special meeting and voted unanimously for the city’s provisions to transfer city sewage infrastructure to the district. Hoping to appease those concerned about whether this arrangement would improve the condition of Lake Monona and Mendota, the Commission pledged: “Inasmuch as the waters of Lake Monona and Lake Mendota should be maintained free from contamination as possible, it is desirable to play the complete elimination of the flow of effluent from sewage disposal plants into the waters of these two lakes and to treat the sewage so that no unstable or improper effluent will be permitted to enter the Yahara River.”
Commissioners shared plans to immediately build lines to divert the last known sewage discharges into Lake Mendota. They recognized that the Burke plant was still sending partially untreated sewage to Lake Monona and promised that the plant would eventually be eliminated. Alexius Baas, chairman of the Clean Lakes Association, did not seem fully satisfied with this assurance: “The Burke plant is admittedly only 50 per cent efficient. This means that from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 gallons of partially treated sewage is flowing every 24 hours into a lake the circumference of which is only 12 miles—and which averages something less than 30 feet in depth. This has been going on for 15 years.” Another group of citizens opposed to the transfer of organized a petition, and Mayor Law said he would delay signing of the city resolution approving the transfer until the petitions were filed.[xviii] .[13]
[1] He also proposed a lock at the outlet of Lake Waubesa to control lake levels.
[2] 1922.4.22, 1931.7.20 Article about Alexius Baas’ singing
[3] 1931.4.25 Baas: “When I was a lad Lake Monona was a clear, clean body of water. That was the day of outdoor toilets. Madison had not as yet become civilized enough to pollute the lake with sewage. The troubles with the lakes began with the installation of so called sewage disposal plants.”
[4] He recommended diverting all effluent from Madison, Stoughton, Edgerton and “other intervening centers” through a ditch directly to the Rock River
[5] A county surveyor said “Pollution of Lake Monona is partly due to 43 storm sewers discharging into the lake, to overloading of the Burke plant and the Madison Gas and Electric Company which discharges some objectionable wastes into the water.”
[6] Some residents at the Blooming Grove meeting argued that instead of damming—which the board had proposed to decrease algal and weed growth– dredging was needed to “remove accumulation of fertile slime” and “remove bars that impede free movement of waters.” Dams, they argued, would also flood adjacent farm fields, which farmers had paid to drain
[7] Clean Lakes Association members proposed that Burke plant effluent “be run into Starkweather creek and the flow of the creek changed so that it would drain into the…widespread of the Yahara river.”
[8] In July 1931, the city experimented with trying to send all Burke wastes except Oscar Mayer wastes to the Nine Springs plant and found that it was unable to handle this amount. (1931.7.15, 1931.7.31)
[9] On July 17, a 60 year-old worker taking care of a leak at a well that handled Oscar Mayer wastes fell head first into the well and suffered possibly permanent eye damage from “chemicals in the water in which he fell.” (1931.7.18)
[10] By 1933 the number of storm sewers into Monona had grown to 50 (1933.2.13)
[11] The district at that time included the city of Madison, villages of Shorewood Hills, Middleton and Maple Bluff, and parts of the towns of Madison, Middleton, Westport, Burke and Blooming Grove.
[12] The Association of Commerce and city purposely located the Farmers’ Cooperative Packing plant next to the Burke plant and connected it to the plant in 1914 just after it was completed.
[13] So, the saga wasn’t over yet? An April 9, 1934 newspaper article reported that the transfer was completed. So at this point Burke was presumably the responsibility of MMSD?
[i] 1926.7.10 Cap Times
[ii] 1931.4.28 and 1931.4.30 WSJ, 1931.4.28 CT
[iii] 1931.4.28 WSJ
[iv] 1931.4.28 WSJ
[v] 1931.4.28 CT
[vi] 1931.5.21 WSJ and Cap Times
[vii] 1931.6.9. Cap Times, WSJ
[viii] 1971.9.3 CT
[ix] 1933.4.28. WSJ
[x] 1934.7.20 WSJ
[xi] 1934.8.31 CT
[xii] 1933.1.11 Cap Times, WSJ
[xiii] 1933.2.5 CT
[xiv] 1933.2.9 CT
[xv] 1933.4.2 CT
[xvi] 1933.4.3 CT
[xvii] 1933.4.18 CT
[xviii] 1933.4.20 CT
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