A Wisconsin oil refinery that has been cited for numerous serious safety problems continues to use a dangerous chemical that a union and advocacy groups say puts workers and nearby residents at unnecessary risk. A collaborative investigation with the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News.

Just as Doug Drost was landing at the Shell Lake airport, his wife, Karen Drost, saw something hurtling out of the darkness toward their Cessna 210. Something big. “Deer, deer, deer!” she screamed. That hit on the northwestern Wisconsin runway — which caused $12,000 in damage — is a story that plays out over and over in this increasingly deer-ridden country.

A state program helped Didion Milling win $5.6 million in stimulus funding to expand its Cambria milling and ethanol plant, which has a history of environmental violations.

Neighbors of Didion Milling’s Cambria plant talk about why they have fought the company for years.
Main story How a polluter gets stimulus money — and avoids environmental review Nov. 29, 2010

Whoever is deemed responsible for the century-old toxic waste in Ashland, community residents — and others in Wisconsin — will pay for millions in cleanup costs.

The Kabasas, whose home is surrounded by a Superfund site with century-old pollution, are divided on whether to worry about it.

Millions of gallons of contaminated groundwater and thousands of gallons of gooey black coal tar lie underneath Ashland’s downtown waterfront. It is by far the thorniest cleanup of an old manufactured gas plant in Wisconsin — both because of the difficulty in cleaning it up, and in finding someone to pay for it.

The latest population figures of deer with chronic wasting disease are nearly 160 percent over target.