Tomah Armory (Wisconsin Army National Guard)

The Tomah Armory site is a roughly ten-acre property in northeastern Tomah, in Monroe County, Wisconsin. From the late 1940s through about 1955, the city of Tomah operated an open, unlined landfill on the parcel that accepted municipal, industrial, and construction wastes. In 1968, the city sold part of the property to the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs, which built a Wisconsin Army National Guard armory there. The armory remains active on the site today and continues to serve as a Guard facility. The contamination at the property predates military ownership and originated with the earlier landfill operations, but the National Guard now occupies the affected ground.

Because the armory was constructed on top of a former waste-disposal area, the site has been associated with concerns about potential exposure to substances left in the buried fill and in the underlying soil and groundwater. The materials below describe the contaminants that environmental investigations documented at the property.

1. Lead. Lead is a heavy metal that was common in older municipal and industrial wastes, including discarded paint, batteries, and construction debris of the kind accepted at the landfill. Environmental investigations identified lead as the primary contaminant affecting both soil and groundwater at the Tomah Armory site. Exposure to lead has been associated with a range of potential health effects, and the cleanup focused on limiting contact with contaminated material and monitoring groundwater over time.
2. Volatile organic compounds and solvents. Volatile organic compounds, sometimes including industrial solvents such as TCE, are chemicals that can migrate from buried waste into soil and groundwater. Because the landfill accepted industrial waste, investigators evaluated the site for these compounds alongside the documented metal contamination. Concerns about potential exposure to such solvents are part of why groundwater at the property has been monitored and why affected users were connected to a public water supply.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added the Tomah Armory site to the National Priorities List, the federal Superfund inventory, on July 22, 1987. Cleanup work included capping the landfill, placing land-use restrictions on the property, connecting affected users to the public water supply, and conducting long-term groundwater monitoring. After EPA determined that the remedy was protective and that waste would remain safely in place beneath the cover and buildings, the agency deleted the site from the National Priorities List on February 28, 2019. Cap maintenance, institutional controls, and periodic five-year reviews are expected to continue.

Veterans and Guard members who trained or served at the Tomah Armory and who have questions about this history are encouraged to stay informed as monitoring continues and to discuss any health concerns with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which can describe current guidance and any benefits or screening that may apply to their situation.