When the plant was finished, it contained smokeless powder and rocket grain production facilities, housing for 12,000 construction workers and their families for six months, housing for 4,000-8,000 production workers and their families for the length of World War II, a school, a recreation center, a child care facility, a hospital, cafeterias, and a transportation system.

[4] The plans originally called for production lines to make smokeless powder, diphenylamine, and sulfuric acid.

[3] On 10 May 1943, the first train load of finished product left Badger; 60,000 pounds of smokeless powder was sent to the Twin Cities Ordnance Plant in Minnesota where it was used in M-1 rifle cartridges.

The Hercules Powder Company began the process of demolishing and burning contaminated buildings, scrapping equipment, and donating office furniture and supplies to area schools.

Ball Powder, which was a trademarked name, had been introduced by Western Cartridge, a subsidiary of Olin Corporation, in 1933, but was not accepted by the U.S. Army until 1944.

[3] Ball Powder is a fine-grained, spherical gunpowder coated in graphite that is easy to store and transport in any climate and ideal for modern infantry small arms ammunition cartridges.

Therefore, Olin Corporation maintained Badger on stand-by status until the United States announced its intent to send troops to Vietnam.

Therefore, Badger was reactivated on January 3, 1966, and Olin Corporation prepared to make what would be millions of pounds of ammunition before propellant production ended in 1975.

By September 1966, Badger was producing and shipping oleum, a highly concentrated sulfuric acid, to the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant near Chicago, Illinois, in addition to using it locally.

In its mission statement, the BRC charged itself with the task of developing "a common vision for the reuse of the Badger property that can be meaningfully considered and realistically implemented by the appropriate local, state, and federal agencies."

Early meetings were devoted to gathering and reviewing basic information about the Badger property and its role – past, present, and future – in Sauk County's landscape, community, and economy.

The Badger Repositories include Army publications, RAB meeting minutes, groundwater monitoring data, and reports on remediation projects.

[9][10] Badger is located on the terminal moraine of the outwash plain of a glacier that stopped in the area during the Wisconsin Glaciation approximately 12,000 years ago.

Groundwater beneath the plant is contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride, trichloroethylene and dinitrotoluenes.

An area known as the Propellant Burning Grounds is the source of a three-mile long plume of contaminated groundwater that has migrated offsite, polluting private drinking water wells in its path and flowing into the Wisconsin River.

[12] As of 2021, regular groundwater monitoring found hazardous levels of contaminants located halfway between Baraboo and Prairie du Sac.

Restoration Advisory Board members and the Town Administrator were displeased with the Army s inaction and attempted to lobby Congress for direct funding to create a public water system.