101 Places Not to See Before You Die - Catherine Price [26]
Then came the Solvay Process Company, a soda ash producer that opened on Onondaga’s western shore in 1884 and proceeded to release millions of gallons of by-products into the lake per day. That got rid of the company’s trash—but it also killed off most of the coldwater fish.
Pollution eventually forced the resorts and beaches to close—at which point you’d think someone would have realized that using the lake as a garbage can was a bad idea. But instead, Solvay was replaced by the Allied Chemical and Dye Company, which discharged about 165,000 pounds of mercury into the water over the next fifteen years.
Other companies followed Allied’s lead, dumping chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and chlorinated benzene into the mix.
It was only after the Clean Water Act passed in 1972 that people started trying to clean up Onondaga. The sewage treatment plant was updated; several of the heaviest polluters were shut down. But unfortunately, these efforts came late—almost forty years later, the lake is still unsafe to swim in, and the sediments at its bottom are on the federal Superfund list. A group called the Onondaga Lake Partnership has made admirable progress toward making Onondaga Lake a safe environment for fish and other marine life. But considering the lake’s remaining problems, like large plumes of algae and overflows of untreated sewage, it’s going to be a while before you see me doing laps.
Chapter 37
Mount Rushmore
Beautiful though it may be, South Dakota doesn’t have much in the way of manmade attractions. But what it lacks in number, it makes up in scale—the presidential portraits on Mount Rushmore, carved into the face of a mountain, are each over sixty feet tall.
Peering out from the mountain, the oversize faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt were designed to celebrate the first 150 years of American history. With America more than 230 years old and going (relatively) strong, Mount Rushmore still draws millions of visitors per year.
That’s the part I don’t get, because while Mount Rushmore is an impressive achievement, it’s really not that interesting. There’s no jackalope or fake Tyrannosaurus Rex (see Wall Drug, p. 42); in fact, three of the people featured in the sculpture also appear on the bills you’ll be using to pay the park entrance fee. Take into account the fact that the sculptures were carved into hills considered sacred to the Lakota Sioux, and it starts seeming less like a testament to the American spirit and more like an example of us acting like jerks.
But what really confuses me is the lack of creativity. Unlike many other historical sites, Mount Rushmore never had a purpose besides being a tourist attraction: it was built specifically to draw visitors to South Dakota’s Black Hills. So why not spice things up a bit? Mountaineering guides could lead climbing expeditions up Thomas Jefferson’s nose. An entrepreneurial company could rig a zip line from Teddy Roosevelt’s mustache. Each summer Mount Rushmore does offer sculpting classes, but still. Gazing up at the possibility that is Washington’s forehead, I can’t help but think we could do a little better.
Wikipedia Commons
Chapter 38
Amateur Night at a Shooting Range
If I’m going to spend an evening shooting guns, I want there to be plenty of adult supervision—especially if half the clientele has never fired one before.
This was not the case at Jackson Arms Shooting Range in southern San Francisco where I attended a handgun-themed bachelor party with a bunch of other firearm neophytes. Housed in what looked like an industrial warehouse, the parking lot was full of pickup trucks with bumper stickers not typically associated with the San Francisco Bay Area, and the walls of the lobby and gift shop were lined with rifles. When my husband jokingly asked whether the shop had ever been held up, our teacher didn’t smile. “No,” he said. “We’re all holstered.”
Holstered he was—when he led our group into a back classroom, I noticed the butts of twin handguns protruding