Mount Rushmore

The Associated Press announcement we found on cleaning Mt. Rushmore
(July 9, 2005) clarifies nothing for me except: "Well that explains
it all--it was and is FREE!"

About the RFP?

   "The washings are compliments of a German manufacturer of
    cleaning machines that has donated 80 such projects around the
    world, said Alfred Karcher GmbH and Co. KG spokesman Frank
    Schad. He said the company pressure washed the base of the
    Statue of Liberty two years ago and was looking for another
    interesting project to do in the United States. 'As a federal
    agency, we don't have a lot of money in our budget to be
    pressure washing faces,' said Judy Olson, Mount Rushmore's chief
    of interpretation. 'When they said they would do it for free,
    that's when we started considering having this done.' 'I've been
    wanting to go out on the faces for a long time now since I got
    here,' said Blaine Kortemeyer, who has spent five of his 15
    years as a ranger at Mount Rushmore."

N. J. Bud Goldstone, writer, art conservation engineer, and author
The Los Angeles Watts Towers


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:7
                  Distributed: Thursday, July 21, 2005
                        Message Id: cdl-19-7-014
                                  ***