Mount Rushmore

Copy of Letter to Smithsonian: Mt. Rushmore and South Dakota's
Indian Ranger, May 5, 2006

    Mt. Rushmore and South Dakota's Indian Park Ranger

    Dear SI,

    Mt. Rushmore has not been in the "news" much but it should be.
    Almost a year ago, I caught the item in the news about the
    surprising high-pressure, hot water-spray cleaning by a German
    company of Mt. Rushmore. Now we get the May 2006 Smithsonian
    article "Mt. Rushmore" by Tony Perrottet. The article on Mt.
    Rushmore is exciting and well-written by Mr. Perrottet but the
    "news" about aliens on Mt. Rushmore was completely missed. It
    turns out that the Park Rangers had not followed good
    conservation procedures nor received proper approvals for
    getting any critical conservation work--no timely notice or
    approval by the State Historic Preservation Officer and no
    request for an American company to match or beat the foreign bid
    of $0!

    The hot news is about a foreign swindle on Park Rangers at both
    Mt. Rushmore and, believe it or not, the Statue of Liberty!

    We all may soon suffer from those swindles through lasting
    damage that may show up soon on the historic treasures. We found
    that the same swindle happened four years ago on New York Park
    Rangers guarding the Statue of Liberty. In each case, an offer
    of a "free" cleaning of the monuments worked.

    The foreign company now advertises to the world that they
    cleaned the USA National Historic Landmarks with their
    high-pressure, hot-water scrubbing and thereby removed lichen
    growing on the surfaces, dirt and grime so the monuments looked
    great again. However, removing lichen from such surfaces has
    been found to be of doubtful value and probably even harmful.

    We hope future damage will be controllable!

    **** Moderator's comments: Bud Goldstone wrote to add the
    following note, quoting from
    <URL:http://www.karchercommercial.com/>

       "Karcher News! Posted: 2-8-2006

        Karcher Completes Cleaning of Mount Rushmore Cleaning
        Finished on August 1, 2005

        Posted: 10-21-2005
        Interactive Mt. Rushmore Presentation See the cleaning of
        Mt. Rushmore day-by-day!

Bud Goldstone, art conservation engineer
6719 West 86th Place #2
Westchester. Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-568-1571
as768 [at] lafn__org


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:55
                  Distributed: Saturday, May 13, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-19-55-002
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