The former Ithaca Gun Company site and Fall Creek area contain high levels of pollution as a direct result of the company's manufacturing processes, including spray painting, forging, firing ranges, drying gunstocks, plating, and the dumping of lead shot into the gorge. The firearms produced at this site received national and international acclaim for almost a hundred years.
On August 29, 2000, The Environmental Protection Agency called for an emergency immediate removal action following various reports of the presence of lead, in which several thousand tons of soil-containing lead were removed over the course of the next several years.
Wastebed Atlas is a project exploring the relics of industry and how it is remembered. Utilizing physical and oral history archives courtesy of The History Center in Tompkins County and on-site investigations, Wastebed Atlas remaps the site and reimagines it’s historical timeline through markers of ecology and economy.
A 2018 report from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation declared lead to be the primary contaminant in the surface and subsurface of the soil, with lead contamination ranging from 66 to 190,000ppm (permissible rate of contamination in residential areas 400ppm). The study declared that "the site poses a significant threat to public health or the environment."
The Former Ithaca Gun Company
Made in collaboration with Peter Jensen. Contains immersive binaural audio, to be experienced with headphones.
The now distant whir of water from Ithaca Falls was once an all too present source of power in this space, just as the now desolate and absent structures once clamored as bricks fell in the factory's demolition.
Repopulating: Family of Specters. unbleached organic cotton, soil, plant matter.
Repopulating: Family of Specters. unbleached organic cotton, soil, plant matter.
Repopulating: Family of Specters. unbleached organic cotton, soil, plant matter.
Repopulating: Family of Specters. unbleached organic cotton, soil, plant matter.
Map
Made in collaboration with Khaly Durst.
Wastebed Atlas. oil, soil, dehydrated moss on canvas.
MAN! do I miss swimming in the foaming lead rich water