273
because, for the believer, they are. Frequently, the owl and the griffon commingle to
tease from our rational powers a susceptibility to the fantastic.
7
Even during the US
Pacific Railroad Survey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, 1853–1856, the
explorers were fixated on practical matters—where railroad ties might be laid down
in the interests of a manifest destiny—but their real obsession was the study and
detailing of birds; hundreds and hundreds of pages of acute observation, for no other
apparent purpose than the provisioning of the 33rd Congress, House of
Representatives, gorgeous color renditions of avians from the 38th, 39th, and 41st
Parallels. Why, one supposes (other than having been instructed to do so)?
8
The profound irony of that, and of many other such government reports, is the
very symbol of the train traveling through the garden, as historian Leo Marx wrote
of it in his The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in
America.
9
Marx borrowed the trope from Thoreau’s Walden, but it lives, for example, in each of the original 40,000+ Superfund sites around the United States, targeted by CERCLA (1980), the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act enacted by the 96th US Congress and administered by a now ravaged Environmental Protection Agency, struggling to clean up at
least 1600 of the most grievously polluted sites from among the 40,000+. Those are
the NPL—National Priorities List, the ones that James Florio, a Democrat from
New Jersey, recognized as absolutely lethal to life forms, birds, and people in particular, when he introduced his “Hazardous Waste Containment Act of 1980” into
the House on April 2 of that year. Five months later the bill was passed, with subsequent passage 2 months later in the Senate.
29.2 Modern Waste Lands
And yet, today, 40 years later and counting, a polluted, industrialized America—the
world’s emblem of wealth and achievement—has endured far more setbacks than
gains, as photographer and environmental activist David T. Hanson, in his book
Waste Land, has illustrated, with aerial images of 67 of the most polluted Superfund
sites in the United States. Hanson went to 45 states between 1985 and 1986 to document his targets, selected from “400,000 toxic waste sites and 500,000 abandoned
mines” across America. That so much disgrace can be quantified in such multitudes
alone condemns the spirit of the Pharaohs; of the Medieval and Renaissance love
affairs with all things natural. But, as Hanson points out, all of those “mines, smelters, and wood-processing plants to landfills and illicit dumps, large petrochemical
7 See The Book of Legendary Lands, by Umberto Eco, translated by Alastair McEwen, Rizzoli ex
libris, New York, 2013.
8 Report of Explorations for a Railway Route, Near the Thirty-Fifth Parallel of Latitude: From the
Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, by Lieutenant A. W. Whipple, United States Pacific
Railroad Survey, Washington, D.C., 1853–1854.
9 Oxford University Press, New York, 1964.
29.2 Modern Waste Lands
because, for the believer, they are. Frequently, the owl and the griffon commingle to
tease from our rational powers a susceptibility to the fantastic.
7
Even during the US
Pacific Railroad Survey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, 1853–1856, the
explorers were fixated on practical matters—where railroad ties might be laid down
in the interests of a manifest destiny—but their real obsession was the study and
detailing of birds; hundreds and hundreds of pages of acute observation, for no other
apparent purpose than the provisioning of the 33rd Congress, House of
Representatives, gorgeous color renditions of avians from the 38th, 39th, and 41st
Parallels. Why, one supposes (other than having been instructed to do so)?
8
The profound irony of that, and of many other such government reports, is the
very symbol of the train traveling through the garden, as historian Leo Marx wrote
of it in his The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in
America.
9
Marx borrowed the trope from Thoreau’s Walden, but it lives, for example, in each of the original 40,000+ Superfund sites around the United States, targeted by CERCLA (1980), the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act enacted by the 96th US Congress and administered by a now ravaged Environmental Protection Agency, struggling to clean up at
least 1600 of the most grievously polluted sites from among the 40,000+. Those are
the NPL—National Priorities List, the ones that James Florio, a Democrat from
New Jersey, recognized as absolutely lethal to life forms, birds, and people in particular, when he introduced his “Hazardous Waste Containment Act of 1980” into
the House on April 2 of that year. Five months later the bill was passed, with subsequent passage 2 months later in the Senate.
29.2 Modern Waste Lands
And yet, today, 40 years later and counting, a polluted, industrialized America—the
world’s emblem of wealth and achievement—has endured far more setbacks than
gains, as photographer and environmental activist David T. Hanson, in his book
Waste Land, has illustrated, with aerial images of 67 of the most polluted Superfund
sites in the United States. Hanson went to 45 states between 1985 and 1986 to document his targets, selected from “400,000 toxic waste sites and 500,000 abandoned
mines” across America. That so much disgrace can be quantified in such multitudes
alone condemns the spirit of the Pharaohs; of the Medieval and Renaissance love
affairs with all things natural. But, as Hanson points out, all of those “mines, smelters, and wood-processing plants to landfills and illicit dumps, large petrochemical
7 See The Book of Legendary Lands, by Umberto Eco, translated by Alastair McEwen, Rizzoli ex
libris, New York, 2013.
8 Report of Explorations for a Railway Route, Near the Thirty-Fifth Parallel of Latitude: From the
Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, by Lieutenant A. W. Whipple, United States Pacific
Railroad Survey, Washington, D.C., 1853–1854.
9 Oxford University Press, New York, 1964.
29.2 Modern Waste Lands