An Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore National Memorial could expose spectators to Covid-19 as well as toxic fumes from the explosions/Kurt Repanshek file
While Big Bend National Park closed Thursday due to a confirmed case of Covid-19 within the park, other parks are moving carefully in granting visitors access, and at least one concessionaire is requiring customers to wear facemasks, an Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore National Memorial will not require face masks or social distancing.
The event prompted by the Trump administration and which will feature President Trump in attendance also comes two days after a study stated that spectators could be exposed to toxic emissions from the metals used to give fireworks their brilliant colors.
Upwards of 7,500 spectators are expected for the spectacle, which will be held Friday night, July 3. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has said face masks will be available for those who want them, but social distancing won't be enforced.
On Wednesday, Xanterra Travel Collection, which operates lodges and other concessions in and around Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Rocky Mountain, and Zion national parks, as well as at Mount Rushmore, announced that it would require "all visitors to wear face coverings while in the indoor public areas of our facilities and in outdoor areas where proper distancing is not possible. These areas include, but are not limited to lobbies, hallways, gift shops, restaurants, offices, indoor/outdoor queueing lines, and sightseeing vehicles and boats."
The National Park Service has not taken a hard stance on the wearing of face masks, though many parks have encouraged visitors to wear them if they can't practice social distancing. At Golden Gate National Recreation Area, officials said "federal, state and local health authorities are were discourging any activities that would draw large crowds" beause of the coronavirus pandemic.
The fireworks display over the carved faces of Presidents George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson comes 11 years after they were halted because of concerns they might spark wildfires in the surrounding Black Hills National Forest and the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve.
Fire danger in those areas surrounding Mount Rushmore currently is judged to be "moderate."
The environmental assessment prepared on the question of whether the fireworks display could safely return to the memorial noted a number of adverse effects it would create, but dismissed them as short-term.
Air Quality IssuesAir quality may be affected by emissions from the vehicles of visitors, fireworks contractors, and NPS and event partners before, during, and after the event. These impacts would be no greater than, and possibly less than, normal memorial operations because of the limited number of visitors on that day compared to other summer days. There may be air quality impacts from the potential use of helicopters for event staging and teardown, and by military aircraft from a potential flyover. These impacts would be a negligible addition to regular aircraft traffic in the region. Air quality could also be affected by smoke from the fireworks display; however, these effects are expected to be short-term and negligible and smoke would be expected to dissipate soon after the event.
Impacts to threatened or endangered species
The northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) is listed as threatened under the ESA and is present at the memorial. The bat could be subject to fireworks and aircraft noise, and could occur in areas subject to fire risk. ...However, wildfire effects are temporary, of low probability, and do not constitute incidental or purposeful take, as defined in the 2016 USFWS Programmatic Biological Opinion for the northern long-eared bat (USFWS 2016). The bats are sensitive to acoustics, but are likely to be in roosts and remain sheltered during the event.
Impacts to wilderness quality
There is no designated Wilderness within the boundaries of the memorial, but the designated USFS Black Elk Wilderness lies to the west of the memorial. No planned activities would occur in designated Wilderness under the preferred alternative (see Section 2.1, Alternative 1); however, the fireworks event may affect Wilderness qualities. The five qualities of Wilderness character, as defined in the Wilderness Act of 1964, are: (1) untrammeled; (2) undeveloped; (3) natural; (4) offers outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation; and (5) other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. Of these, the preferred alternative may result in temporary impacts on opportunities for solitude from the fireworks event. Visitors camping or recreating in the Black Elk Wilderness may experience visual and acoustic disturbances from the event; however, these disturbances would last for 15 to 30 minutes. The NPS would minimize potential adverse impacts on the Wilderness experience for visitors by posting the event in advance.
While a 2016 study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that surface and groundwater at Mount Rushmore were probably polluted with a chemical common to rocket fuels and explosives by past fireworks display, the EA prepared for this year's event played down the threat of additional perchlorate contamination by noting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been considering a move to bump up the allowable amount of the chemical in drinking water by more than three times, from 15 microgrms per liter to 56 micrograms per liter.
Perchlorate has been found to interfere with the function of the human thyroid gland.
A study released Wednesday in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology pointed out that the lead, copper, titanium, strontium, and other "toxins" that give fireworks their vibrant colors "also damage human cells and animal lungs."
"While many are careful to protect themselves from injury from explosions, our results suggest that inhaling firework smoke may cause longer-term damage, a risk that has been largely ignored," said Terry Gordon, PhD, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health who was the study's senior author.
"Although people are only exposed to these substances for a short time each year, they are much more toxic than the pollutants we breathe every day," added Gordon.
Comments
Shower - Hate speech? Could you provide a quote from the speech that reflected "hate"? As to the Hatch Act, if giving a 4th of July speech on Park lands is a violation of the Hatch Act, then Presdients have been violating the Hatch Act for decades. https://qz.com/1020031/elegant-4th-of-july-speeches-by-past-us-president...
EC -- you must have mixed up George Bush reading The Pet Goat story to the 2nd graders on 9/11 instead of the "new far-left FASCISM" speech from Donald yesterday. That's ok, though, we all make mistakes from time to time.
Selected excerpts from the President's speech at Mount Rushmore (full transcript
at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-...)
In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new
far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its
language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments,
then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished.
It's not going to happen to us.
Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the
American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that
rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted
humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress.
Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to
hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were
not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a
web of lies -- all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive
is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the
history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition.
The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social
justice. But in truth, it would demolish both justice and society. It would
transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance, and it would
turn our free and inclusive society into a place of repression, domination, and
exclusion.
Their goal is not a better America, their goal is the end of America.
Hate speech? Certainly hateful, and whether you believe it to actually be
true I guess depends upon one's perspective.
EC--
You're being deliberately obtuse again. Presidents can certainly give speeches in National Parks and other Federal Facilities without the use of the facilities and staff violating the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act violation would be triggered by the partisan and political nature of the event. The divisiveness, attacks on liberals, large GOP VIP list, and especially the speeches by the Republican opening acts, may well have crossed that threshold. The sponsorship by South Dakota tourism office may or may not matter legally.
There are 3 NPS units named after Conquistadors. Those of us trying to get interpretive stories changed from the simplified glorification of 1950s - 1970s K-12 education to fuller pictures of those men, what they did, what it did to indigenous people, the context for it, and the consequences of it that still resonate, are not lying about history. We want fuller, more honest history presented in our parks. CJDillon may disagree, but Cabrillo was not a hero to be admired. He came to the "New World" as a Conquistador under Cortez, stayed to become viceroy/governor of Guatamala, got rich by enslaving indigenous men into gold mines and women as sex slaves. Those are historical facts, much better documented than his voyage of discovery (in slave-built ships) up what is now the west coast of Mexico and the US. He did nothing much in his few days in San Diego, so there aren't site-specific events to base interpretation around. I am appalled by the park's educational programs and Visitor Center movie about Cabrillo.
The local Portuguese-ancestry community adopted Cabrillo as their hero about 120 years ago, and pushed for the National Monument (est 1913). Today they fight vehemently against the best current scholarship that Cabrillo was born in Spain as well as sailed under the Spanish flag. There's a great narrative of how & why that community's ancestors came to San Diego via farmers in the Azores, farmers in Central California, to San Diego, then dominating the tuna fishing industry that had been started by Japanese-Americans who intreoduced the technology of stiff bamboo poles, and why they felt the need of a hero to gain respect and acceptance.
Circling back to the Hatch Act, NPS employees have been explicitly warned they cannot express their opinions about the statue even when asked. There is even specific wording on telling visitors they can contact their congressional representatives (NPS can't remove or shield statues without Presidential or Congressional acts), without encouraging them to do so. Under that criterion, the parts of President Trump's speech about statues and monuments would have violated the Hatch Act if given by a Federal Employee.
To extend what CJ wrote about fireworks, yes they are fire hazards over land and sources of water contaminants everywhere. But in fire-prone areas, especially with substantial beetle kill and drought, fireworks are a much higher risk. I'm glad the wind died down and the humidity was higher than it had been the last week at Mount Rushmore, so yesterday the NPS folks didn't have absolute no-go fire conditions with political pressure to go ahead anyway.
Thank you Humphrey for an EXCELLENT history of the GOP's "contibutions" to America.
I just watched trump's campaign rally at Mt. Rushmore.
The monument has been defiled as surely as if trump had carved his name across Washington's face. The whole hate-filled, fear-mongering obscenity was a nauseating flow of pure sewage.
We MUST remove this sleazy creep from the White House in January and then get to work trying to repair the damage he has done to nation we love.
I have never seen or heard anything any more disgusting in my life. And I've witnessed some awfully rotten things.
And you might notice, Lee, that no one described his speech as "hate" until after Buck defended it from such accusations. Insightful. Partisan and campaign related it was indeed. It also continued his longstanding calous disregard for the feelings of others, not least of was the local tribes, and his totzl disregard for the environment,
We absolutely MUST remove him from office. Then we'll need to get to work to try to undo the damage he has done to the nation we love.
This man is beyond belief. We're living in a nightmare and it's past time to wake up.