On the trails that lead up a steep slope to the fenced-in factory, where the chain-link is bowed out from people sliding under to trespass among the old buildings, some places are gray with granular lead and corroded brass.Īnd still the people continue to come, drawn by the falls. Inside the gorge, residue from the company's gun range gradually became part of the landscape as well. Wooden gunstocks with knots or other imperfections were donated to the high school, where, for half a century or more, students in wood shop made these pieces into lamps. Over the years, the company also became a symbol of the city of Ithaca. And every gun was test-fired four times before sale, from a rooftop firing range, or in the factory's basement if the weather was foul. All the metal parts were machined to exact specifications, even as other firearms companies embraced the less costly, less precise system of metal stamping. The rodeo star Annie Oakley favored Ithaca guns for her trick-shooting exploits. The company's famous ''featherlight'' shotguns were renowned for the fine decorative work - typically waterfowl or hunting dogs - etched by craftsmen onto each gun's breach. Ithaca Gun, founded in the 1880's and now based in King Ferry, N.Y., was an icon in the hunting and shooting world. ''This is the most beautiful area I've ever seen with huge pollution problems.'' Hang, a local resident whose investigation of the site and letters to federal officials prompted the recent testing. ''It's a paradox - we normally associate pollution with industrial settings,'' said Walter L. In some places, tests have found lead concentrations of 215,000 parts per million, more than 500 times above the the level at which state and federal agencies would normally take remedial action. Fall Creek Gorge, a deep pocket of sheer rock and water where herons pause on the rocks to fish, may be one of the most severely lead-contaminated public spaces in the region, E.P.A. The result is a jarring juxtaposition of history, nature and a very odd kind of industrial waste. The State Department of Health posted signs several weeks ago warning visitors to wipe their feet and wash their hands after leaving the gorge because of the health hazards of lead exposure, and to be particularly cautious about bringing children into an area that until very recently was considered one of the city's jewels. The city, which acquired the land earlier this year from Cornell University for $1, has come under fire from some residents who say the property was inadequately investigated. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, which tested the soil last month, is considering adding Fall Creek Gorge to the national Superfund Priority List, which could lead to emergency removal of the topsoil. Much of the shot ended up - perhaps through gravity, erosion or deliberate dumping - in a beautiful city-owned gorge adjacent to the factory, where tourists and residents come to admire the 150-foot waterfall at Fall Creek and to fish and picnic, and where generations of students from nearby Ithaca High School have climbed in search of escape from their teachers and responsibilities. But the lead birdshot that its employees blasted out into the world over the decades is still, in a strange way, in motion. The factory is gone now, boarded up since the mid-1980's. ![]() But here, he might have pictured lead - millions upon millions of tiny lead shotgun pellets, each about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, all fired into the air over the course of 100 years of manufacturing and testing firearms at a place called the Ithaca Gun Company. Longfellow pictured an arrow shot into the air as the perfect metaphor for life's mysteries and the unknowable implications of our actions.
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