Our fellow BP preservationeer, Dr. Hilary Lambert-Hopper, is a friend,
geographer, editor (FOCUS, a publication of the American Geographic Society),
artist, and spelunker residing in Kentucky. She is currently chair of the
Sloan's Valley Conservation Task Force.

For several years SVCTF has been fighting to save a cave system in southern
KY from the effects of landfill expansion. Her efforts parallel those of many
Main Street groups fighting to save the historic streetscape.

What do CAVES have to do with historic preservation of the built environment?

Past director of the NPS, Roger Kennedy, wrote a rambling book on the Native
American mound culture, which has increased the preservationeer's perception
of earth mounds as architecture, therefore worthy of historic preservation.
We can get into the proper technology of repairing dirt mounds later. If cave
systems, (Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP) being a good target, can be
promoted as architectural fabric then a physical link would be made
consciously between preservation of the built environment and the natural
environment.

My awareness of cave conservation, as well as John Callan many months ago
inducing an inquiry about infinite preservation, the energy economics of a
closed-earth system, and the laws of thermodynamics, make me increasingly
aware of the connection between the built and natural environment. In part,
the demolition of every old building when dumped in a landfill is not only a
waste of BTU and historic fabric, but a defecation on earth.

There is an interesting plan afoot at Mammoth Cave National Park.

Based on input of a variety of scientists, including prairie ecologists, but
without the input of the cave science and conservation community, the Park
appears to have decided to move forward with a multi-phase, many-decades-long
project; of test burns to commence next year. This may have an adverse effect
on the bat population. Similar to what historic preservationists go through
when the politicians and developers decide to practice facadomy. Though the
face gets saved, the bulk gets thrown in a landfill and pollutes the natural
environment - and destroys the inherent architectural cave system.

Not being really clear as to what the MCNP plan means, I am aware of the
effect of fire on masonry, especially limestone. Is burning up MCNP similar
to the buning of Chicago or the cyclical destruction of Warsaw? Has anyone
put forth the argument that we should allow test-destruction of our built
environment in order to re-plenish the architectural heritage? Is it
verifiable that burning in prairie environments has the same beneficial
effects in southern KY?

There is a possibility of open questions concerning the effects of differing
vegetation regimes -- human and natural-induced -- on runoff and surface
stream sedimentation, etc. If the burn-off plan is well-designed and of
overwhelming benefit to the surface and below-ground regions of MCNP, the
decision should not have been made without input from the cave science
community.

Concerned individuals being cut out of the decision process is a common
problem in historic preservation, as well as cave conservation, and requires
development of communication (grapevine) strategies and the ability to
mobilize effective political actions.

Caves, unfortunately, are hidden from view and relatively inaccessible to the
bodies or the minds of the public. Regardless, they still form a
pre-historic, and current, architectural resource.

Tie in of the existing historic preservation ideology of the NPS as well as
public opinion, would help to leverage administrators, and happy scientists,
to think twice before doing anything that would cause them to be blamed for
doing harm to the natural environment.

"Since I was a small girl in Europe, I especially loved the big old -- damp
-- stone buildings that I got to visit -- rainlashed semi-ruined Scots
castles and big mysterious cathedrals and winding underground stone lined
tunnels and passages. When in my late 30s I began to cave, I realized that
there was an immediate connection between those structures and caves, in my
mind, and in the minds of the builders. I think that caves -- natural
buildings of impressive dimensions and mysterious origin -- became an
architectural guide to earlier humans for building impressive and emotionally
involving stone structures." HLH

"Background:  Sloan's Valley Conservation Task Force has been involved
in a years-long struggle to protect the cave system, its watershed,
and its fauna from threats imposed by landfill leakage, landfill
expansion, inappropriate development and other threats.  Much progress
has been made through research studies, public education and forums,
legal actions, and political activism.  It is imperative, at this
point, to shift somewhat from a program of what should NOT be done to
an active advocacy of what realistically should or could be done to
viably protect the cave resources while admitting of human activity in
the area." (from Al Krause, 16 June 97)

Sloan's Valley
CTF received the 1997 Group Conservation Award for defeating the
expansion of the Pulaski County landfill. They
plan to use the $100 cash reward to initiate a SVCTF - Somerset/Pulaski
County Concerned Citizens state-requested
door-to-door cancer incidence survey along Dixie Bend Road.  This is
the first work day (now cancelled) of a project that we estimate will
take a year to complete:  the interviewing of all those potential
affected within the neighborhood or the original Pulaski County
Landfill.  This survey is being conducted according to the Centers for
Disease Control (Guidelines for Investigating Cluster of Health
Events), Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, 1990, 39 (No. RR-II).

Sloan's Valley CTF also received a $500 Conservation Grant (June,
1997) "Purpose:  Conservation Grant to support administrative costs
associated with the development and production of a bio-sphere
management plan for portions of the Sloan's Valley (Kentucky) Cave
System and adjacent lands and research into the historic use of the
Sloan's Valley Cave System environs."

][<en Follett