Ironweed Archives

Preserving what has been / Recording what is becoming

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Photographs of a Log Cabin, Shelton Laurel, 1980

Material: Kodak camera, Photographic film

Submitted by: Lori Candler

Statement: Because residents who live in fracking-effected areas and live in houses made of flammable materials are now at immense risk, many residents have abandoned their old homes. Sometimes residents dismantle them and sell them for parts, others would rather watch them burn.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Photograph of Hot Springs, November 2014

Materials: Digital Camera

Submitted by: Carley Foster

Statement: Hot Springs, NC was a small, one-street town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It attracted everyone from kayaking enthusiasts to Harley riders to hikers on the Appalachian Trail, which ran down the main drag. The town was most commonly known for its natural hot springs, which people visited for hundreds of years. Since the construction of I-40, Hot Springs had had to become more creative in its efforts to attract tourists to the area. It found success with businesses such as taverns, rafting companies, and of course the Hot Springs Spa. On a quiet morning, you could've almost imagined the town was abandoned--that is, until the silence was broken by the 7am train or the friendly honk of a neighbor's truck horn. Unfortunately, nothing breaks that silence now.

Fracking caused chemical leaks that polluted the French Broad River and its tributaries beyond use. The environment around the rivers followed quickly: wildlife mutated or died, trees rotted, and land grew barren. When the environment went, so did all other attractions: Appalachian Trail, hiking in general, the hot springs spa, cyclists, bikers, Pisgah National Park. Within a few years the primary source of income for the county disappeared. As a result, Hot Springs disintegrated and was abandoned, most residents relocating to Marshall consolidated to Marshall.

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New Madison Collection

Item: Rooftop Gardens

Materials: Soil, greenhouses, compost, anything we can pull together.

Submitted by: Jake Gustina

Statement: This is the only real way that really dedicated community members can have fresh vegetables and herbs. In addition to compost, we organize seasonal trips out to neighboring counties to “redistribute” good soil in truckbeds. 

Reclaimed pallets make up the frames, and we gather leftover seeds from friends in neighboring counties or ship them in from other places. You’re seeing them prepped between seasons - we try to keep something on them to keep the soil from eroding or compromising nutrients.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Photograph of Appalachian Trail Marker, 2014

Materials: Digital Camera

Submitted by: Carley Foster

Statement: When groundwater and air became polluted with toxic chemical leaks that resulted in environmental devastation, the section of the Appalachian Trial that cuts through Hot Springs close down, breaking the trail into two trail sections as opposed to a contiguous trail.

Fracking caused chemical leaks that polluted the French Broad River and its tributaries beyond use. The environment around the rivers followed quickly: wildlife mutated or died, trees rotted, and land grew barren. When the environment went, so did all other attractions: Appalachian Trail, hiking in general, the hot springs spa, cyclists, bikers, Pisgah National Park. Within a few years the primary source of income for the county disappeared. As a result, the small towns dotting the river that most heavily relied on this income disintegrated and consolidated to one: Marshall.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Photograph of a Rafting Company, 2014

Materials: Digital Camera

Submitted by: Carley Foster

Statement: Madison County, Hot Springs and Marshall especially, thrived off its tourist industry. It used to be one of the biggest revenue generators for the county. Chief among the attractions was Whitewater Rafting along the French Broad River. People would come from all over the country to raft, kayak, and tube during the summer months.

Fracking caused chemical leaks that polluted the French Broad River and its tributaries beyond use. The environment around the rivers followed quickly: wildlife mutated or died, trees rotted, and land grew barren. When the environment went, so did all other attractions: Appalachian Trail, hiking in general, the hot springs spa, cyclists, bikers, Pisgah National Park. Within a few years the primary source of income for the county disappeared. As a result, the small towns dotting the river that most heavily relied on this income disintegrated and consolidated to one: Marshall.

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New Madison Collection

Item: Fire Extinguisher Distribution / Portable Fire Extinguisher

Materials: Various Fire Extinguishers

Submitted by: Lori Candler

Statement: The community started stationing fire extinguishers everywhere when small fires became frequent due to air and water methane saturation. Because the risk of fire or spontaneous combustion became so high, everyone needs to be in arms’ reach of fire extinguishers. Each street is outposted with regular extinguishers, and each person is advised to carry a mini-extinguisher around with them at all times for emergencies. However, these, provisions were not enough to contend with the effects of the Gas Well Fire of 2040, as these stores were concentrated in the town center and in residences.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Cooking method, deep frying

Materials: Oil, deep cast iron pot, thermometer, gas stove, items to fry.

Submitted by: Lori Candler

Statement: Since excess flammable fracking-released chemicals in the air makes traditional cooking methods dangerous, deep frying is no longer a safe cooking method. 

Some do not mind this change, some mind a great deal.

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Lost Madison Collection

Item: Well

Materials: Vary, depending on location and need.

Submitted by: Lori Candler

Statement: These used to be the primary way of getting water for people around Madison County, especially people living deeper in the hills. When you couldn’t get utilities back to your place, you dug down until you hit water and fix up a well.

Now they’re the one of the ways that fracking-released methane escapes the earth - alongside a cocktail of other chemicals. If you ever see one in Madison County, turn your tail and run because they mean death.

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New Madison Collection

Item: Sun Oven

Materials: Reclaimed sheet metal, rivets, wood.

Submitted by: Jake Gustina

Statement: Because there is too much methane in the air, we have to find other ways to cook food, especially food that might be contaminated. By harnessing one of our few pure energy sources, the sun, and materials at our disposal, we created a new way of cooking. It took off pretty quickly after introduction. Most people prefer this way of cooking because it achieves results like slow cooking.

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New Madison Collection / Old Madison Collection

Item: Tweet Archive Highlights

Materials: Pixels, data

Submitted by: Ironweed Archive, with the consent of Lori Candler and Jake Gustina

Statement: An excerpt from historical archives of the Gas Well Fire of 2040, events unfolding over twitter due to lack of landline communication and prevalence of wifi/data coverage. This exchange between @KitchenGnomeJ (Jake Gustina) and@LoriHunny (Lori Candler) occurred after receiving news of the five deceased community members. They take a moment before announcing this news to collect themselves and reflect on matters that became the seeds for this archive.

All twitter feed activity from that night is documented and kept in private sections of the Old Madison Collection and New Madison Collection. More excerpts from the transcripts will be included in this public archive.

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New Madison Collection / Old Madison Collection

Item: Tweet Archive Highlights

Materials: Pixels, data

Submitted by: Ironweed Archive, Lori Candler

Statement: An excerpt from historical archives of the Gas Well Fire of 2040, events unfolding over twitter due to lack of landline communication and prevalence of wifi/data coverage. This exchange between @ChevOutreach (Chevron Outreach) and @LoriHunny (Lori Candler) occurred while what was happening was unclear. Coming during such a confusing point in the evening, this exchange was a catalyst in how both handled future events. After this, @ChevOutreach began communicating directly with community members and @LoriHunny began documenting and showing the fire's carnage.

All twitter feed activity from that night is documented and kept in private sections of the Old Madison Collection and New Madison Collection. More excerpts from the transcripts will be included in this public archive.

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New Madison Collection

Item: Gas Well Fire of ‘40

Materials: A cinder, miles of mountains, and methane leaks from an old unregulated gas well.

Submitted by: Residents of Madison County

Statement: This archive was created to preserve and celebrate Madison County, North Carolina's disappearing and emerging culture. In the aftermath of the Gas Well Fire of 2040, when an unregulated gas well's leak exploded and spread fire across the mountains, killing five and injuring countless others, residents in mourning felt a need to both reflect and look forward.

Names of the dead we know so far:

Lauren Contrell

Joe Candler

Brandon Samuels

[badnewsbun-deactivated20170816]

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Video of puppy playing

Materials: Video taken with old phone

Submitted by: Joel Gustina, brother of original poster

Statement: Within the first year of natural gas extraction in Madison County, there began an epidemic of pet and livestock deaths. Eventually, it was traced to the air and water contamination. Namely, arsenic was found in water. Now, if you want a pet, you can't let them outside, let alone in a river.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Advertisement for Seed Swap

Materials: Design, paper, ink

Submitted by: Annie Candler

Statement: Small-scale and large-scale farmers, gardeners, and sustainable families alike used to turn up for community-wide Seed Swaps. At these events, people would bring leftover or extra seed they weren't using. Sometimes people just leave 'em and don't expect anything in return, sometimes people swapped for what they need. Other times people who really need them were allowed to just take 'em.

It's a way of good people taking care of other good people when they need it.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Home-grown meat and vegetables

Materials: Home-grown duck, green beans, basil, yellow squash, zucchinis, onion. 

Submitted by: Dana Rice

Statement: Almost immediately after Chevron began fracking operations, chemical leaks due to weak rules about water contamination led to contaminated groundwater and barren land. The land just seemed to dry right up. 

Though basil's a possibility with rooftop and porch gardens some try to keep up, home-raised meats and viney veggies can't grow without ample room and safe water. Everyone who tried raising animals or letting pets out found them either dead or with mutations.

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New Madison Collection

Item: Recipe for Acid-Seared Fish 

Materials: Given in recipe, in statement section.

Submitted by: Jake Gustina

Statement: Since we can't cook with anything that might cause a spark, we need to find alternative ways to cook meats. This is a tasty and popular alternative when fish is on sale. This is my abuela's recipe and it's killer.

Ingredients

1.25 lb Fresh fish, white fish if you can get it

2 T Lime or lemon juice

Pepper

2 t sugar

1 c chopped tomatoes

0.75 c chopped onion

Jalepenos to taste

1 T olive oil

Directions

(I give measures but it’s really to your taste – you shoulda heard my abuela when I kept asking for measures. Never thought I’d hear a granny’s eyes roll through the phone, ha!)

1. Dice all vegetable and fish ingredients to the same size. For the fish, my abuela says to take out the red bits or else the ceviche will taste mega fishy.

2. Mix lime/lemon juice and diced fish. Let sit 10-30mins. Long enough for the juice to soak in all the way, not long enough to have the fish breaking to teensy bits. I had that problem with my first batch, shown above - I had to slice it up thin all the way through. It's good without veggies too. The batch above didn't have veggies cuz there weren't any left in the store that week. Like everything else, make due.

3. Mix in the other goodness, chill, and share with friends.

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Old Madison Collection

Item: Dowsing Rods

Materials: Either a branch or metal rods

Submitted by: Lori Candler

Statement: Dowsing rods were often used by people to find water sources. With this knowledge, people would be able to establish wells close to their home. However, fracking-released methane seeping out of the ground through wells led to spontaneous combustion. When wells got abandoned, so did dowsing.