The Dragon and the Ice Castle
Rediscovery of Sacred Space in the Finger Lakes
Part One: Chapter Thirty Three
Heart of Darkness
Tuesday, March 22, 1988
© 1989 David Yarrow

The phone woke me. I reached down from my bed to where it lay chirping on the floor. Answering, I heard a man's voice.

"This is Bill Kirchbaum of DEC to talk to you about Marley's."

I thought, "It's about time. Why didn't you call last month?"

Anger boiled, and I surged awake to full attention. I restrained my emotions, and said cooly, "Nice to hear from you. Ward Stone said someone would call."

"I understand you took some material out of the ground at Marley's and are trying to get it tested." I imagined the voice came from a middle-aged bureaucrat sitting comfortably at a large desk. If he was annoyed with me, his voice gave no hint.

"That's right, I'm shipping samples to Ward today."

"I assure you DEC will investigate what you uncovered at Marley's. Although Marley's isn't officially classified, we are treating it as a hazardous site from now on. "

Abruptly, I sat up. "I've won!" I thought. ''They're taking me serious at last. Thank God!" I said, "I'm glad to hear that. I've gone to a lot of trouble to get action on the situation at Marley's. The last two months have been an intense strain on me and I hope the situation will receive proper attention now."

"I understand you've been busy. I read your materials. I can't comment on them, but be assured we're taking your information seriously." He sounded apologetic, and he should.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"An engineer will contact you later today to schedule a date next week to go with you to Marley's to take an official sample."

"That isn't necessary. I've got 4 quarts here and a small bottle of it for your department. I was going to deliver it today."

"We can't accept your sample. For legal purposes we will have one of our own staff take an official sample."

"I understand. What am I to do with the stuff I've got?"

"You'll have to dispose of it at your own expense. I suggest you treat it as hazardous waste and dispose of it appropriately."

This annoyed me. At my own expense! After all my risk and effort I have to dispose of my samples. "Oh really," I said with thinly veiled agitation. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"There are several local businesses who handle hazardous waste. You can look them up in a phone book."

I decided to drop the subject. "So how soon can I expect the transformers to be removed?" I asked.

"We are not in the business of waste disposal and site decontamination. We must first determine if there is any waste at Marley's to be disposed of. If we determine there is, the property owner will have to contract with a private agency who is certified to handle whatever materials are there."

More layers of bureaucracy, more procedures, more stalling. Of course. No wonder it has taken so long to cleanup the Meadowbrook site. It seems I haven't quite won yet. "OK," I said, "I'll be here today and wait for your engineer to call."

Saying good-bye, we hung up. A short while later Linda arrived to pick up the two packages.

We had a lengthy review of my packaging, and how they would be shipped. She inspected my packing. Satisfied, she left with a promise to get them out the same day.

Two hours later the phone rang. "This is Dick Brickwedde, Regional Attorney for the DEC. I understand you believe hazardous substances are buried at Marley's." This sounded like a younger man than Kirchbaum.

"Right," I said. "I took four quarts of nasty smelling sludge from 6 feet underground at Marley's two days ago. I've sent samples to Ward Stone and the Assistant Attorney General. Ward promised to test my sample as quick as possible."

"I understand. I spoke to one of our undercover investigators, and he'll contact you Thursday. I'd like you to accompany him to Marley's and show him the site where you got your samples. He has a badge and is authorized to go on private property."

My blood began to simmer. "Look, I was told last month DEC didn't conduct investigations, and had no authority to go onto Marley's. Now I find out you do have investigators who can go there. What's going on here?"

"You must have spoken to someone in another division. We have an officer with a badge and gun who can take action at the direction of my office. I trust you'll cooperate with him."

"Sure, I'll be happy to. But I've got four quarts of stuff from Marley's I can turn over to you."

"We can't accept any substances from you. Our investigator will advise us if we need to take any samples of our own."

My blood temperature was rising but I tried to remain civil.

"Suppose I bring one out to you anyway?"

"We'd refuse it. We can't accept evidence from private citizens. If samples need to be taken, our people have to do it."

"Bill Kirchbaum called this morning and said you were going to take a sample. Now you say maybe. What's going on?"

"That's Mr. Kirchbaum's disgression. If one of his staff is going to take a sample, that will satisfy my office."

"So I just stuck my neck out for nothing."

"We have to follow strict legal procedure here. We can't accept samples not taken by our own staff. If we have to take legal action, we have to have a chain of evidence that will stand up in court. Otherwise the evidence would be compromised,"I cooled slightly. "So what am I supposed to do with my 4 quarts of sludge? I can't just dump it down the toilet,"

"You'll have to dispose of it yourself at your own expense."

"That's great. I go to all this trouble and then have to pay to get rid of a problem someone else created."

"I'm afraid so. We are a public agency bound by certain administrative procedures."

"So when are you going to remove the transformers?"

"We don't take actions like that. The DEC doesn't have the equipment to do excavation. We don't even own a backhoe."

My patience with this run around wore thin and now it broke. I exploded in an unrestrained tirade. "Look, don't give me anymore legal mumbo jumbo. I told you people weeks ago there were transformers buried at Marley's. I did my best to satisfy myself they're there. I stuck my neck out writing letters and press releases, holding press conferences, talking to officials, taking people to Marley's. Anyone can see something was buried there. You people ignored the situation. So I had to do your job and go there and take a sample. And in the process I got some nasty shit on my skin with God know's what effect on my own health. I want to know what I got on my skin and what it will do to me. I tired of this bureaucratic crap. Talk to me like I'm a human being, not some stupid idiot. Speak English. When are you going to get those damn toxic bombs out of the ground? Do I have to dig them out myself?"

"I'm sorry you've been put through this." Dick's tone shifted as his legal mask lowered at last and I began to hear a real human voice. "We're now treating Marley's as a hazardous site even though it's not officially classified as such. Our Hazardous Waste Bureau in Albany is being notified and will conduct an evaluation. If this shows there's hazardous materials at Marley's, we will initiate legal action to get them removed."

"What does that mean?" I was cooling down. Dick now sounded like he was making an honest commitment. I even detected genuine concern in his voice. But I remained wary.

"I can't say how the Bureau will respond. They have their own experts and they will conduct their own evaluation. I suggest you cooperate with our investigators and let us take things from there. You've done your job. We can take over from here."

"OK, fine. You're beginning to convince me the right actions will be taken, which is more than Pyramid has done so far. But I intend to see those transformers are removed and a proper investigation made. I'll wait for your man to call. And I'm sorry I lost my temper. This has been a great strain. No fun at all."

"I understand. Let us handle this now. As a public agency, we have to follow our legal procedures and guidelines. I assure you we sincerely want to remove any dangers which might exist at Marley's." Saying good-bye, we hung up.

Later that day, I got another call from the DEC, this one from an engineer to set a date to take a sample. I carefully explained to him the cavity I had taken my sample from was six feet deep and the water table was less than three feet. This evoked surprise from the engineer, who asked how I'd taken my sample.

I described how I pounded seven feet of three inch iron pipe into the cavity and then slid an eight foot copper ,pipe down this sleeve. Capping the end of the copper pipe, I'd sucked up sludge to decant into quart jars. The engineer sounded a little confused by this. We agreed to under the Hiawatha Street bridge at 10am Tuesday.

That evening I went to Rich Phillips to watch a videotape I'd received in the mail the previous week. It was about organic farming and nuclear power done Brian Coyle, an artist from New York City. Two years before I'd guided Brian to organic farms in the Finger Lakes. I was also his cameraman, since I'd learned video engineering years before at Syracuse University. The trips were exhausting to add to other chores I already shouldered to organize New York's organic food system. I'd been paid only $100 for my time and technical support. Now, months later, Brian sent me a copy so I could see what he had fashioned from those long hours of travel and shooting.

It was not a documentary, but an artwork of images and poetry entitled Tyonhehkoh, which in native Iroquois tongue means Sustenance. Among the Iroquois, as with most native Americans, the primary staple food was the Three Sisters: corn, beans and squash. These are considered the special foods given to humans to nourish them in their journey on Earth.

Of these, corn was called Mother, from their belief the human body was made from corn. Com was the principal food in any meal, and the principal crop cultivated in agriculture. Corn is used as a sacrament in nearly all religious ceremonies, much as Christians use bread and crackers for Communion. Special dishes of corn are cooked for the feasts that are part of the complex ceremonies of Iroquois spiritual practices.

I was disappointed the video would earn no marks for technical quality. Some of my camera work was overexposed and other parts were shaky as I struggled to hold a heavy color camera still on an aching shoulder in stiff wind. Some of Brian's soundtrack was garbled or filled with noise. And most of our subjects were not the smooth talking, slick sounding spokespeople we're used. to seeing on TV and movie screens.

Still, the tape contained many touching statements by farmers expressing their concern for the Earth, and their way of life working with seed and soil. They articulated their belief in chemical free farming, and their fears and frustrations which come with a difficult life of hard work and uncertain harvests.

But Brian's video documentary has a dark side. It is also about nuclear power. You see, in the heart of the Finger Lakes, between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, near the Town of Romulus, sits the Seneca Army Depot. This heavily guarded US Army base is the Heart of Darkness, for here lives the ancient Mediterranean God of the Underworld, Pluto. Seneca Army Depot contains more plutonium than any other site in the northeast United States.

Seneca Army Depot is the storage site for nuclear bombs and missiles. It's the transshipment point for nuclear weapons servicing the entire Eastern theater of military operations. From here bombs for B-52's are trucked to airbases, and Pershing and Cruise missiles are flown to Europe. Officially, the Department of Defense will neither confirm or deny that nuclear weapons are at the Depot. Unofficially, investigators have shown beyond reasonable doubt the weapons are there.

Interspersed with Brian's footage of the organic farmers of the Finger Lakes were aerial shots of row after row of the hundreds of underground bunkers where the bombs that can end our world lie hidden. How sadly ironic that the very sacred land once trod by Peacemaker in his quest to end war and killing among the ancestors of the Iroquois is now the repository for the weapons that could obliterate human civilization. How tragic that just a few miles south of Palmyra where in 1823 Joseph Smith found ancient golden tablets beneath Hill Cumorah now lie the weapons of Armageddon.

So the organic farmers in Brian's video also talk about their feelings living in the shadow of this massive facility devoted to nuclear war. They describe watching huge cargo planes in mottled olive drab camouflage glide in and out with their deadly cargoes. They express their emotions to watch tractor-trailers of weapons roll through streets of towns where they sell their organic foods. They wonder how many Soviet missiles are aimed directly at their land. They worry when an accident will poison for thousands of years the soil whose fertility they work so hard to maintain, ending their livelihood. They speculate on the future of a planet facing nuclear annihilation.

One of the most articulate was my friend Dave Stern. He stood in the doorway of his barn, his face half lit by dim light from outside where a steady drumming of rain fell. The other half of his rugged yet sensitive face was hidden in shadows. In the beginning he talked about our need to make peace with Nature and end our war of pesticides and herbicides against insects and weeds. He articulated his faith that humans can learn to share the Earth with all creatures in God's Creation.

Then, with my camera pulled tight to his face to capture every nuance of emotion, he began to talk about "those human pesticides we call nuclear bombs." He spoke with quiet intensity of how a nuclear war would completely disrupt the ecosystem, ruining soil and atmosphere, making agriculture impossible for centuries. He expressed the burden of his personal commitment to two occupations: farming, and working for peace. It was a moving segment, and it came alive on the screen to touch my own heart with light and hope.

On my way home, I remembered in 1977 the Haudenosaunee sent a 21 person delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to testify to the United Nations. Their three position papers were bound into a book titled A Basic Call to Consciousness to convey the view of the Natural People of the Earth. The first paper was titled Spiritualism: The Highest Form of Political Consciousness. In it, they discussed. their view of nuclear technology.

Indo-Europeans attacked every aspect of North America with unparalleled zeal. The Native people were ruthlessly destroyed because they were an unassimilable element to the civilizations of the West. The forests provided materials for larger ships, the lIlnd was fresh and fertile for agricultural surpluses, and some areas provided sources of slave labor for the conquering invaders. By the time of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-Nineteenth Century, North America was already a leader in the development of extractive technology.

The hardwood forests of the Northeast weren't cleared for the purpose of providing farmlands. The forests were destroyed to create charcoal for the forges of iron smelters and blacksmiths. By the late 1890's the West had turned to coal, a fossil fuel, to provide the energy necessary for the new forms of machinery which had been developed. During the first half of the 20th Century, oil had replaced coal as a source of energy.

The Western culture has been horribly exploitative and destructive of the Natural World. Over 140 species of birds and mammals were utterly destroyed since the European arrival in the Americas, largely because they were unusable in the eyes of the invaders. The forests were leveled, the waters polluted, the Native people subjected to genocide. The vast herds of herbivores were reduced to mere handfuls, the buffalo nearly became extinct. Western technology and the people who have employed it have been the most amazingly destructive force in all of human history. No natural disaster has ever destroyed as much. Not even the Ice Ages counted as many victims.

But like the hardwood forests, fossil fuels are a finite resource. As the second half of the Twentieth Century has progressed, the people of the West have begun looking to other forms of energy to motivate their technology. Their eyes have settled on atomic energy, a form of energy whose by-products are the most poisonous substances known to Man.

Today, the species of Man is facing a question of the very survival of the species. The way of life known as Western Civilization is on a death path on which their own culture has no viable answers. When faced with the reality of their own destructiveness, they can only go forward into areas of more efficient destruction. The appearance of Plutonium on this plllnet is the clearest of signals that our species is in trouble. It is a signal which most Westerners have chosen to ignore.

I arrived at my dark and empty home shortly after 10 pm. I was tired and discouraged and still needed to finish my press release. As I walked in, the phone rang. I picked it up but the answering machine was already grinding out its pre-recorded message. I yelled above my electronic voice; at the other end I heard a voice. Finally the message ended as a beep sounded. The machine began recording.

"David, I heard today you used the Center to pour hazardous chemicals into bottles." It was Lucy, President of Wellspring.

"Right. I ran into problems Monday, and wound up at the Center. I had to decant a quart of sludge from Marley's into smaller bottles to distribute as samples for testing."

"David, I'm angry you did that. How could you do such a thing? The Center is a healing place. You have no right to use it for your personal purposes like that."

Here comes another argument, another fight over power. In a deeply tired voice, I said, "Well, Monday was a bad day. All my plans fell apart and I found myself having to improvise."

"Why do you think you can do that? You've no right."

"No one has the right to bury toxic waste in the ground in a place that threatens the city either," I replied in a weak voice.

"Why did you do that? Couldn't you do that some place else?" Her voice was like a fist smashing into my weary mind.

"You had to have been there. I had a headache and I....."

"Why didn't you do it at your house? It you want to risk yourself, do it in your home, not the Center." The angry voice continued its attack.

"I didn't plan it. My other plans fell through. I was trying to find a way to move ahead in an impossible situation." I had no energy to argue and felt Lucy didn't care to listen anyway.

"You could have done it out on the sidewalk. Why did you have to do it inside the Center?" The voice kept hammering.

"It was cold and windy and the sidewalk isn't level......

"The Center's no place for poison. It's where people come for healing."

I said nothing. Arguing was pointless. Defense was futile. What's done is done. Lucy's anger was deeper and older than what happened Monday, and wouldn't respond to reason or compassion. Lucy, too, said nothing for several seconds.

My answering machine impassively monitored our tragic talk, recording every word and emotion. Hearing silence, its microprocessor decided our conversation was over and disconnected the phone. Suddenly the line was dead, and a dial tone buzzed in my ear. I listened to its monotony, and thought about Lucy's reaction at the other end. I laughed softly, hung up and thanked my answering machine for ending my agony.

Almost immediately the phone rang again. I let it ring, knowing it was Lucy, undoubtedly now more angry than before. I slowly climbed to my office, and sat in my chair. The answer machine finished its message and beeped. Lucy's outraged voice burst over the speaker demanding to know why I'd hung up. She demanded I pick up the phone and talk. I listened without moving as she raged into the tape. Finally she hung up.

I sat in the darkness several minutes sinking into sadness. At last I pressed the "play" button. There were no messages, just Lucy. I listened to the argument again, hearing the deep tiredness and discouragement in my own voice.

The Dragon and the Ice Castle Rediscovery of Sacred Space in the Finger Lakes 144 pages, 8.5 x 11 soft cover available from Turtle EyeLand

The replay ended. I sat several minutes thinking and sinking in the dark, cold room. Lucy's anger seemed petty next to the genetic damage that will be induced if gallons of PCBs are released into our environment. She, of course, had a legal and moral right to argue and protest my action. But I wondered what would be left of our world if everyone turned their backs on someone in my predicament. How tragic that after pouring my time and life to create and nurture the Center, I found its doors closed in anger at my own moment of need.

I had been here before. I knew from years experience that criticism is easier to obtain than assistance. I'd seen short-term self interest defeat noble efforts to create healthy order. Time after time I'd watched egotism and ambition undermine idealism. Why should here and now be any different?

I turned on the light, loaded disks into my computer, turned it on, and went downstairs to turn up the thermostat. Plodding numbly upstairs, I resumed work on my press release. Friday was only two days away. I'd made my choice weeks before. Despite my heavy heart, now was no time to turn back and give in to the negative emotion being hurled in my path.

Press Release
THE HOLE TRUTH: Part 3
WHY IS
PYRAMID
PLAYING
PHAROAH
WITH THE FUTURE OF SYRACUSE?
prepared by: David Yarrow
Friday, March 25, 1988

WHAT IS THIS STUFF?

After eight weeks of patient and fearful waiting for an official investigation, on Sunday, March 20, the first day of Spring, I extracted several quarts of thick, dark grey oily sludge from a container buried six feet underground beside Marley's Scrap Metal Yard. This highly unnatural substance was removed from the cavity I punctured on Feb. 21. It has a strong repulsive odor.

Despite my best efforts at safety, my skin came in contact with this sludge which I believe is PCBs from a transformer buried along Conrail tracks beside Onondaga Lake. This substance may not be PCBs, but there can be no doubt it is toxic. The container it carne from is the shallowest of five sitting in a water table at the head of a deep trench which runs directly west into the Barge Canal. My single minded effort for eight long weeks has been to remove this hazard. I will accept nothing less than removal.

Samples of this substance are being tested by several independent labs to determine its identity. I have also given samples to NYS Assistant Attorney General, NYS DEC wildlife Pathologist Ward Stone, Onondaga County Environment Commissioner, Conrail Police, Syracuse Fire Commissioner, Syracuse Mayor Tom Young, Syracuse Herald-Journal reporter Dick Case, and Pyramid partner Bruce Kenan. NYS DEC Regional Investigator Dick Brickwedde refused to accept a sample, but a DEC investigator will accompany me to Marley's to obtain an official sample.

If this undoubtedly toxic substance is not PCBs, I want to know what it is that I removed from a container buried six feet underground on Conrail property next to Marley's. And I want to know soon, because I have been contaminated by it.

WHY ME?

This second illegal and highly dangerous action was again necessary because private and public officials refused to investigate my discovery themselves. Since Jan. 31 I have made repeated phone calls, written several letters and issued four press releases. I have visited Pyramid's offices several times each week. In eight weeks, I have not received a phone call or a letter with an assurance there will be an investigation of what I discovered on January 31. I have not been invited to a single meeting to discuss this dangerous situation.

On Tuesday, March 15, I encountered Carousel Center architect Ed Harrington leaving Pyramid to lunch with a contractor. He refused to talk to me. Minutes later, I encountered Carousel Center project manager Bruce Kenan in Pyramid's lobby on his way to a meeting. He refused to talk with me. The word on the street was that Pyramid would close the deal to acquire Marley's the next day, had nearly completed construction plans, and was pressing DEC for a permit. Thursday I tried again to speak to Pyramid and the DEC. Thursday night, March 16 I made plans to obtain a sample. On the first day of Spring I took it.

IS MARLEY'S A MOLOTOV COCKTAIL?

On February 4, in my first press release, I described how Marley's is underlain by a standing body of stagnant water. My early investigations in January led me to conclude that the upper surface of this water table sits at 9-12 feet below the ground surface over most of the site. Since then I have seen ample evidence that this water table is actually five to nine feet below ground, and in several areas less than three feet. In response to a question at a public meeting on Thursday, Feb. 11, Pyramid engineer Ed Kellogg himself stated the water table is at five feet. This water table most likely extends south under Hiawatha Boulevard and oil City.

In my February 4 press release, I mentioned that oil and gasoline which has leaked from tanks in Oil City could migrate underground and puddle under Marley's. Such migrating petrochemicals would float on the surface of this water table, forming a scum of oil and gas. Some of the oil and gasoline is absorbed onto clay particles in the soil. On February 21, I dug a hole and punctured a metal container full of dark sludge. This hole is in the northernmost corner of Marley's, the farthest it could be from any tank in Oil City. Nevertheless, as I dug, I encountered a layer of soil saturated with oil and gas before I penetrated into the water table. This water table sits at 28 inches in my hole. In my March 4 press release, I described how clots of oil were floating on the water in my hole.

Since then, I have become deeply afraid that Marley's is highly flammable. When the water table under Marley's rises, this flammable scum will rise with it and squeeze to the edges of the site. This presents several unusual hazards in the event of a fire on the site. Syracuse fire fighters would be unprepared to fight a blaze fed by oil and gas percolating up through the soil.

IS CAROUSEL CENTER THE WICK?

The construction of Carousel Center shopping mall as presently planned by Pyramid will dramatically alter the balance of forces on and under this site. And probably do so in detrimental ways. Experiences with building shopping malls on swamps repeatedly show such construction can alter groundwater in unplanned ways. At Marley's, the water table has to rise only three to five feet to break the surface. The petrochemical scum would wash to the surface with it, and would pose an unusual and acute health and fire hazard.

Pyramid plans to drive over 4000 feet of piles 150-250 feet into the valley floor. These piles will support a steel structure to rise three stories in the air. This makes Carousel Center an excellent lightning rod. Where in their Environmental Impact Statement does Pyramid recognize and discuss these circumstances and possibilities?

COULD MARLEY'S BE A CHEMICAL CHERNOBYL?

One sniff of the dark oily sludge I extracted on March 20 and there can no longer be any doubt that many "dirty" industrial secrets are buried at Marley's. Aside from normal waste of a scrap metal facility, the consistent word on the street is that several major industries buried waste at Marley's. Hundreds of gallons of toxic and hazardous chemicals are likely buried at Marley's.

In event of a fire, the combination of a scum of fuel oil and gasoline with toxic wastes such as PCBs would spawn a lethal smoke plume spread by the wind. The smoke plume that would rise off of Marley's would spread a plague across Syracuse and Onondaga Valley. The result could be likened to a chemical version of a mini-Chernobyl, or perhaps a mini-Bhopal.

I would like someone to investigate the situation at Marley's and prove to me that I am wrong. This may be a theory, but it is not a story. I have been to Marley's many times and studied Pyramid's own DEIS. I will not accept arguments and assurances; only facts can convince me.

A NEW SUIT FOR PYRAMID'S LAWYERS?

On January 31, I discovered the transformers. On February 4, I informed Pyramid's Bruce Kenan of them. On February 8, I informed NYS DEC of these toxic bombs buried at Marley's. Until Tuesday, March 22, neither Pyramid nor the DEC had discussed this situation with me, initiated a serious investigation or attempted to remove the hazard. As a solitary private citizen with almost no resources, I have confronted this situation alone.

Since January 31, my life has been completely disrupted. In eight weeks I have lost much sleep, worked hundreds of hours, and spent hundreds of dollars. I have lost seven pounds. I had to borrow money to pay rent. For eight weeks I have gone to bed thinking about this, and I have awakened thinking about this. I have exposed myself to danger, arrest and contamination. I have been contaminated. Because Pyramid and the DEC have refused to do what is Right, I have been Left to confront this fearsome danger alone.

Because of my expense, my suffering and my contamination, I intend to ask Pyramid to reimburse me for my efforts. I cannot afford a lawyer; I am broke and haven't much energy, time or emotion left for my own life and service. Nevertheless, if Pyramid will not willingly reward my effort, I will seek other ways to recover for the effort and injury I have incurred in my effort to protect the City of Syracuse, Onondaga Lake and the central New York ecosystem.

THE RETURN OF THE PEACEMAKER?

Because this situation poses such an acute danger to all living creatures downwind and downstream from Marley's, in the last eight weeks I have prayed daily for guidance and protection. It is now Lenten and Passover season, a period of deep spiritual meaning to many. In the spirit of these holy days, beginning tonight, Friday, March 25, I will meditate and pray at 10pm to focus spiritual energy upon this danger. This nightly prayer will continue until this crisis has passed.

According to the Iroquois legend of the White Roots of Peace, over 1000 years ago a man appeared on the shore of Onondaga Lake to instruct the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in The Great Law of Peace. His guidance founded the oldest surviving democracy in North America, whose capital was and still is here at Onondaga Lake. In honor of this man and his teaching, I am holding these nightly meditations and calling on his spirit for assistance. I invite all central New York citizens who share my concern to join me each night at 10 pm for several moments of quiet attention to this situation. The immediate need is to encourage Pyramid and DEC officials to come to their Right Mind, and do what is Right to uncover the truth and remove the danger. Before there is nothing Left.