Bodie Island light's uncertain future means rare lens in danger
The Associated Press
March 24, 2003 3:40 pm
Posted on 03/25/2003 6:25:26 AM PST by Constitution Day
The Associated Press
Bodie Island light's uncertain future means rare lens in danger
March 24, 2003 3:40 pm
BODIE ISLAND, N.C. -- With the U.S. Coast Guard taking a hard look at the future of the Bodie Island Lighthouse, local officials want action to save the facility's rare Fresnel lens.
In a notice issued last week, the local Coast Guard district said it was evaluating whether the 1872 tower is still valuable as an aid to navigation. Although the lighthouse is owned by the National Park Service, the optical equipment is maintained by the Coast Guard.
Possible actions could include replacing the Fresnel lens with more modern optics or taking the lighthouse out of service completely.
"We want that lens to stay here in Dare County," Dare County Attorney Norma Mills said. "And we would prefer the lens to stay within the lighthouse. It has tremendous cultural and historic significance."
The lighthouse is at the northern end of Cape Hatteras National Seashore in marshland near treacherous Oregon Inlet. Its beam can be seen 19 miles away and about 200,000 people visit annually.
"Help us keep the light on at Bodie Island so that it can continue to be a beacon for all of us," Warren Judge, chair of the Dare County board of commissioners wrote late week to U.S. Sens. John Edwards and Elizabeth Dole and Rep. Walter B. Jones.
The Fresnel lens, invented by Frenchman Augustin Fresnel in 1822, was state-of-the-art technology in the second half of the 19th century. Its complex array of prisms was far more efficient at collecting and directing light rays than any previous system.
Bodie Island had the most powerful version of the Fresnel lens, built by Barbier & Fenestre Constructeurs in Paris in 1871. Its lantern is 10 feet high and 12 feet in diameter, with eight panels each holding 43 clear green prisms that reflect and refract light.
But a recent inspection showed the lamp is in poor condition, with its litharge -- a puttylike substance that holds its prisms in place-- dried and cracking.
The Coast Guard is unlikely to pay to repair the lens or have someone else take it over, said John Walters, chief of the waterways management section for the Coast Guard's 5th District.
"(The) money is the primary driver here," Walters said. "I think the Coast Guard's position is we do not repair Fresnel lenses."
A repair job would require disassembling the lens and removing it -- an expensive proposition, said Joe Jakubik, manager of the historic preservation division at International Chimney Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y.
Jakubik, whose company relocated the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1999, said the repair work could not be done in the lantern room at the top of Bodie Island's 156-high tower. He said if he were fixing the lens, he would set up a hoist, remove a portion of the window system and trolley it down to the ground. But it could also be taken in pieces down the winding staircase.
Fresnel lenses have been successfully refurbished, Jakubik said, though he was not certain whether one had been repaired and reinstalled successfully.
Even though the Coast Guard likely would not be interested in repairing the lens, Walters said it also does not generally give up ownership of artifacts or let others pay for their repair.
Walters said that if the Coast Guard decides to continue to maintain the Bodie light as a navigational aid, it probably would replace the Fresnel lens with a 24-inch rotating lamp like the one atop the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
The Bodie beacon, however, is distinctive because it has one of the very few original Fresnel lenses in the country still serving in its original lighthouse, said Lawrence Belli, superintendent of the National Park Service Outer Banks Group.
"We certainly want it fixed up," he said. "But more importantly, it is part of the historic fabric of the lighthouse. What you have with the Bodie Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse that's fully intact. It would be worth it to us to get it fixed up and reinstalled."
Belli has written a letter to Vice Adm. James D. Hull, Coast Guard Atlantic area commander, asking that the Coast Guard transfer ownership of the lens to the National Park Service.
The tower is being readied for a complete restoration scheduled to begin in 2005.
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Yes, but my brother doesn't own a house at MP 5-9
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FReegards...MUD
LOL!
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and M LOVES the beach-the waves are FUN!
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