This is supposed to be Eco-Earth’s moment in the sun.

Once on the fringe of Riverfront Park, oftentimes forgotten, the massive mosaic tile sculpture now has a highly visible location near the landing of the new pedestrian and bicycle bridge that connects to Minto-Brown Island Park.

When the community celebrates the official opening of the Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge on Wednesday, Aug. 2, the spotlight will expose the vulnerable state of the gigantic globe.

Some of the 86,000 brightly colored ceramic tiles and 200 intricately formed pottery icons are missing or dangling from the sculpture. Broken pieces are scattered around the concrete base.

She hardly looks ready to shine.

The Acid Ball

Eco-Earth was an eyesore in its previous life. An industrial relic from the pulp mill once operated by Boise Cascade, it was a big, black blob like something from an old sci-fi thriller. It became known to locals as the acid ball.

The stainless-steel tank, covered with an asphalt-like material, once held liquid and chemical gases used to cook wood chips and make pulp. The mill was shut down in 1982.

It has been a fixture of the riverfront since the early 1960s when it was floated up the Willamette River after being built in Portland’s Albina Shipyards.

When the city of Salem acquired the property in the late 1980s, it requested the acid ball be left in place, hoping it could someday become a focal point, if the riverfront stretch of blackberry thickets, weeds and gravel were to ever become a park.

A new life as art

Once the park was developed, the community set out to transform the 25-foot-diameter ball into a piece of art.

Suggestions came pouring in, with most envisioning it as a globe or a fountain. Some thought it would make a perfect sun, a smiley face, a cherry, or a lawn bowling ball. One person suggested it be slathered in mud and seeds and transformed into a giant chia pet.

The Eco-Earth board of directors, chaired by former Salem Mayor Roger Gertenrich, settled on a sculpture of earth with translucent blue tiles and colorful continents. The privately funded project kicked off in June 1999.

It was a community project, much like Salem’s Riverfront Carousel a few hundred yards to the north.

The Oregon National Guard volunteered to stabilize and reinforce the structure. Countless crafts people, professional artists and local high school students helped mold and paint embellishments. Hundreds of individuals, families, and businesses donated to sponsor countries, territories, states, oceans, and seas.

It took 18 months to map out the design and another 18 months to install the tile. Volunteers worked an estimated 30,000 hours on the project.

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In addition to the 86,000 ceramic tiles that make up the continents and oceans, Eco-Earth features 200 clay icons depicting wildlife, cultures, religions, historical events, technology or mythical creatures.

The finished piece, guarded by a black iron fence, was unveiled June 28, 2003. Ownership was handed off to the city, a gift estimated at $1 million.

It was a beautiful addition to the landscape, a tribute to the riverfront’s industrial past. But anchored at the far south end of the park, it was out of sight and out of mind.

Earth beginning to crumble

A small group of volunteers has helped maintain the sculpture over the years. Each summer, just before Riverfront Park’s busy season, they gathered to weed the moat between the fence and the ball and hand wash the lower half of the globe, or what they could reach.

Mary Heintzman, one of those volunteers and the art director for the project, said they haven’t had access the past couple of years during construction of the pedestrian bridge.

She is assisting the city in repairing and restoring the sculpture, now 14 years old and in need of some serious TLC.

An art conservator from Portland was on site Monday to survey the damage.

“The first step for me is to figure out why it’s degrading the way it is,” said Robert Krueger, an object conservator, and the proprietor of the Cascadia Art Conservation Center. “We can’t really move forward until we figure out what went wrong.”

The most extensive damage is on the west side, facing the river and perhaps more vulnerable to the weather. Some passersby have expressed concern about whether some of the damage might have happened during the cleaning process, which was handled this year by city crews and with a pressure washer.

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Parts of the ocean are gone, a chunk of Australia is missing, and the lower half of the Lions of Africa icon is hanging on by a strip of grout. The damage extends all around the globe.

“The initial read is that it’s probably just from exposure to the elements,” said Courtney Knox Busch, the city's staff liaison for the Salem Public Art Commission.

The commission approved funding for an assessment of Eco-Earth’s condition at its July 12 meeting.

Cascadia Art Conservation Center has been contracted to do the assessment and offer a strategy for restoration and repair. Busch said the actual work will likely be done in collaboration with members of the original group.

Krueger said he is scheduled to return Aug. 8 and use a lift to “go over every square inch of it, and see how much of it is having issues.” He figures it will take most of a day to look at it from every angle, get high-resolution images of each section, and tap on the surface to see which areas might be failing.

The hope is to reuse tile when possible, but Heintzman is ready to enlist the help of local artists to recreate missing or damaged pieces. A stash of leftover tiles from the project are stored inside the globe.

“Our goal is to bring it back to what it was,” Heintzman said. “You know how we’d like all like to have it done yesterday, but it’s going to take time.”

Funds for repair and restoration will be limited. Eco-Earth is part of the city’s public art collection, which includes 100 pieces and is appraised at more than $1.3 million. The Public Art Fund budget for 2017-18 is $58,740, which covers acquisition, maintenance, and conservation of the collection.

The city is taking a careful approach in evaluating the damage and documenting the artwork on the globe. If the substrate were found to be faulty — the surface on which the tiles were placed — it's possible all the tiles would need to be removed and reinstalled.

Any work would most likely not take place until next summer.

“To honor the investment of the community and the artist’s contributions, I think we need to do it right,” Busch said.

“Forward This” appears Wednesdays and Sundays and highlights the people,places and organizations of the Mid-Willamette Valley. Contact Capi Lynn at clynn@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6710, or follow her the rest of the week on Twitter @CapiLynn and Facebook @CapiLynnSJ.

Bridge Celebration

The Opening Celebration for the Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 2. A park parade begins at 4 p.m. in Wallace Marine Park, with the route crossing the Union Street Railroad Bridge and continuing through Riverfront Park. The parade ends at Riverfront Park Amphitheater, where at 4:30 p.m. a formal dedication ceremony begins. Presentations by Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett, Sen. Peter Courtney, and Friends of Two Bridges will be followed by a ribbon cutting.



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