good cave defiled with malice and paint

[paul snook]

took a few friends and there kids to see a local cave this past Saturday, and was heart broken and disgusted at what we were to see when entering the biggest room, the room that contained the nicest formation in the cave, a large and attractive flowstone fountain, which cascaded down into a wide flowstone mass with a few small rimstones in it, this formations lower half has been walked on by several over the years, but has managed to stay fairly pristine, the upper fountain was just about recovered from orange paint, until one or both of two girls decided to paint there love of each other and caves all over the face of it, this defacement came with in the last few weeks, and could not be removed with a simple scrub brush, it will take more than than a little elbow grease to remove it, below you will find pics from before and after.
this is before

and here is a link to the after ( sorry for using the link, having trouble posting the pic)
www.flickr.com/photos/cavebull/2704828038/
in the comments box, you will find pics from one of the other members on this trip,
hope your all as happy to see this as me

[paul snook]

here is the link to the above mintioned pics

www.flickr.com/photos/luv2camp2468/2708654108/

[Azurerana]

A) have you notified the cave owner?
B) Is the formation dry, or is it possible the damage may be covered up over time?
C) the sooner you get the paint off, the better. In a case like this, judicious use of wire bristled brushes, with some dry ice dissolved in water may be your best bet. Use lots of rags to dam around the work site, Don't use any petroleum based graffitti removers.Look around for a citric based "bigdegradeable" paint/ink remover, (ask at a print shop for recommendations) but don't use anything which foams or is colored orange. There are clear alternatives out there.) Rinse well. I also know of people who have used diet white soda, or seltzer water to good effect on paint. If you use wire brushes, use a light touch, and go with the 'grain' (flow direction) of the flowstone, not against it.

It might not be a bad thing to try to track down Amanda and McKenzie at a local high school or college. Both are odd enough names it might not be so hard to do, since it is obvious they are good buddies.

[L Roebuck]

Dr. B. and I have clean trash from this cave since 1992 --needless to say I am so saddened by this act of vandalism.

Here's a link to a photo I took "before" the vandalism occurred.

www.flickr.com/photos/caving/516068773/in/photostream/

[paul snook]

notifing the cave owner will result in one of two things, he will bull doze it shut, and push these vandals to another cave in the area, one that has thus far remained clean, or he will do nothing, as he and his family are tired of dealing with it, and have pretty much unofficially left us in charge of it

the formation is for the most part dry, except in heavy rain

we are looking into wire brushes and lemon juice

and as for the girls, thats a subject im to disgusted to look into right now, personaly id like to see them stripped, tared and feathered then painted blue and made to walk down the city streets carrying a sign telling all, " i hate nature and love to use spray paint on it, im also willing to polute your ground water"

[Azurerana]

Jul 28, 2008 9:58:13 GMT -5 paul snook said:

notifing the cave owner will result in one of two things, he will bull doze it shut, and push these vandals to another cave in the area, one that has thus far remained clean, or he will do nothing, as he and his family are tired of dealing with it, and have pretty much unofficially left us in charge of it

Well, you know the situation, but keep it in mind, because if you find the girls, only the owner or the state will have standing to press charges.

the formation is for the most part dry, except in heavy rain

Since the formation does get rain at least part of the time, cleaning the flowstone as well as you can is useful, because that leaves less for nature to do, but it sounds like nature can have a hand in the recovery.

we are looking into wire brushes and lemon juice

Highly acidic liquids of any kind need to be diluted or neutralized before they get out of the immediate area. The best neutralizer to use in a cave is small amounts of calcium carbonate -- you can use ag lime, or even powdered Tums, but ag lime is better because it doesn't contain sugar. That's why we use seltzer water-- there is nothing there which isn't in the cave in the first place.

Another method which might work since you don't have pristine white flowstone: mudd up the painted part-- glop semi-solid cave mud on. Put some Do NOT Cross tape around it, leave a note saying this is cave restoration in progress and leave a phone number-- whatever it takes.
Leave it be for a couple weeks to a month, then after it has somewhat dried, pull it off. This is absolutely counterintuitive, but we've found that new paint tends to cling to the clay, and then you can finish the job with the brushes and seltzer or plain water. You cannot do this with white flowstone, but this speleothem appears to already be yellow-brown. Don't forget to take the contaminated cave clay from the cave.

If the speleothem is really dry, you could try ripping off the paint with duct tape and then restoring the surface.

and as for the girls, thats a subject im to disgusted to look into right now, personaly id like to see them stripped, tared and feathered then painted blue and made to walk down the city streets carrying a sign telling all, " i hate nature and love to use spray paint on it, im also willing to polute your ground water"

This is the reason that it might be useful to talk informally with the local police. There are few people who target only caves with paint; these girls may already have been in trouble locally for other things.
It just depends how far you want to stick your neck out on this.

Thanks for being concerned, Bull.