Preserving Is Conserving: Marine Borers, Chemical Preservation, and the Toxification of the Coastline

• In Event: Pathologies of Materials: Environmental Histories of Material Decay and Its Management

Abstract

Few subjects have received the same level of attention from environmental historians as forestry topics. The conservation and preservation debates, as well as famous figures like Gifford Pinchot and John Muir, are part of the DNA of the field. This paper will explore the well-trod forestry terrain of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but from the other end of the spectrum. An equally vibrant discourse took place, not in wilderness tracts or national parks, but along coastal America as engineers and marine builders endeavored to defy nature and find the fountain of youth for timber by ending decay. At the same time that environmental planners tried to stem deforestation through conservation and preservation measures in the interior, a horde of waterfront inventors addressed the same questions by looking for ways to extend the life of waterfront structures and railroad ties to prevent needless cutting of timber in the first place—protecting forests meant preserving timber. In addition to saving forests, the search for a foolproof preservative that could work on land and in the water promised to bestow fortunes on the lucky inventor. After years of trial and error, involving serious inventors and snake oilmen alike, one substance—creosote—emerged as the hands down winner. When applied to timber in hot, high-pressure vacuums, creosote, a distillate of wood and coal tar, can preserve wood for decades, even in water. Creosote solved the millennia-old mystery of decay and reduced one source of pressure on forests. But it came at a cost. Creosote is a double-edged sword. Conserving forest resources through preservation from decay came at the expense of toxifying waterfronts, a legacy we have yet to grapple with.

Author

• Derek Lee Nelson, Emanuel Fellow, Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine