STORY:
Monumental D.C. Debate

Plans for a massive pyrotechnics display off the Washington Monument drawing fireworks

(Everything2000) The Washington Monument is the setting for an elaborate fireworks display that is now drawing fire of its own --in the form of criticism. Not everyone is excited about turning the landmark into a stage for a glitzy New Year's Eve display.

Plans are in the works to turn the monument into a giant sparkler as the clock counts down to midnight December 31. Fireworks will cascade down the face the monument and will give the appearance of a waterfall that rises higher and higher as midnight draws closer. It would be part of the National Millennium Show.

Scaffolding currently surrounds the 114 year-old structure because it is in the middle of a $10 million restoration project. The pyrotechnic waterfalls affixed to the scaffolding point outward and will cascade down the front of the monument about 6 feet from the face of the structure.

Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio is upset at the plan and in a letter to President Clinton on Dec. 17, Regula wrote: ``A fireworks display attached to the monument is a desecration of the values inherent in our designation of such monuments."

Regula isn't the only one concerned. The National Park Service, who in preserving the monument initially protested the idea, but gave in after the White House's urged officials to find a way to make it happen. The Park Service just cleaned the Washington Monument as was concerned about putting fireworks up on the scaffolding because it might cause black powder burns.

The man in charge of the show says it is really not a firework's show at all, it's a "special effects" production. M. Philip Butler, chief pyrotechnician at Fireworks by Grucci Inc., says nothing will be fired at all instead Butler insists that the sparklers drip. Butler says the sparklers drip out a brilliant, electric-white effect and the end result is a brilliant light display that looks like a waterfall.

The same "special effects" have been used on the rooftop of the Smithsonian Institution in 1996 to celebrate its 150th anniversary and have also been used at the Lincoln Center in New York at indoor hockey and basketball games.

Rep. Regula is not convinced about the "special effects" or the fireworks-- whatever you want to call them. Regula wrote in his letter that it not something that you put on a national monument because something could go wrong.

Despite Regula's letter and other concerns the show is set to go on;on time; midnight New Year's Eve.

Source: Associated Press

DATE: 12/28/99

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