A long-running legal battle to keep a massive mural painted on the massive concrete spillway of the Prado Dam in Riverside County, California, from being removed has ultimately failed to secure the artwork's future. The piece, known as the Bicentennial Freedom Mural, was created by Corona High School students in 1976, the year the United States celebrated the bicentennial of the country's founding, and was threatened with removal by the US Army Corps of Engineers (which controls the dam) due to concerns about lead paint levels in the work.
The 80,000-square-foot mural was initially saved in 2015 when a court granted a last-minute preliminary injunction, thanks to the original lawsuit filed by the non-profit organization Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles and landscape architect Ronald Kammeyer, one of the original mural artists. The suit alleged that the defendant's "plan to destroy the mural, ostensibly due to concerns about graffiti and lead paint" violated several statutes, including the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, the California Art Preservation Act of 1979, and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966.
While the majority of claims were dismissed in the previous hearing, last week's ruling addressed an outstanding question about whether the removal of the work would violate the NHPA. District Judge Jesus Bernal ultimately determined that the US Army Corps of Engineers Corps made "a reasonable and good faith effort to determine whether the mural is a historic property and whether the mural is eligible for listing on the National Register."
A period of consultation with interested parties and community representatives as part of this effort (including the Friends of the Prado Dam Mural, the city of Chino Hills and Water Conservation District, San Bernardino County). However, the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places determined that the Mural was ineligible for the register. According to a preliminary report prepared by the Technical Center of Expertise for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and Structures, "the Mural lacks exceptional significance under the National Register's 50-year age guideline, and that—beyond its commemoration of an event—the Mural lacks significant historical associations." It also claimed that the mural "does not qualify on exceptional grounds as an art piece or as the work of a significant artist," and that it had lost its physical integrity as a result of later graffiti.
According to a spokesperson for the US Army Corps of Engineers' Los Angeles district, "the April 22 ruling means the US Army Corps of Engineers can proceed with removing and abating the lead-based paint on the Prado Dam mural." We are negotiating a license agreement with Riverside County to re-paint the mural once the lead-based paint has been removed. Although we have not received a request from the plaintiffs to meet, the Corps' Los Angeles District would be willing to meet with them to discuss a potential plan for repainting and restoring the mural."
Selena Mattei