This 27-by-29-inch near-square panorama documents Fields Brook Stream in Ashtabula County, Ohio—a waterway so contaminated by industrial pollution that it became one of the nation’s largest and most complex Superfund sites. The compact format focuses on water that carries contamination from multiple sources.

Created in 1990, the work documents one of Ohio’s most significant environmental disasters. Fields Brook and its tributaries received industrial discharge from over 300 sources, creating contamination that extends over 4,000 acres and includes heavy metals, organic chemicals, and other hazardous substances.

The stream’s contamination reflects Ashtabula County’s industrial history: chemical plants, metal finishers, and other manufacturers treating the watershed as an industrial sewer. The cumulative effect created contamination too complex for any single responsible party to address, requiring federal intervention under Superfund.

The near-square format creates balanced composition for documenting flowing water whose appearance may not reveal its hazardous character. The photo collage technique captures the stream at multiple moments, the assembled composition documenting a waterway whose chemical burden makes it dangerous to touch.

Fields Brook’s cleanup has proceeded for decades and continues today, the site’s complexity requiring ongoing remediation and monitoring. This panorama, now in the SFMOMA collection, preserves documentation of environmental damage that industrial operations created over generations of unregulated discharge.