Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • More than 5,000 miles of roads are carved into the remote landscape to clear-cut large swatches of forests on Chichagof Island. An aerial picture after a winter snow reveals the patchwork on lower reaches of the mountains where logging traditionally occurs. <br />
Taxpayer money has subsidized the timber industry since 1980. Tongass National Forest timber management has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly one billion dollars, making it the largest money loser in the entire national forest system.
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  • Aerial view of morning fog rising from the Dolomites, a mountain range in the northern Italian Alps numbering 18 peaks which rise above 3,000 meters. Jagged ridges  are made of  characteristic rock consisting of fossilized coral reefs formed during the Triassic Period (around 250 million years ago) by organisms and sedimentary matter at the bottom of the ancient tropical Tethys Ocean.
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  • Aerial view of snow covered mountain top removal mining site. After blasting the top of a mountain, trucks remove debris dumping dirt and rock into valleys and streams destroying watersheds. Over 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried and 300,000 acres of diverse temperate hardwood forests obliterated with valley hills like the white V in the foreground. Pollution from toxic chemicals fill sludge ponds and in flooding, contaminate drinking water. A moonscape of unusable land is left.
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  • Aerial view of Pilot Rock at twilight. The iconic rock face is a plug of volcanic basalt that juts 400 feet above Cascade–Siskiyou National Monument in a crossroads of mountain ranges, geological eras and habitats. The 65,000-acre monument is at the junction of the Oregon and Cascades and Siskiyou Mountains with Mt. Shasta on the left rising in the far distance across the state line in California.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680972.jpg
  • Aerial view of Jackson Park and "Golden Lady" sculpture. Installed in 1918, the Statue of the Republic commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the World’s Columbian Exposition and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. The twenty-four-foot-tall gilded bronze sculpture is a much smaller and slightly modified version of Daniel Chester French’s original sixty-five-foot-tall Statue of the Republic, one of the most iconic features of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Downtown Chicago is to the north and Lake Michigan lies to the east of Jackson Park.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968655.jpg
  • Aerial view of the Hackensack River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06460_671043.jpg
  • Aerial view of Riverside Park, Manhattan and the Hudson River at dusk looking north.
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  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
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  • Aerial photo showing morning fog rising over the Suwannee River in Florida. The Suwannee is a federally designated wild river that rises in the Okefenokee Swamp in southern George and meanders 238 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
Stephen Foster’s song “Old Folks at Home” immortalized the “Swannee River,” however, Native American tribes lived on the banks of the river prior to European settlement.
    SwampAerial copy.jpg
  • Aerial photo showing morning fog lifting over the Suwannee River in Florida. The Suwannee is a federally designated wild river that rises in the Okefenokee Swamp in southern George and meanders 238 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
Stephen Foster’s song “Old Folks at Home”  immortalized the “Swannee River,” however, Native American tribes lived on the banks of the river prior to European settlement.
    SuwanneRiverAerial copy.jpg
  • Aerial photo showing settling ponds after concentrates of phosphate ore is processed and is green with nutrients.<br />
Large quantities of phosphates to waterways accelerates algae and plant growth in natural waters; enhancing eutrophication and depleting the water body of oxygen. This can lead to fish kills and the degradation of habitat with loss of species.<br />
Decaying uranium from phosphate mines also releases radon, an odorless, radioactive gas that is linked to lung cancer.
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  • Aerial view of a single horse grazing in picturesque, curved-fenced pastures. Once all farms were lined with white fences, but many now are black—easier to maintain. Lane's End is one of the most important stallion farms and breeding operations in the U.S. and also one of the top operations globally.
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  • Aerial view illuminates eroded slopes above the waves on the coast of California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The area encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of landscape too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
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  • Aerial of Revillagigedo Island.
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  • Aerial view of Valley of Chamonix from a chair lift.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114513.jpg
  • Aerial view of the Dolomites dusted with snow under a setting full moon at sunrise. The mountain range in the northern Italian Alps numbers 18 peaks that rise above 3,000 meters. The striking landscape features vertical walls, sheer cliffs and a high density of narrow, deep and long valleys. The geology is marked by steeples, pinnacles and rock walls, the site also contains glacial landforms and karst systems.
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  • An aerial view of Washington's coastline with sea stacks.
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  • An aerial view of Washington's coastline with sea stacks.
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  • Aerial view of foggy Washington coastline with sea stacks.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760090.jpg
  • Aerial view of Donamire Farm's fenced pastures. Once all farms were lined with white fences, but many now are black—cheaper to maintain. A Thoroughbred horse farm doing well financially still follows the tradition with white paint.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720976.jpg
  • Aerial view of Stone Farm, a 2,000 acre horse-breeding farm with a private track to train Thoroughbred horses. Stone Farm is owned by Arthur Hancock III, a member of one of the pre-eminent American horse racing families.  Hancock has bred, stood, and sold some of the best horses of all time and two Stone Farm-raised, co-raced colts won the Kentucky Derby.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720962.jpg
  • Aerial view of mountain top removal coal mining site and V-shaped valley fills that create a moonscape of unusable land. Roughly 1.2 million acres, including 500 mountains, have been flattened by mountaintop removal coal mining in the central Appalachian region, and only a fraction of that land has been reclaimed for so-called beneficial economic use.
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  • An aerial view of West Virginia mountains in rich autumn hues.
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  • Aerial view of the Samples Mine mountain top removal coal mining site. A dragline removes overburden after mountains are dynamited to get to a small seam of coal.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023644.jpg
  • Aerial view of Hobet 21, a large mountaintop removal mine site was among the largest coal surface mines in West Virginia. The Lincoln County mine ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week expanding over hills and valleys, filling in Connelly Branch creek. At its peak in 2002, the mine produced 5 million pounds of coal in one year. After the company was bankrupt in 2015, the site was passed on to a conservation firm who continued mining.<br />
A lone house sits beside Mud River in the shadow of the mine's encroaching path. The town of Mud hasn’t been much of a community in the couple of decades since the post office closed, and in 1998 around 60 residents remained. They had two churches and a ball field. In early 1997, Big John, the mine’s 20-story dragline, moved above Mud and more houses, near this one, were bought and destroyed.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996269.jpg
  • Aerial view illuminates light fog lifting above the waves on the coast of California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The area encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of landscape too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680969.jpg
  • Aerial view.  Dusted in snow, a section of the 12-mile ridge line of the Grand Wash Cliffs glows at twilight. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument marks a transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range Provinces. The 37,030-acre protected wilderness region includes rugged canyons, scenic escarpments, and colorful orange, sandstone buttes in northern Arizona.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680964.jpg
  • Aerial over the parkway in the Cherokee Parks where the Cochran Hill tunnels were constructed to carry traffic under environmentally sensitive areas in order to avoid destroying Frederick Law Olmsted's planned landscape. I64 traffic flows east from downtown Louisville.
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  • Aerial view looking north of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline in the fall. The Bow Bridge crosses over The Lake to the Bramble.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968662.jpg
  • Aerial of the ball fields and reservoir in Central Park with Manhattan high rises shrouded in haze.
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  • Aerial of Riverside, one of the first planned communities is located in suburban Chicago. Riverside, on the Des Plaines River, was designed in 1868 by Frederick Law Olmsted, the nation's most famous landscape architect, to attract Chicago's elite. Today the upscale suburban community hosts a historic railroad station and prominent water tower that was a technological marvel of steam driven pumps. The entire village was designated a National Historical Landmark in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968641.jpg
  • Aerial over 409-acre Cherokee Park, designed in 1891 by Frederick Law Olmsted in the east side of Louisville, Kentucky. Baringer Hill in the spring is restored with newly planted grass and trees, is a popular gathering spot. The city and the Ohio River is in the distance.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968640.jpg
  • Aerial of Prospect Park with the Manhattan skyline in the distance. Located in Brooklyn, Prospect Park, was the main focus of Frederick Law Olmsted's life from 1865 to 1873. As with many of his landscape designed projects, he devised the park's layout with Calvert Vaux.<br />
They carved the 60 acre lake out of a hilly section of the terrain that existed and used a large pump to fill the area with water.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968598.jpg
  • An aerial view of the Wooded Isle in Chicago's Jackson Park. Located south of the city on Lake Michigan, the park was planned in 1890 and designed  for the World's Fair. <br />
Frederick Law Olmsted worked with Calvert Vaux to create the park with a lagoon that started as a treeless marsh. Olmsted planned terraces and pedestrian walkways that were surrounded by neo-classical styled buildings. The one on the north side of the park presently houses the Museum of Science and Industry.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_956188.jpg
  • Aerial of Mill Creek winding through a prairie of phragmites.
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  • Aerial view of river and mud flats.
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  • Aerial view of river and mud flats.
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  • Aerial of a village on Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
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  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328111.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328109.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328108.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328107.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328105.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328104.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328102.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328101.JPG
  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328100.JPG
  • Aerial view of El Molo Island in Lake Turkana. This island is where the last four El Molo live.
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  • Aerial of Kakuma Refugee Camp near Lake Turkana.
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  • Aerial of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328036.JPG
  • The volcanic landscape of Kamchatka with snowy peaks above the clouds in an aerial photograph.
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  • Aerial of active volcano near Empakaii crater.
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  • An aerial view of cattle walking across a flooded field.
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  • Aerial view of a rain cloud over a snaking river.
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  • An aerial view of a meteor impact crater near the town of Halls Creek.
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  • An aerial view of Australian landscape with hills, rivers, and rain.
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  • An aerial view of a flooded river and rain storm in distance.
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  • An aerial view of the cloud-shrouded Caucasus mountains.
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  • An aerial view of the port city of Sinop at twilight.
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  • An aerial view of the Kızılırmak River
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  • Aerial of Kaieteur Falls on the Potaro River.
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  • Aerial view of Tau Island landscape.
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  • Aerial view of Mohenjo Daro.
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  • Aerial view of Concord, New Hampshire, at night.
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  • Aerial of the Buffalo River in the Ozark Mountains.
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  • Aerial view of the Great Smoky Mountains with autumn foliage.
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  • Aerial view of Craters of the Moon National Monument.
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  • Aerial of Grand Prismatic Spring.
    RANDY OLSON_06103_495549.JPG
  • An aerial view of a coffee-colored river with rain in distance.
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  • An aerial view of a  river and tributary streams near Wyhdham, Australia
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  • Aerial of a village on Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328103.JPG
  • An aerial view of a  river and tributary streams.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763266.JPG
  • An aerial view of cattle walking across a flooded field.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763252.JPG
  • An aerial shot along the Essequibo River near Rockstone.  Light clouds form a translucent ceiling above the rain forest and river.  This picture focuses on part of the area a team of researchers is working in to learn about fish populations andnumbers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6570_704407.JPG
  • Three volcanoes, now dormant, formed Easter Island half a million years ago.  Rano Kau is the largest crater on the island with an aerial view from the mirador on the headlands. Inside is a lagoon of fresh water filling the crater that is almost a mile wide and 1,000 feet high above the Pacific Ocean in Rapa Nui National Park.
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  • Shadows sweep across Sheep Meadow, a 15-acre space where people congregate for picnics on in New York City. Until 1934, a shepherd stopped traffic on the west drive so his flock could travel to and from their meadow.<br />
An elevated view shows woodlands dwarfed by buildings line the east boundary of Central Park and modern urban life surrounds the entire perimeter of the pastoral park.<br />
When Central Park was being considered, most New Yorkers lived below 38th Street in crowded, chaotic quarters. Frederick Law Olmsted planned the park with Calvert Vaux as a refuge from urban stress in a natural environment. The Park’s design embodies Olmsted’s social consciousness and commitment to egalitarian ideals.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968653.jpg
  • Blazing sunset leaves in shadow the famous gap in Kiger Gorge, atop Oregon's Steens Mountain. Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.<br />
Bulldozing down to basalt, Ice Age glaciers carved our huge gorges out of the Great Basin's largest fault block mountain. Beyond, Steens's east face plummets a vertical mile.
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  • Morning fog rises from the Upper Missouri River Breaks in Montana.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-55.JPG
  • The Paria Rivers snakes through the sandstone landscape north of the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. Narrow slot canyons form along it from the waters that originate in the north side of the 112,500-acre Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area at the Utah/Arizona border. The aerial view helps explain erosion through geologic time.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-42.JPG
  • Aerial view of a drag line that scrapes through rock after a explosives blast away the top of mountains. A fresh snow contrasts the blackened coal that is revealed. Mountaintop removal mining devastates the landscape, turning areas that should be lush with forests and wildlife into barren moonscapes.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023728.jpg
  • Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680978.jpg
  • The Vyvenka River loops through a floodplain in this aerial photo taken between Tilichiki and Khailino on our transport trip by MI-8 helicopter to Khailino.
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  • An aerial photo shows the Sudd swamp in Sudan that long isolated the south from Islam.
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  • Aerials of mountain peaks in Glacier National Park.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06103_495512.jpg
  • Aerials of the Bungle Bungles near Halls Creek.
    RANDY OLSON_RF4319_1114365.JPG
  • Aerials of the Bungle Bungles near Halls Creek.
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  • Aerials in Arkansas of the Buffalo River.
    RANDY OLSON_RF4319_1114308.JPG
  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328079.JPG
  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328078.JPG
  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
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  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
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  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328075.JPG
  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328074.JPG
  • An aerial photo shows the Niobrara River filled with fossil water flowing through farms and a wildlife refuge in Nebraska. Rich hues of green on the hillsides and fields at sunset create a scenic landscape.<br />
<br />
The Niobrara River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 568 miles (914 km) long, running through the U.S. states of Wyoming and Nebraska.
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  • Aerial photo shows Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital and the surrounding icy waters in Kamchatka.
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  • Canoers paddle through a path cut though Chesser Prairie that is thick with water lilies and small islands in the Okefenokee Swamp. The wilderness trip seen in this aerial photo is located in remote parts of the swamp and takes three days to complete, planned so visitors see no one else on the trails.<br />
Established as a wilderness in 1937, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge protects the waters and wildlife of the 402,000-acre swamp.<br />
The Okefenokee Swamp wilderness is in southern Georgia, and commonly known as “Land of the Trembling Earth.” More accurately translated, “Okefenokee” means “waters shaking” in Hitchiti, an extinct dialect in the Muskogean language family spoken in the Southeast by indigenous people related to Creeks and Seminoles.<br />
<br />
The name refers to the gas that forms as submerged vegetation decomposes and bubbles up from the bottom of the swamp. Plants begin growing and clump together to form spongy little islands.
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  • Aerial photo shows a smoke rising from a controlled fire burning undergrowth in a pine forest on Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The fires are set on a three-year rotation to prevent wildfires which threaten nearby homes and farm.
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  • Aerial photo shows a smoke rising from a controlled fire burning undergrowth on Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The fires are set on a three-year rotation to prevent wildfires which threaten nearby homes and farm.
    MELISSA FARLOW_05842_470844-5.JPG
  • Aerial view of Dow Chemical’s giant plant in Freeport, Texas, that produces 1.65 million tons a year of ethylene, the building block of polyethylene, one of the most widely used plastics.<br />
The first two products manufactured at Dow Texas Operations were magnesium and chlorine from seawater to aid the World War II effort. Seventy- five years later, Texas Operations’ 65+ production units are making thousands of products – most of them ending up in products that we use every day. In 2012 – Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris announced Dow’s Freeport site had been chosen as the home for a new world-scale ethylene cracker. From Dow PR: Dow facilities in Texas produce BILLIONS of pounds of products each year that enhance the quality of life for people around the globe. Dow products serve virtually every consumer market ranging from food to building and construction and from health and medicine to transportation. These products are used in a variety of end-use products – office supplies, mouthwash, pharmaceuticals, computers, furniture, paints, carpet, garbage bags, cosmetics, chewing gum, lozenges, cleaning products and food.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2696239-4.JPG
  • Aerial view of Dow Chemical’s giant plant in Freeport, Texas, that produces 1.65 million tons a year of ethylene, the building block of polyethylene, one of the most widely used plastics.<br />
The first two products manufactured at Dow Texas Operations were magnesium and chlorine from seawater to aid the World War II effort. Seventy- five years later, Texas Operations’ 65+ production units are making thousands of products – most of them ending up in products that we use every day. In 2012 – Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris announced Dow’s Freeport site had been chosen as the home for a new world-scale ethylene cracker. From Dow PR: Dow facilities in Texas produce BILLIONS of pounds of products each year that enhance the quality of life for people around the globe. Dow products serve virtually every consumer market ranging from food to building and construction and from health and medicine to transportation. These products are used in a variety of end-use products – office supplies, mouthwash, pharmaceuticals, computers, furniture, paints, carpet, garbage bags, cosmetics, chewing gum, lozenges, cleaning products and food.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2696239-3.JPG
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