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After 19 Years, Nation's Number One Superfund Site Still Not Cleaned Up
The Tar Creek Superfund site covers the entire northeast corner of Oklahoma, the southeast corner of Kansas and the southwest corner of Missouri.(3) The Quapaw tribe and its members own 80 percent of the land.(4) It's a toxic wasteland with sinkholes as large as four football fields, heaps of lead-contaminated metal tailings known as "chat," and bore holes bubbling like artesian wells with poisonous, blood-red water. Contamination blows in the wind and flows in the water. Some 75 million tons of chat are piled in small mountains, and chat fills sinkholes covering 800 acres.(5) Mining operations began in 1891 and stopped in 1969, after the mines produced more than 1.7 million tons of lead and 8.8 million tons of zinc.(6) An estimated 50 percent of the lead and zinc ore used in World War I came from these mines. Some of the caverns are large enough to hold the U.S. Capitol. Mining companies piled metal tailings 200 feet high in Ottawa County, and left them uncovered. The wind blows the toxic dust through the fields and children play on the piles.(7) Wild onions, a regional delicacy, now contain high levels of cadmium, but most crops have not been tested. After the mines went out of business, more than 10,000 mineshafts in the tri-state region and more than 100,000 boreholes in a 40-square-mile area remain as open hazards.(8) Tar Creek begins in Cherokee County, Kansas, and flows 18 miles before running into the Neosho River, which eventually runs into Grand Lake of the Cherokees, in Oklahoma. As the mines grew larger during the 20th century, they drew more water from the two aquifers that sit just below the floor of the mine. Contact with the minerals made the water so acidic that it ate through the nails in the miners' boots. The mining companies installed pumps to prevent flooding and discharged the water into Tar Creek. When the orange-colored water reached the creek, fish died and beavers and muskrats ran for safer habitats.(9) When the mining companies left, they turned off the pumps, and the orange, acidic water stopped flowing into Tar Creek, allowing wildlife to once again flourish there. But not for long. With the pumps no longer keeping the water out of the mine chambers, the rooms began to fill with water. Due to chemical reactions, a "cistern of acid" was created below Ottawa County. The U.S. Geological Survey in 1978 determined that the mines held more than 10,753,097,000 gallons of acidic water.(10) They warned that the mines would eventually overflow. Less than a year later, the mines did indeed overflow from the various drill holes and mine shafts in the region. The discharge found its way back to Tar Creek, killing fish, adding orange sludge, and forcing beavers and muskrats who had returned to the creek to find new homes yet again. John Mott, a fisherman and retired tire maker, described the scene in the Los Angeles Times: "We had quite a bit of rain, and water was running down this road right adjacent to Tar Creek, and there were fish in the ruts in the road trying to get away. The perch and small bass and sunfish and bluegill were already dead. But the bullhead catfish, they're pretty tough. They had open sores, like somebody took a knife and cut a chunk out of them. But they were still alive. They had acid in their gills, and it wouldn't let their gills get oxygen. They were gasping for air."(11) Fish downstream of Tar Creek in Grand Lake of the Cherokees have tested positive for high concentrations of cadmium. Nearly all of the area wells are contaminated-the water smells metallic, tastes like rust, and stains residents' clothes and sinks, so few people drink it. A health commission warning has only confirmed what locals already intuited: drinking contaminated well water could burn intestinal membranes and result in cadmium and lead poisoning.(12) In addition to contaminated water, soil, and air, residents face the threat of subsidence-the land may sink into the mines and create craters. Many of the craters that already exist are full of the orange contaminated water, which people avoid. Some craters, however, are filled with clear, but no less poisonous, water where children swim during the summer.(13) Still other craters have swallowed parts of the town as they opened and became safety hazards. People have fallen to their deaths because there are no fences around these holes.(14) While the mining companies have apparently been content to leave behind this disastrous legacy of poison, the communities containing the abandoned mines face massive population flight, the highest unemployment rates in Oklahoma, and enormous depreciation in the values of their homes and properties. As one resident put it to a radio reporter: "Who wants to move to the number one Superfund site in the country?"(15) By 1996, the EPA had cleaned up 1,500 residential properties at a cost of $40 million. Residents remain anxious to see the massive piles of chat removed.(16) As Tim Kent, Superfund Coordinator for the Quapaw tribe, said, "Every day that something is not done causes a bad situation-but what has been done up to this point is just being erased. It is a vicious circle."(17)Unfortunately, the community will be forced to wait for any further action or protection. Although the EPA regional office requested $5 million dollars in 2002, no money was allocated.(18) Rebecca Jim, who lives near the site, is disheartened. When she asked the EPA how they planned to fund their future actions, she was told not to worry. "We will deal with Tar Creek until at least 2003, and we will get the money from another site if we have to," she reports the EPA as saying. Jim is unhappy about that. She-and the rest of her community-wants to see Tar Creek cleaned up, but not at the expense of other toxic sites.(19) Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
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