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Toxic Town

An Environmental Case Study on Picher, OK

Garrett Lewis

Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi

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1. Introduction

The far corner of northeast Oklahoma is a place locals colloquially reference as

'Green Country' because of it's rolling hills and lush grass. But, nestled within the green

landscape is environmental scar with little hope of healing: The town of Picher

(Figure 1).

Figure 1. ArcGIS image depicting Picher, OK which is located within the Tar Creek

Superfund in the northeast Oklahoma county of Ottawa.

The once thriving boom-town turned bust-town a half century ago when the

mining companies left. At it's peak, it was the largest producer of zinc and lead in the

world with a heaping 5.2 million tons of zinc and 1.3 million tons of lead (Andrews &

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Masoner, 2011). Pitcher supplied 45% of the lead used in bullets during World Wars I

and II (Everett, 2013). The town that was once enlisted to help win the war… has

essentially lost the battle and is arguably the largest Superfund failure to date. This paper

examines the rise and fall of Picher, Oklahoma and evaluates the environmental fallout

from the hundreds of mines and miles of debris that continue to litter the landscape,

making it one of the most toxic towns in America.

2. Heavy Metal Mining & Chat

Picher became one of the largest heavy metal mines in the world in the early

1900s when zinc and iron ore were found beneath the surface in 1871 (Shriver &

Kennedy, 2005). In the years that followed, mining operations spread from Oklahoma

into Kansas and Missouri encompassing over 1,900 square miles referred to as the Tri-

State mining district.

The metal is extracted from the ore through smelting, which separates the metal

materials from the Earth. The region of the western Ozarks is characterized by extensive

Karst topography with abundant limestone and chert used by lead smelters to separate the

metals from the soil and prevent oxidation. The by-product of the metal mining is

technically called 'tailings' but referred to by locals as 'chat'.

The white chat contains chemicals and heavy metals such as: arsenic, lead,

cadmium, and manganese. The mining operations ended around 1970 but piles of leftover

chat are still everywhere. The chat is around 40 square miles of Ottawa County,

Oklahoma and for years, locals used it to build sandboxes for children, gravel driveways

for homes, and racing tracks for dirt bikes; unknowingly exposing themselves to known

carcinogens and heavy metals that have profound effects on neurological function. Some

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of the chat piles are as tall as 13 story buildings and as wide as 4 football fields; the result

of 480 still open mine shafts with 30,000 drill holes (Roosevelt, 2004). The problem from

chat is unique because it's disbursed into the environment in many different ways, each

requiring a specific and different method to remediate. For example, it leaches into the

groundwater supply, rain runoff drains into nearby Tar Creek (Figure 2), & Oklahoma's

windy conditions take the chat airborne for miles; many residential homes were located

just feet away from the enormous chat piles.

Figure 2. This is an aerial map that shows chat deposits (white areas) which drain

contaminates into nearby Tar Creek (Andrews & Masoner, 2011).

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The late 70s and early 80s were a time when environmental concerns were thrust

to the forefront of American society. Industrial pollution at Love Canal in New York

amplified the general public's concern and exposed the vulnerability of balance between

society and environment. The Picher mines closed in 1971, the water was found to be

polluted in 1979 (Hamilton, 2005), and in 1983 the federal government took notice and

Picher, OK was added to the original list of sites targeted for clean-up by a new program

called Superfund (Figure 3.)

Figure 3. This map shows the Tri-State areas of Oklahoma, Kansas, & Missouri

which were all affected by lead and zinc mining (Neuberger & Drake, 2007).

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3. Government Action

In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response

Compensation and Liability Act (hereafter CERCLA) which established a trust fund to

clean up the many polluted sites across the country under the umbrella of the

Environmental Protection Agency. Picher made the original list and continues to be on

the high urgency list known as 'National Priority List" some 80 years since the mining

ceased.

a. Remediation & Health Concerns

Since the passing of CERCLA, over $100 million dollars have been spent to

remediate contaminated soil and backfill mines at a cost of $20,000 per yard (Shriver &

Kennedy, 2005). Since the chat is airborne, the soil is again contaminated by wind just

weeks after the land is cleaned.

Ironically, it wasn't the government or the millions of dollars that caused public

awareness to the problem in Picher. It was a school counselor named Rebecca Jim who

read about the dangers of lead and pressured government testing to confirm her

suspicions. A test of school children's blood showed that 43% had unsafe levels of lead

(Kaplan & Snell, 2010). The level of lead in the blood is the highest of any Superfund

site (Shafer, 2002). Lead exposure is well known to cause neurological impairment and

learning disabilities in children. The children in the town were found to be continuously

exposed by the house dust which acted like a reservoir for the contaminants of chat

blown by the wind (Zota et al, 2011). Lead is also known to bioaccumulate; instead of

being excreted by the body, the amount of lead within the bones grows with repeated

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exposure. The contaminates have been linked to a host of illnesses including: neurologic

and vascular toxicity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease, and higher

incidence of tuberculosis. For years, Ottawa County, Oklahoma had the highest

tuberculosis mortality rates in the United States (Nieberding, 1983) and local doctors in

the region attribute the contaminates as the reason there are 3 kidney dialysis clinics

serving a region of only 30,000 people (Roosevelt 2004). The blood levels in the children

tested for lead was as much as 11 times the state average (Hamilton 2005).

b. Relocation

In the summertime, some children swam in rain-filled mining pits. Many would

return home with significant burns to their body which they presumed to be sunburns but

were actually caustic chemical burns (Paynter, 2010). The EPA built dikes and diversions

to prevent the runoff from flowing into nearby Tar Creek which glows orange from high

acidity due to lead and zinc residue leeching from nearby mines (Figure 4.)

Figure 4. Picture of the lifeless Tar Creek turned orange from chemical oxidation

(Myers, 2013).

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New, deeper aquifers were dug to tap into water yet to be contaminated (Andrews

& Masoner, 2007). The progress was slow and frustrating for the people who pressured

then Governor Keating for aide. The State of Oklahoma authorized $3 million dollars for

an initial government buyback program in 2005 for 52 families with young children

(Gillham, 2007).

A second buyout was then initiated by the EPA and extended to additional

residents within the contaminated Tar Basin; however, the relocation was further

complicated since the land originally belong to the Quapaw Tribe. The tribe’s burial

ground holds spiritual and culture significance in the contaminated area. (Kaplan & Snell,

2010)

c. Tornado of May 10th

2008

The town’s final demise occurred in the spring of 2008 when the town took a

direct hit from an EF 4 tornado with winds topping 175mph killing 6 people and

destroying 114 homes. None of the homes that were destroyed were rebuilt (Paynter,

2010). The following year the police department disbanded and the school system shut

down effectively making Picher a ghost town.

At it's peak into the 1920s, The Picher population swelled to over 14,000 people.

According to the 2010 census, only 20 people and 6 homes remain (Census, 2010). The

tornado accelerated the towns decline. Those remaining few who refused to sell to the

government are holdouts who refer to themselves as 'chat rats'. Other land owners moved

out of the town but refused to sell because the buyout was limited to only 5 acres. A

cattle farmer, named Everett Green, still owns an 80 head cattle operation which grazes

and drinks water from within the contaminated area surrounded by chat. Cattle from his

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farm are sold throughout the country but he says: “Of course, we hardly ever eat one of

our own cows” (Paynter, 2010).

4. EPA’s Latest Report

An EPA report issued in September of 2013 highlights some of the planned

activities and estimated work that is scheduled to occur in the coming years. A total of

$35 million dollars was award to the site from the American Recovery and Reinvestment

Act but the EPA estimates an additional $167 million would be needed for complete

remediation. Including the towns surrounding Picher, 2,846 residential yards have been

remediated with a remaining 113 due to be completed by the end of 2013. A total of 83

wells have been capped and acid drainage from the abandoned mines is still being

diverted to prevent additional contamination of the Tar Creek watershed (EPA, 2013).

5. Conclusion

The problem with Picher, OK and the greater Tar Creek Superfund area is as

complex as it is polluted. The contamination cleanup includes the chat piles, drainage

into Tar Creek, underground mines, polluted wells, and abandoned containment ponds.

Once the land is ‘bought-out’ it reverts back to the Quapaw Tribe who cannot use it due

to contamination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is currently evaluating a request to sell

the vast amounts of chat (Figure 5) to construction companies who can integrate it into

asphalt effectively sequestering the contaminants. The funds raised would be used

towards the remaining remediation not covered by the EPA. The long term health

consequences are difficult to assess because the majority of the population has abandoned

the town. The original companies who polluted the land are now defunct or bankrupt.

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Future efforts include more diversions and dikes to limit runoff, capped mines and wells,

removal of chat, and frequent environmental tests to evaluate progress. The Superfund

has been on the National Priority List since 1983 and there is currently no scheduled date

for clean-up completion.

Figure 5. Mounds of chat litter the landscape around Picher, OK (Myers, 2007).

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