In 1984, the Environmental Protection Agency determined water at Tar Creek in northeastern Oklahoma was so polluted that it could not be cleaned up, and the agency walked away from the ecological disaster with no plans to ever come back.
Nearly 40 years later, fish are returning to a few tributaries within the 40-square-mile Superfund site because of one researcher at the University of Oklahoma who was not willing to give up.
Environmental science and civil engineering professor Robert Nairn and his students have been working in the region since 1997, proving that passive ecological engineering techniques can remove the toxins that have rendered so many of Ottawa County’s creeks and streams uninhabitable by most wildlife.
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality is now in Nairn’s corner, and there is growing hope the EPA will return with millions in funding to complete the remediation.
Tar Creek is an environmental stain on Oklahoma’s history that dates back more than five decades, but the root of the problem goes back even farther, when lead mining began near Miami, Picher and Commerce in 1908. The Oklahoma mines were part of a sprawling network that stretched into southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri, producing most of the lead for munition used in both world wars.
When mining operations were finally shut down in the 1970s, problems began when operators stopped pumping groundwater from the mine. Water filled the shafts and mixed with exposed minerals,...
Read Full Story: https://journalrecord.com/2021/12/21/ou-professor-leads-tar-creek-cleanup-seeks-federal-funds/
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