[CPEO-BIF] Picher, Oklahoma -- mine waste and the mines themselves

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[Abandoned mines are one of the last frontiers of hazardous waste 
cleanup in the United States. There may be as many as a half-million of 
them, primarily in the West. They pose physical hazards and contaminate 
 sediment, surface water, and groundwater. Mine waste sits in enormous, 
overgrown, forgotten piles. Yet because so many of them lack 
identifiable responsible parties or sit, as abandoned claims, on federal 
land owned by agencies with no real cleanup budgets, little has been 
done to map these mines, let along address the risks that they pose. 
This site is an exception. - LS]


Time's up for toxic town of Picher, Okla.

The EPA is tearing down what's left of Picher, Okla., a town that has 
paid a heavy price in toxic pollution and cave-ins since its heyday as a 
lead mining center.

By Abby Sewell
Los Angeles Times
February 15, 2011

Picher, Okla. - A track hoe sidled up to the modest yellow brick church, 
paused for a moment to position itself, then drove its teeth into the 
roof with brutal efficiency.

Shingles tumbled into the sanctuary. With the second blow, the wall 
buckled. The track hoe worked its way across the building, finally 
smashing the wall where a simple cross was emblazoned in red brick. 
Within 20 minutes, the First Baptist Church was rubble, ready to be 
loaded in waiting dump trucks and hauled away.

Behind the church, a water tower that serves six households bears the 
legend "Picher Gorillas since 1918." It touts the mascot of a high 
school that won a state football championship in 1984, a year after the 
town was declared a toxic waste site. The school no longer exists.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-demolished-town-20110215,0,5996111.story

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org