Environmental Justice
Fighting For Justice in Northeast Oklahoma »In 1997, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, was declared an environmental justice site by EPA. The Tri-State Mining District (where the corners of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma converge) is a 500-square mile area of abandoned lead and zinc mines with five Superfund hazardous waste sites. The landscape is pockmarked with open mine shafts, sink holes where the surface caved into mines below and mountains of tailings piles reaching as high as 200 feet. These “chat” piles, along with now-dry ponds created in the mineral washing process, contain high levels of lead, cadmium, zinc, manganese and iron. Winds whip up surface deposits and carry the
Grand Riverkeeper
By Earl L. Hatley, Grand Riverkeeper
Hatley documents an algal bloom on Elk River in Missouri one mile from the Oklahoma border and six miles downstream of a Tyson poultry factory farm.
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metals, as well as silica dust, throughout the area. Rain washes metals into nearby streams and into the Grand watershed. In 1983, the area was placed on the Superfund National Priorities List and given the highest ranking in EPA’s Hazardous Ranking System. The Tar Creek site became one of the first Superfund sites in the country. After 27 years, one can tour the area and not see any difference between how it looked
Waterkeeper Magazine Winter 2008
in 1983 and how it impacts the environment, and how it is today. Ottawa County is the northeasternmost county in Oklahoma, bordering Missouri on the east and Kansas on the north. There are nine small Tribes located in Ottawa County on the east side of the Neosho River, which cuts into it from Kansas and separates most of the county geographically. The Neosho meets Spring River to start the Grand River and, since the completion of the Pensacola Dam in 1940, Grand Lake. The Cherokee Nation’s reservation boundary borders this area. This region has one of the lowest median income levels in the state. Even though Ottawa County was declared an EPA Environmental Justice site in 1997, the insults continue. Surely, no other county in Oklahoma or the region is impacted by pollutants to the extent of Ottawa County. The citizen advocacy group Local Environmental Action Demanded Agency, or LEAD, was formed in 1997 to address the Tar Creek Superfund Site. In 2001, LEAD expanded its scope to address the downstream impacts of the Tri-State Mining District. The organization’s membership is open to any individual. However, 80 percent of the organization is American Indian, representing all the tribes located in the area. In 2003, LEAD created the Grand Riverkeeper to assess the cultural and subsistence impacts of the upper Grand River watershed, especially on Tribes. I was the LEAD Board President at the time and stepped down to become the Grand Riverkeeper. Today I primarily work on watershed protection while LEAD focuses on environmental health impacts of heavy metals from the Tar Creek Site. This effort is spearheaded by our Executive Director Rebecca Jim (Cherokee). In addition to metals pollution, we work to protect our land and our Grand River from bacteria and nutrient pollution from the poultry industry, and mercury pollution from six coal-fired power plants owned by Grand River Dam Authority. I have been a full-time community organizer since getting involved in the national Anti-Toxics Movement in the 1980s. Being Riverkeeper under these conditions requires an organizing approach that is almost as imposing as the range of environmental injustices facing the Grand River watershed. As Riverkeeper I focus on working with Tribes and other grassroots organizations to www.waterkeeper.org
