A visit to Picher

[Hoss]

An acquaintance of mine who has build the same exact hexacopter rig as I'm building took a trip to Picher over the weekend.  He posted this video.

[ARGUS]

You posted that video in "chat" and then said "mine".

[Hoss]

You posted that video in "chat" and then said "mine".

Not on purpose, trust me, but I see what I did there.

[Conan71]

Friends of mine used to ride the chat piles on their bikes.  They never thought twice about any sort of heavy metal contamination.  ARGUS, did you ever go ride them?

[heironymouspasparagus]

An acquaintance of mine who has build the same exact hexacopter rig as I'm building took a trip to Picher over the weekend.  He posted this video.

Don't ya just love the smell of lead in the morning...??

Good video!  They certainly got their year's supply of lead exposure that day!  Probably about the equivalent of chewing on one lead painted windowsill each....


Ancient history moment - this is the place where Jim Inhofe got over $125 million from the Fed, about 30 years ago, to pay some good buddies of his to go there with bulldozers and push that stuff around some in the name of "remediation" and "clean-up".  Stirring up a LOT of that lead dust for the hundreds of residents there to breath for a few months....  As opposed to just doing a buyout of one of the larger superfund pollution sites in the nation, which could have been done for probably about $25 million.

Took a long, long, time - decades...until Brad Henry - to actually get the people bought out and moved out of there!  And the state did the biggest part of the buyout.  And the cancer rates for residents was dramatically higher than would be expected in a less contaminated environment.  Our very own "Love Canal" here in Okrahoma!!  Officially called Tar Creek site....

God forbid we should make the companies/industries that make the mess pay for cleaning up their mess!  That would be "un-aMurican"....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Creek_Superfund_site

[Hoss]

Don't ya just love the smell of lead in the morning...??

Good video!  They certainly got their year's supply of lead exposure that day!  Probably about the equivalent of chewing on one lead painted windowsill each....


Ancient history moment - this is the place where Jim Inhofe got over $125 million from the Fed, about 30 years ago, to pay some good buddies of his to go there with bulldozers and push that stuff around some in the name of "remediation" and "clean-up".  Stirring up a LOT of that lead dust for the hundreds of residents there to breath for a few months....  As opposed to just doing a buyout of one of the larger superfund pollution sites in the nation, which could have been done for probably about $25 million.

Took a long, long, time - decades...until Brad Henry - to actually get the people bought out and moved out of there!  And the state did the biggest part of the buyout.  And the cancer rates for residents was dramatically higher than would be expected in a less contaminated environment.  Our very own "Love Canal" here in Okrahoma!!  Officially called Tar Creek site....

God forbid we should make the companies/industries that make the mess pay for cleaning up their mess!  That would be "un-aMurican"....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Creek_Superfund_site

Evidently there is a movie on Netflix right now available to view (I don't have NF) called "Tar Creek" that is a documentary of how this happened.

Trailer:

[ARGUS]

Never rode there but have watched Tar Creek on Netflix...boring.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Never rode there but have watched Tar Creek on Netflix...boring.

Reality always is.  If it's not a "sound bite" the vast majority of the population glazes over very quickly....that's why it took me so long to believe that ADD was real - when I realized that most people have it. Cannot focus long enough on important issues to actually see something through....

Lead poisoning.

[Conan71]

Don't ya just love the smell of lead in the morning...??

Good video!  They certainly got their year's supply of lead exposure that day!  Probably about the equivalent of chewing on one lead painted windowsill each....


Ancient history moment - this is the place where Jim Inhofe got over $125 million from the Fed, about 30 years ago, to pay some good buddies of his to go there with bulldozers and push that stuff around some in the name of "remediation" and "clean-up".  Stirring up a LOT of that lead dust for the hundreds of residents there to breath for a few months....  As opposed to just doing a buyout of one of the larger superfund pollution sites in the nation, which could have been done for probably about $25 million.

Took a long, long, time - decades...until Brad Henry - to actually get the people bought out and moved out of there!  And the state did the biggest part of the buyout.  And the cancer rates for residents was dramatically higher than would be expected in a less contaminated environment.  Our very own "Love Canal" here in Okrahoma!!  Officially called Tar Creek site....

God forbid we should make the companies/industries that make the mess pay for cleaning up their mess!  That would be "un-aMurican"....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Creek_Superfund_site

I'm no fan of Inhofe myself in recent years, but your timeline and recollections suffer from a lack of reality.  30 years ago, Inhofe was still Mayor of Tulsa.  After that, he became the first district Congressman from Oklahoma.  The Tar Creek Superfund Site sits in District 2.  This would have been Synar, Coburn, Carson, and Boren's domain in the HOR during the last 30 years.  it became identified as a Superfund site in 1983.  Inhofe entered the Senate in late 1994.

I can find nowhere any credible shred of evidence that Inhofe cronies were used for remediation efforts.  This was a project which involved The EPA, DOI, USACE, CEQ, and Federal Highway Administration.  In other words, a classic bureaucratic clusterfark.

Here's a couple of articles worth reading which might clear up some of your bias.  The first takes Inhofe to task over his claims of being primarily responsible for the buyout and his initial reluctance to the idea.  It also identifies the other local players in the issue and their take on it and his involvement.  If you have any sort of credible source regarding contractors he hand-picked to move chat piles around, feel free to post.  I'd love to read it.

http://newsok.com/it-took-a-town-to-find-help-for-tar-creek/article/3269290

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=CommitteeResources.ViewNewsletter&Newsletter_id=65cf8ebf-802a-23ad-4eb7-c2c8b39b72b6&SuppressLayouts=true

[Ed W]

Pennsylvania once kicked around the idea of covering former strip mine sites with sewer sludge. The mine share some characteristics with chat piles: infertile soil and an inability to retain much water. Sewer sludge mixed with drought resistant grass seed might cover the chat and mitigate wind blown lead.

Ed W

[sgrizzle]

It kinda looks like somebody bombed it
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.9691995,-94.8459183,12368m/data=!3m1!1e3

[sauerkraut]

That air view  is kewl. Looks like mountains of snow. They also seem to have a nifty jogging trail there. Very Rad