Tar Creek Superfund Site
USA /
Oklahoma /
Cardin /
World
/ USA
/ Oklahoma
/ Cardin
World / United States / Oklahoma
mining, ghost town
The first Superfund site and once considered "the most toxic place in America", the towns of Picher, Cardin and Treece were the location of the largest and most prolific lead and zinc mines of the 20th century along the Tar Creek. 50% of the bullets made in World War I, for example, were made from Picher lead.
The process of extracting lead and zinc from ore left massive piles of "chat" (lead-contaminated gravel) all over the place. Since this was the old days, nobody cared or asked any questions. Children played on them, families picnicked on them, some people used the chat as free fill for their yards, driveways and roads. Meanwhile, the mines literally drilled out up to 90% of the bedrock underneath the town, which was apparently not an issue back then either.
The last mine closed in 1970 and left a toxic and unsafe legacy; at one point 75% of the children in Picher had unhealthy levels of lead in their bloodstreams. Lead is most dangerous to children, causing learning disabilities and nerve problems. Acid leaching out of the disused mines into Tar Creek also has killed animal and plant life, burned swimmers and stained the lifeless water red.
Uncapped mine shafts and suddenly appearing sinkholes (some hundreds of feet deep) were became the most major issue. In 2008 the rampant undermining of the town was revealed in full by a USGS study, which showed that almost 90% of the buildings in the area had been critically undercut by decades of overly aggressive mining and could be expected to collapse eventually. The advice was clear: little was salvageable, the entire area needed to be evacuated before houses started disappearing with people inside.
In 2008 the buyout procedure was initiated by the EPA and most houses have now been bulldozed. Remediation continues to this day, but it is no longer called the "worst" in America. The Tar Creek site was expanded to cover Commerce, OK and North Miami, OK after tests on the chat piles revealed similar (but lesser) levels of contamination and undermining there in 2009.
The process of extracting lead and zinc from ore left massive piles of "chat" (lead-contaminated gravel) all over the place. Since this was the old days, nobody cared or asked any questions. Children played on them, families picnicked on them, some people used the chat as free fill for their yards, driveways and roads. Meanwhile, the mines literally drilled out up to 90% of the bedrock underneath the town, which was apparently not an issue back then either.
The last mine closed in 1970 and left a toxic and unsafe legacy; at one point 75% of the children in Picher had unhealthy levels of lead in their bloodstreams. Lead is most dangerous to children, causing learning disabilities and nerve problems. Acid leaching out of the disused mines into Tar Creek also has killed animal and plant life, burned swimmers and stained the lifeless water red.
Uncapped mine shafts and suddenly appearing sinkholes (some hundreds of feet deep) were became the most major issue. In 2008 the rampant undermining of the town was revealed in full by a USGS study, which showed that almost 90% of the buildings in the area had been critically undercut by decades of overly aggressive mining and could be expected to collapse eventually. The advice was clear: little was salvageable, the entire area needed to be evacuated before houses started disappearing with people inside.
In 2008 the buyout procedure was initiated by the EPA and most houses have now been bulldozed. Remediation continues to this day, but it is no longer called the "worst" in America. The Tar Creek site was expanded to cover Commerce, OK and North Miami, OK after tests on the chat piles revealed similar (but lesser) levels of contamination and undermining there in 2009.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Creek_Superfund_site
Nearby cities:
Coordinates: 36°57'41"N 94°50'19"W
- Sandow Mine (reclaimed) 737 km
- Intrepid Potash 981 km
- Henderson Mine and Mill conveyor 1031 km
- San Juan Mine 1209 km
- Navajo Mine 1220 km
- Chino Copper Mine 1293 km
- Open pit Tyrone Copper Mine 1328 km
- Freeport McMoRan Morenci Mine 1391 km
- ASARCO Ray Mine 1530 km
- Asarco Mission Mine Complex 1586 km
- Cardin, Oklahoma (ghost town) 1.8 km
- Chat pile used as quarry 3.6 km
- Treece, Kansas (Ghost Town) 4.3 km
- Hockerville, Oklahoma (ghost town) 6.1 km
- Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery 6.7 km
- Miami Oklahoma Regional Airport (MIO/KMIO) 7.3 km
- Miami Golf & Country Club 7.7 km
- Baxter Springs Golf & Country Club 11 km
- Riverton, Kansas 17 km
- Downstream Casino Resort 19 km