10th Conference
on Tar Creek
September 2008

"Health doesn't happen in the hospital. It happens at home."
- Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi

“It's no longer super, and it's not much of a fund.” -Robert Torricelli

“I will not clean up Tar Creek.” -Myron O. Knudsen

"One of my heroes, Woody Guthrie, told the story about arriving in one of the Okie dust bowl refugee camps in California. A family took him in and offered him some soup they were having for supper. They only had one potato left and a lot of people to feed, so they cooked it up in a pot, large enough so that everyone got a bowl of the soup. Woody said, “Why, that soup was so thin, I could read a newspaper through it. I believe even a senator could see through it.” Well someday, our watershed might be so green, even a senator can notice it." -Earl Hatley, Grand Riverkeeper (Reprinted from Waterkeeper Magazine, Winter 2008, http://switchstudio.com/waterkeeper/issues)

“The education community has not really understood the dimensions of this because we don’t see kids falling over and dying of lead poisoning in the classroom.”
-Bailus Walker

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched
to everything else in the universe. -John Muir

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every part of this soil is sacred...every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove...” –Seattle

“Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path,
a portal, or a window opening on something other than itself.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“It is not enough to prepare our children for the world; we also
must prepare the world for our children.” -Luis J. Rodriguez

“I love the land on which I was born, the trees which cover it
and the grass growing on it. It feeds us well.” –Como

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“ven our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
-President Abraham Lincoln

“If you want to prevent lead poisoning, dust control is the key.”
-Susan Waldron

"Hope is the thing with feathers -- That perches in the soul -- And sings the tune without words -- And never stops -- at all ...” -Emily Dickinson

“Lead exposure has already cut in half the number of US children who might have had superior IQ’s “125 or higher) -- some 2 million kids.”
-Herbert Needleman, MD

“The Health of the People is really the foundation upon which
all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.”
-Benjamin Disraeli - 1877

“Investing in improving human capital -- the brains of millions of our children
-- could be one of the best ways of enriching our future.”
-Herbert Needleman, MD

“Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.”
-The Dalai Lama

“Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, respect for others,
responsibility for all your actions.” -The Dalai Lama

“In all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast aside. You shall look and listen to the welfare of the whole people and have always in view, not only the present but the
coming generations -- the unborn of the future Nation.” -Dekawidah -1720

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“Let us look forward to the pleasing landscape of the future.”
-Chief John Ross

“We are a part of the earth, and the earth is a part of us.” -Seattle

“Environmental Protection is so universally embraced that voters assume their representatives are doing the right thing, even when they are not.” -Deb Callahan

“He conquers who endures.” -Persius

“T’aint no use to sit and whine cause the fish ain’t on your line-
Bait your hook and keep on trying.” -Frank L. Stanton

“The problem is clear\r\nbut the water still isn’t.” -Bob Walkup

“You’ll never miss the water ’til the well runs dry.”
-"Father of the Blues" - Alabamian W.C. Handy

“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”
-Gary Snyder

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” -Aldo Leopold

“Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents.
It was loaned to you by your children.” -Kenyan Proverb

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“What’s the use of a house if your haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”
-Henry David Thoreau

“Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.” -Stuart Udall

“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.” -Wendall Berry

“Hope is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all.” -Emily Dickinson

“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them.”
-Theodore Roosevelt - 1907

“When change is coming, it is always better to get out in front of the
change and do the right thing before it is a mandated practice.”
-Riley Needham

“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

“My concern on Tar Creek is that it flows into Grand Lake,
so what is on the bottom of the lake?"
-Louis "Red" Mathia, former mayor of Miami, OK

“We must remember that children live, learn and play by this creek and the chat piles.
We must discard the artificial boundaries that divide us and repair the world.”
-Cathryn Berger Kaye

One voice I am who wants to help. Two voices are we if you help, too.
One voice can turn to thousands, and together we can make a
huge difference, but not without you.” -Ashley Morris

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“I am sure that with a continuous, nonstop drive to fix this problem,
we will eventually once again have a healthy land.” -Susie Collier

“Ottawa County is a big mine waste dump. It’s like a huge landfill.”
-Ryan Lawrence

“If you hate to clean fish Tar Creek is the place to fish.
You can fish forever and not catch a fish.” -John C. Mott

“The earth is our Mother and you have only one Mother
-if we don’t protect her, who will?” -Sally Whitecrow

“I don’t do big things. I do small things with big love.” -Mother Teresa

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” -Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV

“At every crossroad, follow your dream. It is courageous to let your heart lead the way.” -Thomas Leland

“Make no little plans... they have no magic to stir your souls.”
-Daniel Burnham

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
-Helen Keller

“Each dawn holds a new hope for a new plan, making the start
of each day the start of a new life.” -Gina Blair

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“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly
you are doing the impossible.” -St. Francis of Assisi

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands,
and then work outward from there.” -Robert M. Pirsig

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream;
not only plan, but also believe.” -Anatole France

“This is a country which stands tallest in troubled times, a country that clings to
fundamental principles, cherishes its constitutional heritage, and rejects
simple solutions that compromise the values that lie at the roots of our
democratic system.” -Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

“Research suggests there is no safe exposure to lead. Lead poisoning is one of
the most serious environmental health problems in the U.S. and the world.”
-Jerome Nriagu - University of Michigan

“Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1839

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure. -Helen Keller

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to
mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.” -Rachel Carson - The Silent Spring 1962

“The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.”
-Paul Ralph Ehrlich - 1971

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“And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and
know the place for the first time.” -T.S. Eliot -1942

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
-T.S. Eliot 1925

Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
It is not the effort nor the failure tires.
The waste remains. The waste remains and kills.
-William Empson 1935

“High on the agenda for the 21st century will be the need to restore some
kind of tragic consciousness.” -Carlos Fuentes  1987

“The greater the wealth, the thicker will be the dirt.”
-J.K. Galbraith  1958

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” -T. S. Eliot  1922

“The land was ours before we were the land’s.” -Robert Frost 1942

“The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea... this pollution is for the most part irrecoverable.”
-Rachel Carson

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“We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment.” -Margaret Mead

“Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment.”
-Rene Dubos

“Take what you can use and let the rest go by.” -Ken Kesey

“This land was made for you and me.” -Woody Guthrie 1956

“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”
-Josephine Hart  1991

“Polluted rivers, filthy streets... are no advertisement for a prosperous or caring society.” -Michael Heseltine 1989

“Clear the air! Clean the sky! Wash the wind! -T. S. Eliot 1935

“Here were decent godless people:\r\nTheir only monument the asphalt road.”
-T. S. Eliot  1934

“By emasculating the superfund program lives are in danger.”
-Senator Barbara Boxer

“I think our kids might be much smarter if we didn’t have all this lead
and these other toxins." -Dr. Herbert Needleman

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“The total prohibition of lead paint for use in interior work would do more than
anything else to improve conditions in the painting trade.  The $52,500
three-year 1913 study is paid for by the leading lead manufacturers.”
-Alice Hamilton - 1st Female member, Harvard Medical School faculty

“Some men see things as they are and say”Why?”
I dream things that never were and say, "Why not?” -Robert F. Kennedy

“If you can’t be part of the solution, don’t be part of the problem.”
-Gary Garton

“No good deed goes unpunished.” -Gary Garton

“The arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We see things not as they are but as we are.” -Anais Nin

“As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything.” -Malcolm X

“Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”
-Jim Wallis, Sojourners editor

The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal.
The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.
It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfilled,
But it is a calamity not to dream.
It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars,
But it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
Not failure, but low aim, is a sin.
-Benjamin Mays

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History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
-Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” -Martin Luther King

“I am voting to cut $400 Million out of the Superfund budget
to send a message to the EPA.” -Jim Inhofe - 1991

"There are times, when the snow is covering the chat piles, that this is one of
the most beautiful places on earth. Please don’t make our town look ugly.”
Source: Vaughn Wascovich website (in conversation with the bartender in Picher, OK)

“When we talk about environmental justice, we mean calling a halt to the poisoning
and pollution of our poorest communities, from our rural areas to our inner cities.
When our children’s lives are no longer cut short by toxic dumps, when their minds
are no longer damaged by lead paint poisoning, we will stop wasting energy
and intelligence that could build a stronger, more prosperous America.”
-Former President Bill Clinton

“Tar Creek is broken and can’t be fixed.  I’ve been to dozens and dozens of
Superfund sites located all over the country, but I’ve never seen anything
like this. It’s just amazing to see these towns right in the middle of it.”
-Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“Service-learning is the single best way to educate young people for active citizenship.
-Senator John Glenn, Chair, National Commission on Service-Learning

ATSDR

Awarded to
L.E.A.D., Inc.

Central Mill History

Harvard Children's Environmental Health & Disease Prevention Research

MORE QUOTES COMING SOON.