Tourism could save Oklahoma!
 
Our new Governor wants to make Oklahoma a Top 10  State and has given his commitment: the people come first and he'll be a good listener, a continuous learner, and a bold leader for the decisions that make a difference for today’s children and the next generation.
 
Our Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell, named as our new Secretary of Tourism and Branding, can make this happen.
If we want to be a tourist destination, we have to want to be here ourselves. If we go away we have to long to come home. Lt. Governor Pinnell needs to understand what is happening right now to our hopes for Tourism. If we make bad decisions today, we will be branded a state to by-pass tomorrow, not just because we have toll roads, but because you won't be able to drive through with the windows down and we won't have a water body that will be safe for swimmers or for fish tournaments.

Don't TRASH Oklahoma to benefit corporations. They might grow, but they will not grow children who will love this state and fight to protect her.

There is so much to see and enjoy throughout the state. Thousands of tourists from around the world follow Route 66 every year. Consider what our tourists see. They enter the state with Quapaw as the first town on their journey but they have also entered one of our nation's largest and oldest Superfund sites, named after our very own Tar Creek, which they will cross before they enter Commerce, Mickey Mantle's hometown, also within the superfund site.

On both sides of highway 66 near the Mantle Statue they can see Dr. Bob Nairn's world class Passive Water Treatment Systems at work, cleaning bad mine water. In downtown Miami our tourists can experience the Coleman Theatre Beautiful, a community treasure built by one of the original mine owners.

Many tourists follow original remaining sections of Route 66. Just south of Miami our tourists will get a whiff of the brand new flocks of chickens living their short lives in three mega barns. Route 66 travelers might not stop to shop at the tack shop. As generations of birds live and die in those mega barns, as the smells become entrenched, bicyclists and motorcyclists will become faster, rushing through to escape the odors.

These poultry houses will be growing birds you and I may never consume. Most of these birds will be hauled to Arkansas for slaughter, then shipped abroad to help feed the world. But Oklahoma will keep the waste with runoff flowing into our streams, rivers, our precious Grand Lake and her sister lakes down the Grand River. Each stream, river, and lake will hold trapped runoff water from the fields spread with excess chicken waste.

Our Green Country has lakes and rivers that are GREEN already, and as we feed the algae in the water more nutrients from poultry waste, they will get only greener.

Oklahoma's Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry passed rules February 19 giving occupied homes a set back from a poultry barn of 500 to 1,000 feet, but dwellings that are not occupied all year long could have a new poultry house built 150 feet from the property line. Our summer Grand Lakers might open the back door to find they have hundreds of thousands of brand new neighbors who live in the manure they excrete for months as they grow to seller size. 

A Tourist Bonanza for Oklahoma! Bound to help us get the status as a Top 10 State for Get the Tourists out the fastest!  Hundreds of poultry houses are already constructed in Northeast Oklahoma and the new rules will encourage more.

Two state agencies have let us down: Oklahoma Water Resources Board and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry. The environment doesn't fare well in a state that doesn't even have a Department of Environment. The environment is not even listed in the issues on our current governor's website. We need to protect our water, soil and air quality.  Because our tourists have earned time off and want a "get-a-way." Those people are us, too. We want to stay close to home, fish and swim in clean water and when we get home we want to be able to wash up with clean water and sit in the yard with our children.

I have given lots of Toxic Tours to educate the public about the legacy mining left us, with chat piles and our ruined Tar Creek as reminders. Our Lt. Governor might use this latest industrial growth scheme for tourism branding with images of chickens and MegaBarns. We can Toxic Tour our tourists through our state with their windows up.

We know that smell can drive away customers, can drive away potential, can shut down towns. We ought to be speaking out for the rest of the state. We ought to watch how we grow and what we grow, or we will lose the best thing we have... our future.

Wake up Oklahoma, we are going to have to fight right now to protect this state from our own agencies’ bad decisions. We have to convince our leaders to be on the PEOPLE's side.

Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim

Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent. ~ Rachel Carson

I listened to David Suzuki speak about our future as a species on this earth this evening. I want people to listen to scientists, pay attention and take notes. But I put off listening to him because he is a scientist and I thought he would talk over my head and well, put me to sleep.

But instead, I reached for paper and a pencil and took notes, I paid attention. He had me right away when he stated Rachel Carson's Silent Spring had gotten his attention back when it came out. You might remember me admitting it was the only book I ever took from a library 45 years ago and never returned. She died 2 years after it was published from cancer, perhaps from exposures to the very chemical pesticides she wrote were deadly to animals and birds.

Suzuki spoke of the challenge of our time, to have our species survive to the end of the century. Yes, this got me listening very closely. What an urgent message. He and all of us should be talking about the future of the planet. Economics and chasing growth has gotten us here, but in this finite world, growth cannot be sustained. Of course he meant 'Fossil Fuels has Got To Go' was not just a saying but the true message, we have got to get off fossil fuels to protect our land, soil and water. Pursue energy sources from the sun.

Speaking as the genius he is, but bringing it down so I could keep up, he explained how we need air to live, and can only live without it for about 3 minutes, though we can live longer but sicker if the air is not clean. We need water and can survive without it only about 3 days, longer but sicker if the water is not clean. We need soil to grow the crops we eat and can live only 40 days without food, longer but sicker if the soil is contaminated by toxic elements. Life sustained on this earth can provide all we need to survive, but clean water, soil and air gives us a better healthier life. And all of this can be provided with proper sunlight and the sacred elements cultures throughout the history of humanity have known.

It is the changes our species have made in the last century and into this one you might not believe we had the power to do, but believing that or not, Dr. Suzuki left us with a path every person could begin pursuing. #1 Use your voice, which might also mean to vote, #2 Live in a different way, be thoughtful in what you consume, #3 Create community.

I can do those things. I might not have a loud voice but you are reading my voice, I can live differently,  plant more in the garden and eat out of it and share the abundance while we all save seeds as we grow our community, our circle can widen as we come to know each other better.

I have been allowed into the lives of people lately I had never known before or not as well, as my circle widens to learn more from the people who worked at BF Goodrich, or were household members of former workers.

That "create community" Suzuki spoke of, is the goal. I want us to create the public voice which asks for the community we deserve, one with the cleanest of air, clean swimmable, fishable and drinkable water, the land clear of rubble, without the fear of asbestos in the air and benzene in the soil beneath, and metal-loaded chat removed.

We need to remember to widen our circle of community to include our country neighbors. They need our help and we need theirs. There are 3 new mega poultry houses on highway 69 south of Miami. The new poultry processing plant our community did not get Gentry, Arkansas got and complete will need another 250 mega poultry houses to make it profitable. If you have land for sale, pay attention to who is buying it. Question buyers who have money in hand, loans already approved. Ask questions. Protect your land's neighbors this way. Hold off selling if you are suspicious.

Residents in towns take notice: setbacks are a topic you might never have thought could be important to you. But there are 2 bills in the Oklahoma House this session. House Bill 2534 by Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D-Tulsa — currently has requirements that are more stringent than what the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry proposed in December, while the other bill, Senate Bill 873 by Sen. Casey Murdock, R-Felt, currently has requirements much less stringent than those proposed by the department.  I go stringent 2534 to protect  air, water and quality of life and legislators must know.

Rachel Carson spoke of the road we must take, the one less traveled  since it offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. Written 55 years ago it was the urgent message we failed to take, but now must heed.

Respectfully submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim
 

Last year Dr. Robert Wright decided to provide a gift to LEAD Agency to help us with our efforts to lower lead levels in the area.
 
Dr. Wright has been associated with Ottawa County and the multiple metals our children have been exposed to for now just over twenty years. He was originally at Harvard and now is in a position at Mount Sinae Hospital in New York City.
 
The gift is a LeadCare II, a portable blood lead analyzer that will analyze a blood sample, a simple drop of blood from a fingerstick providing results in 3 minutes. The Ottawa County Health Department has the exact same instrument, so if you have taken your child 6 years old and younger there to be tested for lead, that would be the first test they would have administered.
 
We will not duplicate their service, or that of the Northeast Tribal Health System, but to offer blood lead screening to individuals over 6 years of age.
 
Our plan is to set up at health fairs near the county health department and screen the mothers, the dads or those over 6 years so a family might leave with a fuller picture of what they may need to do overall to make sure everyone in the home is on track to lower those lead levels for the whole family.
 
We received the instrument months ago but it has taken time for us to gather together a team to train to use the up to date instrument and commit to helping us provide this service at various community events this year.
 
Then suddenly this week, ONLY this week it all came together. After presenting a session on local metal exposures in Dr. Lesli Deichman's psychology class Monday morning, several students volunteered to assist us. It seems many of her students are on track for nursing as a career, To top off the team we were joined by Karen Fields, who had worked with Dr. Wright and his MATCH Project for nearly a decade during the years the research was ongoing here. Our first outing with our LeadCare II will be at the NEO Health Fair on February 19.
 
We know that exposure to lead can be harmful to children but also to us in our later lives. While we able we should do everything in our power to do the things that will keep us healthy in our personal lives, but also in our workplaces.

TSET is a trust in Oklahoma established from the tobacco industry settlement to provide funds to improve the health of Oklahomans by reducing our leading causes of preventable death – tobacco use and obesity – to reduce cancer and cardiovascular disease.

TSET funds projects that can improve the health of every Oklahoman. With Pat Hecksher's help as the coordinator for TSET, LEAD Agency was able to improve and update our Worksite Wellness Policy recently, adding additional ways we can encourage better nutrition and more physical activity.

It is a wonder more businesses, non-profit organizations and churches haven't signed up to make more healthier places for people who work or volunteer in those spaces. We all need all the help and guidance we can get to change our ways and our official policies to make work be as healthy as possible.

I have been speaking with former BF Goodrich workers recently and BOY could that plant have done better for the health and safety of their employees! The workers were exposed to heat, unspeakable  heat, noxious and toxic odors provided poor air quality, but also deafening noise. Asbestos was everywhere, the "cortisone" of builders and business. It was on the walls, covered the machines that molded the tires, it was thick and thin everywhere. In addition, of course chemicals were part of the tire making process, and the workers' personal cleanup procedures.
We long to have safer work places because they will help us have longer and healthier lives. Businesses did not always have their worker safety rules in place because they were making sure their profits got  their upmost attention.

All sorts of industrial processes can get in the way of profits, no wonder some businesses slight their workers' health and safety.

Our BF Goodrich workers, almost to the end have kept quiet for loyalty to the company that helped them be able to feed their children and provide a home of their own. "Goodrich was good for me." I hear it. And business professionals long for the days of those paychecks were spent right downtown.

The company town helped keep the pressure on these hard working men to keep quiet and keep working, even when the air in the tube line was white from the soap stone dust heavy in the air. Soap stone dust would have been loaded with silica which we know can cause silicosis, but also some deposits of soapstone also had asbestos. To me these living legends would have loved to have had a safer work place or the use of respirators to provide some protection. With that they could have worked smarter to live longer.

It seems a coincidence that our BF Goodrich plant that used so many forms of asbestos closed the same year that Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act of 1986 passed.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim

Years ago the people in America rose up, stood in the streets and demanded to have clean air and clean water. President Richard Nixon responded to the outcry when our rivers were on fire and cities' air was visible as brown haze from miles away.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 and rules began to pour out of the agency that would be protective of both our air and our water. Ever since, those rules have been chipped away, bits of those protective rules broken, erased by our Congress, under influence by lobbyists from mining, oil, other industries and agriculture.

Our country is not alone. The mining industry is a dirty business and what works for them is to continue business as usual, paying any fines that come is cheaper. It is their business model. We know that from the legacy waste the companies have left in our Tar Creek Superfund Site. And the unending flow of it down Tar Creek ending up in Grand Lake all these years.

Last Friday a dam in Brazil broke loose in a tsunami of red mud, releasing iron mining waste in such force 200 of their own workers were the first casualties as they were eating their lunch in a cafeteria near the dam.  The Vale dam collapse announcement caused Vale shares to "plummet" on the New York Stock Exchange that day.

I was in the backseat of a small plane with photographer Vaughn Wascovich years ago. He was taking photos of chat piles, but as the plane turned the landscape changed beneath us. There below were fields of green and trees lining Tar Creek. I knew it was Tar Creek because of the ribbon of bright red bordered by the trees. We both took photos of that moment. But it was his that got the attention of the TIME reporter who saw it and immediately knew our story should be told.

Now imagine what Brazil's red tsunami waste is looking like, wide, powerfully wiping away structures as it passed. This occurred in the state of Minas Gerais, barely missing the city of Brumadinho. The President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro flew over it and exclaimed it was “difficult to not be emotional."

Someone was definitely at fault. There ought to be consequences. Minas Gerais state courts quickly froze billions of Vale assets. Vale had been involved in the collapse of another dam in 2015 which 250,000 people were left without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. Brazil's environmental protection agency fined Vale $90 million then, this time $2.1 billion has been levied for this disaster.

The Brazil office of environmentalist group Greenpeace said the dam break was “a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies.” Such incidents “are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired,” it added.

Vale had requested a new license to expand the capacity of the dam so it would be allowed to hold more, but the National Civil Society Forum for Hydrographic Basins, a network of civil society groups  urged authorities not to grant the license.

Brazil's President Bolsonaro has attacked environment agencies for delaying development with excessive licensing requirements and has advocated freeing up mining in protected indigenous reserves. His efforts are much like our current president's attacks on the U.S. environment, to lessen the protections our laws have had for human health and the environment and give free reign for extraction on public lands for industry.

Indigenous rights and land in Brazil's Amazon region are at risk. Bolsonaro's belief is that he will "integrate" those citizens and free up property for mining and agriculture. He did this in an executive order transferring the regulation and creation of new indigenous reserves to the agriculture ministry – controlled by agribusiness lobby. This executive order has to be approved by Brazil's legislature in 120 days. Perhaps this tragedy may offer a look into the future for their country, of what de-regulation looks like.

Years ago, one of Miami High School Indian Dance team's youngest dancers said, "We're Indians, we ought to be for the environment." Well, yes, we all should be. Native or not. We have only one mother and only one earth.

There ought to be a law, and the law is still alive in Brazil. Five people have been arrested in connection to the collapse of the ore tailings dam! There was never anyone arrested for any of the environmental disasters we have in Ottawa County. But in a twist of irony our same young Native dancer when he was old enough to drive, did get the first fine for crossing the ditch the county had dug to keep our recreational riders off our chat piles, which are tailings piles to the rest of the world.

The chief of a native community that lives 14 miles from the Brazilian city of Brumadinho reported all life in the river on which his community depends for food, bathing and cloth washing is "dead" and polluted with the mineral-loaded mud. There is always another way to get rid of natives in the way of progress, one way is to pollute their water, kill their fish and ruin their environment for the foreseeable future. There ought to be a law.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim