I have been wanting to learn to crochet rag rugs for decades. My mother used to make them out of our old clothes, cutting each item into one inch strips and then sewing them together, rolling them into a ball and crocheting them row after row into the memory rugs we had on floors in each of the rooms in our house. Row after row of my uncle's old suits, scraps from the new outfits she had made that season. She always thought she would make a blue jean rag rug. I guess that is why if you were to prowl through closets every old pair of jeans I ever had are waiting their turn as a rug.

With retirement, I really looked forward to taking some time and learning from my mother. Life got busy, days filled up and then in the middle of those last years, my mother had a stroke and I got the chance to move in with her and help her recover, a couple of times. She didn't lose mobility, but got aphasia a condition where the brain doesn't always let your voice say what you think you want to say. We had wonderful years together, some helping her regain the ability to read again, but all those years and all that time, those old clothes got cut up and strips sown together into balls for the great rag rug teaching session.

I remember it clearly. We sat down together, I was so excited but she had forgotten how to do it. I still have the balls of strips and the crochet hooks and places in my house that long to have rugs lain down to walk across.

One of my take a-ways from the Lay Health Advisor Training was to acknowledge we should lower exposure to lead not just for children aged 6 and younger, but for all of us.  Lead has long lasting effects for adults with serious health conditions that show up decades later.  As adults we carry the lead  we have had throughout our lifetime stored tightly in our bones. With aging some of that stored lead is released as we lose calcium in our bones and it enters our blood. Lead at any level is a poison and we should avoid any additional exposure, all of us.

This week Dr. Shirley Chesnut explained to the Lay Health Leaders things we can do to live a healthier life downwind and downstream from the largest Superfund site in the country. Among of the things she listed besides the expected ones like getting the sleep you require, eating healthy foods, getting exercise was pursue something you long to do.
And there it came together, a class with Mary Daugherty, to learn how to crochet. We are starting with yarn and then... balls of cloth cut into strips that long to be a rug under my feet.

It will make me happy and happy makes me healthier. You can find what makes you happy. Find what you have longed to do. Try what Shirley suggested find what gives your spirit passion. Be mindful.

Meeting young people and finding out what they believe in and how they think about the world in which we live has been an important part of my life. They are young and busy and not wanting to intrude, times pass and opportunities with them.

The 92 year old poet didn't pass up this chance. Kimberly Barker and Gladys Keeton share poetry and time and built a relationship. While Kimberly was a news reporter for the Miami NewsRecord, she set a perfect example of how to nest in a new place, build relationships and practice your passion, hers is writing. She came as a rookie at the paper and leaves our community enriched for having known her, but with the enhanced writing skills for her career.
Simple joys and shared time.

Let's have more. My focus is on that rag rug, making it happen. According to the Longevity Project, "it was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest" while "the clearest health benefit of social relationships comes from being involved with and helping others."

Having time with former students and the opportunity to walk back into a few classrooms, the other focus will continue being environmental awareness as my means to help others.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim

Lead was in the news this week: bullets, water and toys from fast food restaurants plus a research study linking lead and high blood pressure in adults.

Lead in pipes can mean lead in water like Flint, Michigan and now East Chicago, Indiana where the residents are worried EPA will not be able to help them if funding is cut and regulations are eliminated.  While In the U.S. there are 18 million more people at risk for lead poisoning because of old lead service lines.

Lead in bullets can kill twice, they can kill the intended target and can end up being found in predator birds or animals after they eat meat contaminated by lead bullets. Eagles are again at risk since lead bullets will now be more attainable for hunters.

Rarely is lead in dust mentioned in the media. We are the rare site with dust the major contributor of the lead poisoning happening in the Tar Creek Superfund site. And air pollution in general is a much more prevalent and inescapable way of pollution since it is very democratic.

Years ago when Harvard was conducting research here at Tar Creek, I got to go to Boston and visit the researchers and see where they analyzed the samples they got from us. Scientists explain fine particulates may be causing tissue inflammation and altering gene expression in the brain’s immune cells and that might be linked to higher risk of autism, stroke and cognitive decline in elders. Now imagine if those fine particulates might be made up of the heavy metals we have in local chat, lead, cadmium, arsenic and manganese.

 Joe Brain, one of the researchers had a hypothesis that fine particles of the chat dust could go straight from the nose when inhaled and actually enter the brain directly. He had explained they used ground up chat fines which would have been about 13,000 parts per million of lead, and had basically blown that dust into the nostrils of lab rats. Just a bit later that day, I had the most peculiar experience seeing a person in the hall carrying a tray of what looked like tiny brains laid out neatly on a tray. As it turned out, they were rat brains going to the lab to be analyzed for the effect Tar Creek chat dust had had on those brains.

Reading is a pleasure, and lots of times from journals publishing the latest research on health or environmental subjects. In a study in 2011 in Portugal people living near industrial “grey areas” reported less optimism. This may sound trivial they stated, but optimism is associated with healthier behaviors (such as a willingness to exercise), lower levels of fat in the blood and mental resilience, or the ability to recover from stress. That made me think of the vast amounts of actual grey areas we have right here in Ottawa County, tons or it, and wonder if our residents might be experiencing less optimism because of it.

Another tidbit to share is the value trees have to our feelings of well-being since they are a natural antidote bringing pleasure and health benefits, and the higher number of trees in a neighborhood the lower the incidence of heart and metabolic disease with one study finding blocks with just 11 more trees than average  showed a $20,000 gain in median income. It is spring and a really good time to figure out where those 11 more trees are going on your block.
I have been known to wear many people out with what comes easy and natural for me… my optimism, a characteristic they say I must have been born with.

It's true, I do believe in people and imagine the best in them and for them. And have transferred this all to our very own environmental disaster. This site is fixable, it is contaminated with metals and not with nuclear waste or PCBs. Metals that have made great wealth, put our nation on par with mineral rich countries all over the world that were producing the resource materials that industrialized the world.

 We did what made the future bright for individual families, for this state and it is a well-earned right to believe it is our turn to have the grey areas removed and optimism become more of the norm around here.
I need some company.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim

There is still a lot left worth fighting for.   - Jane Goodall

After visiting with our local doctors and a former Tulsa Children's Medical Center pediatrician it became more evident of the great need we have in Ottawa County to do more to prevent our children from becoming lead poisoned.

Lead poisoning is worse for the youngest and can affect multiple areas of the brain, from I.Q. to emotional control including all aspects of mental health. Lead will affect you, it is not always easy to measure exactly how.

The basic fact is that lead is a poison. Lead is very heavy and it will be in our environment a long time. Once ingested it can be stored in your bones and will continue to do damage over a long period of time. The affects are predictable and will affect every brain exposed to it. After you see injury, it is hard to help. This means prevention is the best answer and we need to do something now and not wait.

There is an association in the literature connecting exposure to lead to Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. ADHD can be explained as the lack of ability to pay attention and exhibit control. Dr. Ed Gustavson explained that a child with ADHD feels bombarded and that affects the ability to learn even if the child has a high I.Q.

Though there is an abundant number of older homes with lead based paint, much of our lead comes from the local, cheap resource, chat or mine tailings used as gravel and sand throughout Ottawa County in home building, alleys, roads and on playgrounds and school yards. EPA funded residential yard cleanup is still being carried out by Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality to remove lead contaminated soil from residential yards.

We were relieved this week to learn the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt stated, “I want you to know that with the White House and also with Congress, I am communicating a message that the Brownfields program, the Superfund program, water infrastructure … are essential to protect,” Pruitt said. He stated,  “Some of the places have been on the Superfund list for 30 years or more. And that shouldn’t be.”

EPA’s Superfund program has been around since 1980, and is responsible for managing the cleanup of some of the country’s most contaminated hazardous waste sites, as well as responding to significant environmental emergencies. There are more than 1,300 Superfund sites around the country, and most past cleanups have been paid for by the parties responsible for polluting.

Our Tar Creek Superfund site is one of those 30+ year sites he is speaking up for. This could give us hope the future could ensure more of a lead-free county than we have now. But in the meantime, for the years it will take to remove the lead from our local environment, we have a job to do.

Want to do your part? Learn how during the four hour Lay Health Advisory Training on March 23. We can do this, each one of us can do more to lower lead levels in the children around us. Training is from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Northeast Tribal Health System Community Room. Call LEAD Agency 918-542-9399 to register for the free training.

What else can you do? After listening to Grace Goodeagle's tips on her recent experience lobbying our representatives at the state capitol: Take data, organize, seek each legislator and engage them on the issues. Study up and reach out to all of our representatives and senators, federal and state. Let them know this site needs to be cleaned up to protect the long term public health and the environment of Ottawa County and all for all our friends downstream. In the meantime, we will concentrate on the prevention education brings.

Dr. Ed Gustavson exclaimed our lead exposure is a silent pandemic and can be lowering the IQ of our whole country. Though many may have been silent here on these issues, there are indications, they will not remain that way much longer. Lead poisoning can be found nationwide, Dr. Shirley Chesnut noted but in a solution oriented community like this, we can help change this.

Our children are worth it.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim              

It has been a week for reflection on what the Tar Creek Superfund site is and how it has impacted the health of some of our residents and changed the potential of many through the decades. The legacy mining brought the region great wealth and provided needed jobs that allowed strong men to work hard and make a living for their families. There was a pride instilled in the communities that has outlived the mines and most of those who worked them. What has been left behind has confounded many a scientist and hosts of EPA officials. It’s the waste piles that dot the landscape and leave us wondering just exactly where all this stuff can be used, and will it or can it really be used in a way not to poison some other future communities’ children like it has ours.

It might have served us better if we had gone ahead and claimed the piles as Oklahoma’s very own “manmade toxic mountain range.” Lots of people, myself included have stated the ore from this site made the bullets that won both World Wars. Sometimes it takes new eyes and a simple statement to change the way we might consider looking at our chat piles and this proud legacy. And that is what happened to me when an out-of-stater called this whole site “The Nile.”

She went ahead to explain, wasn’t this the source of all sources? Isn’t this where the lead for all the (bullets I expected her to say), but no, she said, leaded gasoline, lead paint, and lead pipes, all linked squarely with the lead poisoning that has been occurring all through the 20th century, all over this country? Who could say no, it wasn’t, couldn’t have been us, it must have been our sister site in Idaho. But yes, we both did it and worked our men to early deaths and ruined the lands of the Quapaws and with a bit of mining done on the Miami and the Peoria’s narrow strips of tribal lands.

And this site’s metals hit the water and flow down Tar Creek, meet the Neosho and come down the Spring River from Kansas and Missouri, bringing their loads of lead and other metals, all accumulating in the Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees, but not to be stopped by a dam, but are proceeding on down to the connected lakes. No one can say we were stingy with our metals. Even downstream in the riparian zones, in the wetlands, our metals reside and all the plants take them up from the sediments and can be found in their fruits, free for the taking for humans and wildlife and traveling birds.

Not only have our metals been dumbing down and lowering the potential of our children, but think of all the children throughout this nation we have damaged with the use of our lead in the products in cars and homes all over the country.

What a responsibility, what a legacy. Do we want to continue being “The Nile?” We need to advocate for this site to be cleaned up, for real and for good. We need to find ways to rid us of all the old lead paint in and on homes throughout our neighborhoods. We need to advocate for every resident to have their yards sampled for lead and to have it removed by DEQ. We need to ask the state and every town to find ways to have lead pipes in homes replaced.

Lead poisoning is preventable. We need to make sure our communities get on with getting “the lead out!” and then we need to begin to join the chorus throughout the country advocating for lead free zones, and then whole lead free towns.

Our new head of the EPA, our former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was asked about lead in his Senate hearing for his confirmation…. And he didn’t know anything about it. And now he is in charge of the cleanup of this site?

We can help him learn more about lead, we are the advocates for change. We can email a message or write a real postcard or even a letter. You could do what many do, go to the state capitol and lobby our congressmen. Grace Goodeagle could teach us how. Say something, write something. I intend to keep educating our elected officials, remember Representative Mullin’s field representative had NEVER received a call about this site.

It gets more serious now. We are the Nile and we cannot DENY it. We are the source and everything we can do here we should do, but we can’t stop there, we need to advocate for our sister sites, all those cities and towns with lead in their water, with lead pipes, children living in housing with deteriorating lead paint. That’s our stuff out there doing damage and we were the source.

I'm not denying it. 

Tar Creek got discovered in a big way in 1979 when  suddenly it turned its telltale color and her fish died. Sam Well's youngest kid knew the day it happened because he had been fishing the DAY before and went back and found only floating fish.

Tar Creek got discovered when it made front page news in the New York Times and the Washington Post, the little orange creek in the middle of the country, was listed on THE list of the time, the National Priorities List, EPA's now notorious hit list of toxic places, as worst and first. It became known as the Number One Toxic Site in the country.

Tar Creek's fame faded as other sites vied for attention from the new Environmental Protection Agency and its Superfund division. Fame didn't get our site fixed, but it did get us discovered. EPA did some work to curb new water from entering the Boone Aquifer and recharging it with more water that would also become toxic in those underground mine chambers. They filled some mine shafts and bore holes and some sink holes. They built a berm to keep contaminated acid mine water from entering Tar Creek and then they left, claiming they had done what they could at the site defined by a 40 square mile box.

Superfund sites dot the country now, they are a dime a dozen as they say with every 3rd person living within 3 miles of one. They are everywhere because we have industries that pollute. Yes, they do. They make mistakes and in many cases choose "Better Business" and pay fines rather than change their ways. Since EPA was established regulations were issued to curb spills and discharges into water, to the land and to air that have protected human health and the environment.  Personally I like the protection and would like even more to protect the vulnerable, the young, pregnant women and the elderly. I have been all of those in this life and feel a few more years may even be possible because those regulations have extended life for me and many others in this country.

EPA had to return to the Tar Creek Superfund site because our children were found to be lead poisoned. When that trend nationally was declining, the numbers of our kids effected were outrageous and EPA had to start doing something to STOP it and are still removing yards and driveways and hauling chat off.

George Briscoe and Kyle his high school classmate attended the meeting LEAD hosted last Thursday and a whole bunch of folks from Grove got to hear for the first time how superfund works and where we are in the process as it relates closer to their shores. That evening I checked my email and there was a message from Dr. Ean Garvin with a copy of the article she had just had published with co-authors Cas Bridge and her mother Meredith Garvin on their research into the sediment outside our "box" and the implications those metals have on plants humans and our other living creatures consume.

Our superfund site affects each of us and what we learned from Congressman Mullen's representative a few days ago is he has not heard from us asking for the attention we are going to need. Our senators have to hear from us about this site and all the other issues you are passionate about. For the long haul it is realistically going to take decades to get this site cleaned up and Congress will have to take tax payer money to do it unless Congress reinstates the Superfund tax on polluters.

We want to be taken off that priority list with a cleanup and the site restored. But we will not get to be a priority unless people, you and your fishing buddies and the folks on your block start speaking up and making it a priority in your life. Think about what could happen: we could have lead-free fish, we could be sure our children were SMARTER and TALLER and had better HEARING, healthier KIDNEYS, fewer cases of CANCER, just for starters.

The contaminant of concern EPA has determined here at Tar Creek is lead though it is certainly not the only metal we find in the everyday DUST we have in our homes and in our cars, in our mailboxes and in the attics and garages and our yards. Lead does not dissolve or dilute. If it is there, it will stay there, until it is removed.
We need to be discovered again by the "outside" world.  Film makers are welcome and invited to come to our community to help tell our complicated story. We can hope our individual stories, our efforts can help other groups of people, communities and those living in the long shadows of other superfund sites to have hope and never give up.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim