Sometimes there is no choice. That is what happened to our Earth Day Recycle Tar Creek Bike Ride when John Clarke, Ottawa County Commissioner told us he was already putting up barriers to close roads due to flooding. It sometimes seems cool to take risks, but it is never cool to put others at risk. There will always be other days for bike rides, and we intend to have a bunch!

While my family lived in west Texas when I was young, I have many memories of traveling to Oklahoma and Missouri to visit our relatives. The earliest memories are of riding in the back end of the blue and white 54' Chevy station wagon through the summer nights, probably to cover the long distance with cooler temperatures since car air conditioning during those years were "open windows at 60 miles an hour." The night memory was watching the orange flecks of light pass out our parents' windows as their cigarette ashes would slide past the back windows and bounce upon the road behind our car.

All these years later, we have learned how dangerous smoking is for the smoker and how second hand smoke can be harmful. There have been some obvious changes made. Scientific evidence about the health risks of smoking changed all this. People have responded to the changes and accepted them. Some people quit smoking. My parents quit and their ashtrays disappeared from the coffee tables after they moved back to Oklahoma.  

Recently when my nephew left the room, his wife spoke seriously about his smoking while we sat at the kitchen table at my parents' home. She felt his smoking was killing her. I listened and wondered how to help.

My nephew is smart and absolutely in love with this woman. She has brought him joy and changed his life in positive ways, none of the rest of our family thought possible. Her fear for her life has presented the challenge for us to help him quit smoking and save her life and most likely his. They have a granddaughter and the latest research and the health impacts for children may add even more weight to his need to quit smoking.

Tobacco use causes 20% of cancer deaths and second hand smoke, which is the smoke either exhaled by a smoker or released from the end of a burning cigarette is what she fears since she knows secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer, bronchitis and pneumonia.  

I know my parents opened the windows in the car when we were with them, and am sure that my nephew believes opening windows in his truck works but it won't. Opening windows may get rid of the smell; however, it doesn’t get rid of the cancer-causing toxins in the air known now as third-hand smoke the particles and gases left over after a cigarette is extinguished. What Is Third-Hand Smoke? Third hand smoke residue builds up on surfaces over time and resists normal cleaning. It can't be eliminated using fans or air conditioners, or confining smoking to only certain areas of a home. It clings to hair, skin, clothes, furniture, drapes, walls, bedding carpets, dust, vehicles ong after smoking has stopped.

Smokers with children or those who live with non-smokers should never smoke inside the home or in their car, and clothing worn while smoking should be washed as soon as possible. If you smell cigarette smoke in a place or on someone, it means you are being exposed to third-hand smoke.   
 
When my brother and I were in the back of that Chevy station wagon third hand smoke was called smoke concentrate and had already been identified as causing cancer in mice.

People can be affected by the toxins in third hand smoke (THS) by inhaling them, by ingesting them (when particles land on food, or on fingers that are then placed in the mouth such as with infants), or by absorption through the skin since skin is not a solid barrier to substances in our environment.

While first-hand smoke refers to the smoke inhaled by a smoker and second-hand smoke to the exhaled smoke and other substances emanating from the burning cigarette that can get inhaled by others, third-hand smoke is the second-hand smoke that gets left on the surfaces of objects, ages over time and becomes progressively more toxic. Re-emission of nicotine from contaminated indoor surfaces in households can lead to nicotine exposure levels similar to that of smoking.

If you smoke, stop. Quitting is the only sure way to promote a healthy future for you and your family. It’s a tough process but can be done. Protect the health of your family and yourself by implementing a “no-tobacco” policy in your own home. Encourage others to do the same. If you work in a business where smoking is still condoned, speak up and share some facts with your employer.
 
There may be no chance my nephew will quit smoking, but I am certain one day there will be no choice but to quit  since facts are facts and love trumps cigarettes.

Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim
 

Earth Day is of course, everyday, but this year it is also the March for Science happening in Washington, D.C. If it weren't for the deep science that was giving us the warnings about our air and our water back in 1970, there wouldn't have been an Earth Day according to Kathleen Rogers, an organizer for the march.

The March for Science celebrates the role science plays in each of our lives and the need to respect and encourage research that gives insight into the world. Those gathering will call for science to uphold the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence based policies in the public interest.  

Science serves all of us. It protects our air and water, preserves our planet, saves lives with medical treatments, creates new industries, puts food on our tables, educates the next generation, and safeguards our future.

"Scientific research is essential to helping us understand and respond to the effects of climate change and plan for its impacts on people, communities and wildlife. The public benefit of sound science is immeasurable. Yet science is being attacked by those who don’t like or don’t agree with what we’re learning," according to Jamie Rappaport Clark with Defenders of Wildlife.

There will be Marches for Science on Earth Day with Rick DuBois and Kevin Gustavson representing Oklahoma at the big one in Washington, D.C. Here in Ottawa County we will Bike and our Fun Walk, will be a March if we put each foot down with a bit more vigor, understanding it will take a lot of science to figure out exactly how to fix Tar Creek and our surroundings.

Creating the route for the bike ride is not hard. Historic and environmental landmarks in Commerce, OK and a good portion of the Tar Creek Superfund site will be seen by the riders. It takes time to decide what to choose and what has to be left out of the 2 wheeled tour. Working with River Sturgess, an NEO College student volunteering for the second year on the bike ride, we had to include a bit of time on River Street near Mickey Mantle's childhood home.

There is a lot to see on a tour, but on a bicycle there is time to really look, easy to stop and take time to wonder, how on earth could this have happened in Oklahoma? How could industrial practices use and spit out a hunk of our state with a bunch of it ruined Quapaw tribal land? Here it is 100 years after the mining kicked into gear and down many roads are fields full of chat with some piled high enough to feel like mountains made of tiny grains of what looks like sand. Sand that we know now is loaded with metals, some precious, some known as rare earth minerals, many toxic to our environment and to human health.

I wanted to take a photo of a blue heron standing regally in a water filled subsidence. He was so tall, only feet away from us, but too shy to stay put, but had we been on our bikes, we could have gotten that shot. As he flew, we hoped he would find a safer home.

I have heard people speak with fear about encounters with "junk yard dogs" but I met some dogs that might meet that description this week and found them calm and quiet. But in preparation for the Recycle Tar Creek Bike Ride, we have assurances from  a business that their dogs will be sequestered during our passing, to ease old fears by our riders.

There are miles of piles and sinkholes and damaged land on the tour, but there are improved lands, too, fields that are growing grass again and there will be more in the future if EPA and DEQ continue to fund the Quapaw Tribe's efforts. Children are outside playing in neighborhoods in Commerce with grass growing in their yards, yards that had contaminated soils removed years ago.

There have been scientific studies on the effects of living in a greener environment, decreasing subjects' heart rates, reducing stress and even increasing literacy scores. The work on Tar Creek and this superfund site is not complete and can be. We need teams of scientists of all sorts to keep it up, and get 'r done. It was caused from mining ore, which though they might have looked like a piles of rocks cleaning it up will require science but it won't need to be Rocket Science.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim

Regulation is not a dirty word. To me it simply translates as protection.

I got to hear a politician recently claim the main reason he ran for office was because he hated regulations and wanted to get rid of them. Generally regulations become necessary when maintaining profits becomes more important than safety. A rule is enforced to ensure commerce is protective of the consumer or the environment.

Just this week the EPA posted a 30 day extension for comments in the Federal Registry for a new drinking water rule involving plumbing products, dramatically lowering the percent of lead, with some exemptions for products such as fire hydrants. Labeling will be required to reduce inadvertent use of non-lead free plumbing products to reduce exposure to lead in drinking water and adverse health effects. I intend to write a comment and you may want to also.

When investigating a classic older home this week for sources of a child’s high lead levels, there were several possible sources for lead exposure such as lead paint, lead pipes and yard soil. The yard could be sampled by DEQ for lead and the child’s parent had already made a call to request it.

I continued to look for clues. What was the child’s route of exposure? I learned from Susan Waldron years ago, when she worked in the Lead program at the Ottawa County Health Department and was called to investigate how a child was getting high lead levels. She had interviewed the parent, gone to the home, and was still puzzled, but what she taught me was to observe the child and the exposure source could be revealed. Sure enough, that child showed her the source: the old painted wood post on the front porch she loved to grab with one hand and go round and round. That wooden post tested positive for lead based paint and was the sole source of her exposure.

With this in mind a few days ago when observing a child and his focus on the electronic device while he lay on the carpet and played intermittently with the family dog that had just come in from the backyard left me wondering if the carpet might have trapped lead dust tracked inside.

If there was lead dust in the carpet, where did it come from? How could it have gotten in the yard? From  old paint on the house or fencing in the past with residue left in the soil. The previous owners might have worked on cars, might have had hobbies that would have used lead, like for making lead shot or lead sinkers or like many other residences throughout the county, chat might have been hauled in over the decades for numerous reasons.
It is sometimes a mystery how children get lead poisoned but it is always a tragedy.

There is a Federal law on the sale of housing built prior to 1978. This law was established with the intention to help protect buyers. That child's mother was concerned and wanted answers. She looked through the paperwork for the sale of the home looking for anything that might have warned her that the home could poison her children.

This instance reminds me our work to get lead paint removed from housing stock in the community is still a great need and for every realtor and our property managers to learn more about lead poisoning and what they can do to protect children. Have your own children's blood lead level checked. We have the opportunity to have every residential property sampled for lead. Let's do our part to get rid of it. Call DEQ Hotline: 1-800-522-0206.

Regulations that protect us are needed, where we work and live and what we consume. If they go away, we will have to fight those fights again. The protections corporations or businesses pursue generally are profits, but that doesn't always have to be a dirty word either.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim

Serious times settle about us, change and fear, yet spring has arrived and with it thoughts of hope. The bleak look of winter is over and color has returned, trees leafing out, the wild plums have bloomed, the poke must be picked now before it is too big. Watch for the blackberries, when they finally bloom, the blackberry winter will come with the last freeze.

The urge to garden is back for me and perhaps for you though I am behind many for getting with the effort to have much to show. I have been thinking a lot about LEAD's Community Garden. The Miami Boys and Girls Club kids are scheduled to come back next week for our fourth garden season. Their enthusiasm is contagious, so if you see us all out there, go ahead and stop and watch and join the action. As the weather permits, Thursday afternoons they will be there.

So far the onion bed is set and the keyhole garden has begun. We have a couple of bales of wheat straw and the potato box Gary Sherard built for us. Last week the A & M Engineering team was at our property, DEQ's contractors for the Yard Remediation work funded by EPA to test and remove high levels of lead in yard soil. Until the results are in on their findings, the children will be gardening in our raised beds and starting seeds for the bigger garden.
I have been reading about how other communities deal with gardening and are concerned about possible lead and cadmium in their soils. According to a Minneapolis guide sheet, it is important to realize that the principal route of exposure to contamination is usually not the uptake and accumulation of contaminants IN the vegetables that you are growing, rather it is the SOIL and DUST that you contact while gardening and that sticks to the outside of the plants.
 
To reduce the risk of exposure wash and peel root crop, and wash and remove outer leaves or bottoms of leafy green crops and to teach young children not to eat any vegetable until it is washed and remind anyone with contact with the garden to wash their hands before meals or sampling that little tomato.
 
They recommend reducing children’s exposure by covering bare soil with mulch or sod and locate your garden away from building foundations, especially if the building is old enough to have had lead-based paint used on it, even if you don't see paint chips. And in this season of "Oh let's make raised beds," resist using railroad ties or other chemically treated lumber because they contain arsenic.
 
Not all gardens are for vegetables. Reflecting back on ways our youth have honored people who they had lost by death, and others they never knew, it was by planting trees and flowers that would live on. The redbud in the bed in front of Miami High School was planted to remember those lost in the Oklahoma City bombing and the yellow iris were for individuals students had lost. There was a bed at Will Rogers, too so many years ago planted for lost ones. We'll be planting bulbs this year at the LEAD office with some of them for Tina Hesse, Iva Young and Nola Bryant.  If you are cleaning out your flowerbeds this year, save us some bulbs. They come up each year, just as the ones June Taylor gave us last year, up now in their new home.

Divide up your bulbs and share with your friends and those who you know would enjoy new beauty, even if you have not checked that soil for lead, it could be good for beauty and for reflecting on those who gave you such precious memories. Since the world does seem pretty broken right now, I am motivated by those who are the fixers, who are finding the issues in their communities and looking for answers. Cyndi Ray was a fixer and we'll certainly be planting for her, lost too soon but also thinking back to her high school friend lost long before her potential was ever realized.

We might not all be fixers, but we can garden, flowers and vegetables and remember to wash our hands when we are done.

Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim

Years ago University of Tulsa hosted a summer program for science teachers from across the state, one of their days was spent at Tar Creek and I got to tour those teachers around the science fair project mecca we have known as our superfund site. One of those teachers, Karla Ford came back this week, with her AP Environmental Science students from Wagoner High School.

When they unloaded and gathered in the front room at LEAD Agency, it was obvious they had done their homework, as they had been studying Tar Creek, the history, health impacts from exposures, the politics and every other topic associated with the site. They had studied, learned, prepared presentations in small groups and already shared them in their classes in their school BEFORE they came to see our site.

They reminded me of the integrated service learning that had occurred at Miami High School in the environmental glory days of the Cherokee Volunteer Society and their award winning Tar Creek Project. Back in those days many of the teachers incorporated environmental themes into their curriculum, resulting in deep understanding by the students of those complicated issues.

Every sophomore did a research paper in English, but those years, all the topics were environmental. Recycling for the whole school was taken on by Cathy O’Dell’s math students, most of which became her best Algebra students the next year because they learned that numbers mattered and abstract equations could mean something.

Cori Stotts and Chris Robinson stood up and demanded answers at Governor Keatings’ Tar Creek Task Force hearing. Their voices and the many others who were speaking up made a difference at this site. Wanis Euran thought the issues were important enough he called the New York Times and they sent reporters to cover it. There are many community members living here with a great deal of understanding of what this superfund site is all about, how it got this way and how to write a  research paper, essay or poem about it.

The students started three activities, the Toxic Tours, the annual Tar Creek Conferences and the Tar Creek Fish Tournaments, which weren’t real fish tournaments, but more of a music festival of sorts.

Each were cultural events with a dose of science, which can affirm rather than challenge or bore, with festival music, local culture, food and activities people like: entertainment first, science second.

Last year we found learned can be forgotten. Terri Riley was the early elementary art instructor and her students got to learn about Tar Creek with an art project depicting fish living in it now and what one might look like in a clean creek. She had 801 students that September and only one of them knew anything about the creek before they started, but when they finished all did. One teacher spoke up, and a whole lot of children found out very quickly not to play in it and why, and to also know the hope the cleanup can be for their community and the fish that will live there again.

Miami’s Academy is a couple of blocks from our office, and this week Marla Stidham invited me to meet their students and catch them up, too. It got real when their teacher Mr. Morton spoke up saying he actually had caught fish in our wounded creek when he was young. It just is not right to kill a creek and just accept it. Somebody ought to speak up to give voice to hope.

Earth Day will be Saturday April 22. Get your bike ready for what else but the Recycle Tar Creek Bike Ride and Fun Walk. Registration is at the Charles Sills Memorial Park in Commerce at 8 a.m. Bike Rides start at 9 a.m. There are one mile and 20 mile options. Registration fee for the bike ride $25. Fun Walk is Free and starts at 10 a.m. Call for more information 918-542-9399. Musicians welcome, we need their voices, too!

At a site this big, it is going to take many more voices, many more years saying we want this place better, or believe me we will be abandoned again just like those piles were, just like that orange creek has been.  So grab your bike, take a ride, have a walk, listen to some music and let’s do this festival.

Respectfully submitted ~  Rebecca Jim