Black water killed the fish we didn't even know were there. Every agency associated with the protection of water and our environment responded to the call of the dead fish.

Every summer morning by 6:30 a man greets the day, much as Cherokees have since time began, by going to water. His water is Tar Creek. He has created a paradise on his property, mowing and trimming around the trees he and his wife have planted from his back door, all the way to the creek. On the bank he has secured a log with... log-chains so it won't wash away when the gully washers come, as they do. He finds time to sit on that log and reflect on his youth when this spot was his fishing hole, and sometimes swimming hole.

"Sitting on a log" in Cherokee sounds like George Washington. Tsail, a Cherokee man who rebelled against removal to Indian Territory hid with his family in the hills in the old lands. When the negotiator found him and told him if he and his male relatives would give themselves up, other holdouts would be allowed to stay in the homelands. He asked that his name not be remembered, but that moment should be when "sitting on the log" changed lives and saved Cherokee heritage. You might never have heard of Tsail, but if you have Cherokee relatives, you may like me have George Washington grandfathers, great grandfathers and uncles.

This Tar Creek neighbor was the one who noticed the fish that morning. He was shocked, all those little fish were dead along the banks, floating in black water. Just days earlier he and his wife had noticed the fish eggs along the vegetation growing in the water.

J-M Farms will restore the creek to how it was before the discharge was discovered. I wonder what that means. Will they be scrubbing those black rocks? Will they manicure those water plants and remove what discolored them? Will they be repopulating the creek with thousands of little fish?

I like fish and was amazed to see so many mostly 2 inch, some smaller, a few 4 and 5 inches long lying along their piece of paradise, but also at every access point downstream. Some were draped over small rocks, as if taking a nap. Some were in bunches along the bank with raccoon footprints in the mud indicating easy picking for our fish loving mammals. One fisherman told me he had been catching the little guys for bait for his limb lines.

Another resident had told me just a couple of weeks ago about the kids of summer taking their fishing poles to Tar Creek just 1/2 mile from the log secured in paradise.

Like I said earlier, all the agencies that care about water quality and the environment came to investigate this fish-kill. They walked the water back to the source when another agency was called in to find the cause. The responsibility for enforcement changed from water protectors to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture. They ought to care about good water, too, but more often they are the farmer's best friend, making sure the farmer gets treated with respect and sometimes with more respect than the land or the water that is needed to make land productive.

J-M Farms took responsibility for the discharge explaining in their press release that a broken coupling allowed a collection water transfer pipe to leak into a tributary. I found the tributary and days after the fish kill there was still black water flowing down it to Tar Creek.

I have asked DEQ to find the water samples they took and analyze for health hazards because it is summer and kids are going to the creek with fishing poles and swimming suits. There was silence on the phone when I said that. No one believed anyone was using the creek.  But thanks to our eyes on the prize citizens, we know that had been happening.

EPA has spent some big money getting ready to fix Tar Creek, they have been working up to it for over thirty years. The University of Oklahoma's Commerce passive water  treatment systems have reduced some metals in the creek already.  EPA's plan started at the headwaters of Tar Creek in Kansas and has now crossed into Oklahoma. They are working their way, clearing and removing chat from the creek and along the banks so NONE can enter it again, they are on the way with LOTS to do on the Oklahoma side in the four miles before the major mine water discharges enter on Road 40. The mine water will have to be addressed. The plan is to cleanup all the way to the train trestle at TWIN BRIDGES to improve our Grand Lake.

All that to say, J-M Farms needs to fix their issues, because we have a restoration project that has been in the making for almost the entire lifespan of Superfund and we want it completed, Tar Creek restored and usable. A lot of money will be spent to make this happen, the people deserve to use the creek that runs past park, college campus and neighborhoods.  And those little fishes need a place to thrive and that black water needs not be part of the story.

Grateful for the man on the log

 Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim

http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/oklahoma-agencies-investigating-spill-fish-kill-in-tar-creek/article_5f061166-6b31-5718-a6f5-4d4b4a8f70ba.html
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2018-06-26/farms-sewage-spill-causes-fish-kill-in-oklahoma-creek
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/this-is-a-tragedy-effluent-spill-from-farm-causes-fish/article_fe539be1-6f2f-5627-97a4-62d1ddca8fe2.html
http://www.miamiok.com/news/20180625/j-m-spill-into-tar-creek-results-in-large-fish-kill---cleanup-underway

People from around the world gathered around the table at LEAD Agency Tuesday. The Tulsa Global Alliance brought 13 people to learn more about alternative fuels, fossil fuels and mining. Every story has a beginning and the story they heard began with our state's history. Tribes from all over the United States were sent to Indian Territory and left while their homelands became new homes for the spreading America.

Ottawa County's tribes received slivers of land, other nations received larger swaths of land. All of our lands were deemed worthless and we were set here to be apart from the rest of the growing country. But times change and what was without worth changed, too.

There were no fences or walls around our territory, we were protected by treaties, written on paper, we found unenforced as what we had became of value to our American neighbors. This is a personal story for me, as all history can become personal.

The lands of the Cherokee Nation were partly wooded hills, but much of it was tall grass prairie, so tall the horse was not seen as a man rode through it. It was perfect for cattle and the Cherokee Nation allowed cattlemen with herds to cross their tribal lands for fees on their way to trains for market. Other non-Indians entered the Cherokee Nation boundaries to perform essential jobs. My dad's father came into the Cherokee Nation as a physician working for the tribe vaccinating tribal citizens north of the river. He met a Cherokee woman and married and was able to gain access to land for cattle on tribal lands. She was his ticket into the tribe and our rich grass lands. A number of years later she passed away, and my grandfather quickly found another Cherokee woman to marry and was able to continue to operate in the Cherokee Nation. She was my grandmother.

Women were desired that way, not to say there was not true love involved in her case or others. Other tribal women were tickets into wealth which lead me to tell the visitors about the Quapaw tribe's relations, the Osage. Some Osage women married non-Indians and were murdered for the wealth made from oil and gas found on their worthless land. Some of those murders were solved by the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and discussed in book circle a few days later.

These visitors drove through our Superfund site. They saw those orange colored water, our mine waste piles and learned about the Quapaw who was the richest woman in the world from the ores beneath her "worthless land." As we passed by the mine waste left on her land, those from Egypt, Tunisia, and the Palestinian Territories gasped as they saw what looked like their desert lands.

Our U.S. Government lost track of her wealth and much held in trust from countless other tribal people. Her family still waits for restitution, for things to be made right. But just like the land and our Tar Creek, we all wait for it all to be made right.

Lead and zinc left towns subject to cave-in. It left children lead poisoned and still being poisoned from that toxic waste. The continued hunt for oil and gas in this state through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the wastewater injection wells are causing earthquakes and damages to get the last dregs of fossil fuels before we all have to turn to those alternative energy sources. They had come to America to learn more about alternative fuels and our fossil fuels and mining. What we tried to show them was the other side of extraction, that industry and developers would not.

Extraction brought jobs and for some great wealth, but the remains of wasted land is left for those who follow. And ultimately will cost as much to clean up as was made. Damages done to the environment and to human health are the costs not yet calculated.

A day later 1Million Cups, Miami OK learned about our Door Mat effort. We have funding for 40 door mats for homes, but would like to make sure every home had one. Door mats? They were created to let you walk all over them. And by doing so, remove dirt or what comes with it. Door mats protect human health by being that border crossing from outside to inside. Tracked in dirt gets pulverized and particles get smaller and are more easily inhaled or ingested by us and our children.

That evening I walked around our block to invite all our neighbors to enjoy our first ever fundraiser at our June Garden Party. Walking up our ramp, reflecting on our global visitors'  concern about our dust and anticipating the rest of the Garden Parties every third Thursday through September, as our garden grows so will the parties and the food we offer. On that walk around the block, it was pleasing to see many neighbors already have mats! We hadn't thought to hope that people could buy their own! Or as I suggested at the 1Million Cups, we offer all new neighbors a door mat AND a pie like the ones made specially by Jordan Barlow. Who wouldn't love a pie? and who doesn't need a mat? Think Global, Act Local.

Respectfully Submitted ~  Rebecca Jim
 
 

In our lives there are times when we are exactly where we were meant to be. It happened to me last Friday night when Bobby Kennedy, Jr. told the Waterkeepers assembled at our annual conference about his time. He was 14 fifty years ago and was with his father, Robert F. Kennedy when he died as a result of an assassin's bullet after winning the California presidential primary.

I want to share with you in part what I heard him say. He reflected on a time when he was 11, after his uncle President John F. Kennedy had been killed, and his family went to Europe for a memorial at Normandy in France and traveled on to Poland, a communist country with a total news blackout of their visit. They brought toys to deliver to an orphanage and the government had removed all the children before they arrived. But word of mouth, as they were leaving 250,000 people had gathered to try to see his dad. The countrymen cried as they sang the banned Polish song and literally lifted and carried their car through the streets.

His uncle and his father aspired to protect our national security with a generous hand and the kind face of America. Bobby considered an objective way to measure Kennedy popularity abroad would be to count the number of people and thousands of schools, bridges, hospitals or stadiums in every capitol in the world named after them.

Bobby went on remembering the train ride across the states bringing his dad to Arlington Cemetery, passing two million people who came to stand by the tracks as the train passed, hippies in tye-dye, priests, black militants with their fists raised and poor people. He went on to reflect the change that happened 4 years later, when so many of the white voters cast theirs for George Wallace. He continued that it had occurred to him that every nation has a darker side and a lighter side. His father appealed to the lighter side and hoped people would find the hero inside of us and rise and transcend to the larger ideas of the broader community and propagate democracy.

As a founder and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance he explained that good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy and that we must behave responsibly for the future generations, save our earth's assets and cease our pollution based prosperity. He said our children are going to pay for our joy ride.

He grew up surrounded by extended family and often near water and nature and believes we need that link between wilderness and nature, reflecting most people live in cities and most cities were build near rivers. We need to protect our waterways and our rights to be spiritually renewed out on our rivers.

Let democracy flow again through nature, find spiritual renewal and open the wilderness so people have access. Eliminate the pollution and allow people to catch that fish and experience that excitement.

I'm going to take this little piece of creation, the little stretch of river and I'm going to make sure this is here for our children.

This, he said, is a moral choice. And I am choosing it.

And quite humbly was acknowledged for latching onto that little piece of creation, the little stretch of Tar Creek with one of the few awards the Waterkeeper Alliance presents, the Terry Backer Award. Earl Hatley, our Grand Riverkeeper and I both were recognized at the end of the conference and were really shocked by it. Many of the people in the room had much bigger programs, like the Mobile Baykeeper, and the hundreds of wide and long rivers around the country and actually around the world, including the Lake Victoria Waterkeeper, the largest lake in Africa.

There are a few things I have learned about Bobby Kennedy, Jr. He will speak out and the listeners will be moved by what he says and how he states it. He is blunt about polluters, "fat cats taking a free ride." But speaking is hard for him as he has a rare voice condition called spasmodic dysphonia. If you ever listened to NPR you might have heard Diane Rhem's program, who also has this affect her speech. Bobby mixes spiritual messages in with basic history as he illustrated when making us aware that in 1600 England it was a capital crime to burn coal. But that it has always been illegal to pollute, it is simply immoral.   

As the Waterkeepers retreated to their watershed, I went on to Dallas to the heart of the EPA Region 6 Environmental Justice Forum and was empowered by the people who spoke there about how lonely places in New Mexico can come together to get clean drinkable water for their desert communities and how a community took on an air polluter, proved the air was tainted and got the industry to provide the real time air monitoring. They learned that odor was not just a bad smell, it had a first and last name and a standard that could be measured because people had known a long time that the odor was more than a nuisance. Perhaps we need an air-keeper that might latch onto this little piece of creation and choose it.

Respecting the High Ground ~ Rebecca Jim

The evening began with a welcome from a member of the Tuscarora Indian Nation. He spoke the traditional names of the waters we were surrounded by and he described the miracle of us gathering as we were together and much like the message Richard Zane Smith gave at a Tar Creek Conference years ago to draw our minds together as one.

Right near the edge of the country with the great lakes and the awesome power of Niagara Falls, where the “thunders live,” I got to hear Jill Jedlicka the Buffalo Niagra Waterkeeper speak. She was asked to tell a story that might make us cry, and her story came close to doing it for me. She spoke of Stan Spisiak, a man I had never heard of, but now will never forget, her uncle.

Stan was born in 1916, fifteenth child of sixteen, son of Polish immigrants. He grew up near a small tributary about 10 miles from the mouth of the Buffalo River. As a fisherman he knew that river and saw it change as it was loaded from unregulated sewer systems and industrial waste and deemed dead by the 1960’s.

The speaker remembered hearing stories of the times Stan would come home beat up because he was speaking out for the environment, for the rivers he loved to fish. But in an industrial city, the home of the once powerful Bethlehem Steel Corporation and the thousands it employed, speaking out could be hazardous to your health, as he often found out.

He spoke out about his whole watershed, the Buffalo, Niagara and Lake Erie for decades and made it better, receiving the “Water Conservationist of the Year” award from the National Wildlife Foundation in 1966. It was there that he met Claudia Alta Taylor, known to America as Lady Bird Johnson, a lifelong advocate of beautifying our country’s cities and highways, who was known by her motto, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.” Stan invited her to tour his watershed and when she came, she brought her husband, Lyndon Johnson, then President of the United States, New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller and others.

During that visit Stan showed the president a bucket of sludge from the Buffalo River and LBJ told him simply, “Don't worry. I'll take care of it.” And he did when two weeks later President Johnson signed an Executive Order banning open-water placement of polluted dredged sediment in Lake Erie, a restriction still enforced today. The Army Corps of Engineers then built Confined Disposal Facilities throughout the Great Lakes to hold polluted sediment dredged from the waters.

One man made a difference by speaking out to a person who had the power to change policies. We have to remember the power each of us hold, to speak out about our watershed and keep saying we want it better. You too could be instrumental in changing our national environmental policy.

Forty-six years ago the Clean Water Act was enacted with goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water and eliminating additional water pollution. The Clean Water Act, Section 404, gives the Army Corps of Engineers the jurisdiction over discharge of dredged or fill material in the waters of the United States. The Clean Water Act might be used more efficiently if we nudged persons in power to use those powers.

I came to the annual Waterkeeper Alliance Conference in Buffalo, New York and will share information on the federal policy that has controlled the actions on cleanup at the Tar Creek Superfund Site and other superfund sites around the country. I came to find the place that birthed the need for it, Love Canal.

William T. Love came to the Niagara Falls area in the 1890’s with the vision of a huge city powered by hydropower created by the water from a canal he began construction of that would send water through his city. Part of the canal was built, but not the city since locals refused to allow him to divert the water from the rivers. The city of Niagara Falls bought that property in 1920, used it to store chemical waste, sold it to Hooker chemical company which used it until it was full in 1953. It was capped with clay and covered, sold back to the city for $1 and a school and neighborhood of 100 homes built upon it.

Chemicals surfaced, children got sick. And a mother named Lois Gibbs organized neighbors and got national attention which resulted with the creation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, known as the ‘Superfund’ law. It would collect taxes from gas and chemical corporations to be used directly to clean up any sites similar to the Love Canal.

This worked until Congress failed to re-authorize the “polluter pays fees” in 1995. The Superfund now requires much of our taxes to do her work.

So here at the Waterkeeper Alliance Conference this is a message I will leave. Put the FUND back in Superfund, and tell Congress to make Superfund Great Again.

This place birthed environmental activists who inspired policies we still use today. Being in the presence of over 300 fellow Waterkeepers attending together, with our minds drawn together as one is indescribable.

Respectfully Shuffling  ~ Rebecca Jim
 
"Shuffle Off to Buffalo" is a song written by Al Dubin and Harry Warren