Broken Record

The cats look up at the bird feeder, they watch for action as they walk by on their daily route of their territory. I notice the frost on the little roofs of the 3 feeders and the birds all puffed up as they wait in line for their turn.

There are many distractions as we travel our own routes through life and I have been distracted. But a visitor put it all back into focus for me a few days ago. For 49 years I have been crossing the Neosho River to come into Miami to work and for 47 years our Tar Creek has been asking all of us to say we want her better. A time or two we have rallied and spoke up. But then our own distractions return and we go silent.

A few days ago, I got a call wanting to know if more of the residents who flood would have their yards tested for lead, it might be a red flag to GRDA that their actions on lake level can cause our Tar Creek’s tainted water to sit longer and spread farther and poison gardens and backyard play areas. It is a brilliant idea to have your yards tested for FREE by DEQ just by calling their HOTLINE # 800-522-0206 and requesting it. If it is high in lead, which can be possible, your yard soil can be dug up and removed for FREE and replaced with clean soil for FREE and sodded with grass and monitored long enough to know it will grow.

When your whole county is now officially a superfund site, it would be important for you to have your yard checked to make sure it is safe for children and for the garden you want to get back to, that you were distracted from! Now there is another reason to do it. Be a red flag to GRDA, a reminder to LOWER LAKE LEVELS NOT RAISE THEM.

2 on the feeder right now, one on one side and one on the other. They don’t know the other is there. Same thing about calling that HOTLINE number, your neighbors won’t know you did it and neither will GRDA.

Back to Tar Creek and her woes. I went up to the Stateline road to see how she looked. It is usually a really sad sight. Neither Kansas or Oklahoma values Tar Creek enough to even put a bridge over her. On that road, you and every other vehicle drives THROUGH her to pass. But this time something was different.

There along the Kansas side of the water was a narrow mass of vegetation and bits of branches that stretched from one side of the creek to the other. I picked up one of the pieces of wood to inspect it and laughed out loud. The beavers are attempting to dam Tar Creek. Poor things. They don’t know that the mining companies “damned” her decades ago to be ruined and EPA declared she was “man-made ill reversable“ But our Tar Creek can run clean again. Other damaged streams, creeks and rivers throughout the US have been repaired. This happens when people care and DEMAND it.

All the down streamers can say something. We all want to have a creek that our kids can play in, that our dogs can stop and get a drink. We want a creek that won’t spill over and poison gardens or taint walking trails with contaminated sediment we walk back and deposit in our homes when we take off our shoes on the living room carpet.

So, start by calling DEQ to get your yard soil checked, then say something to your neighbors like, won’t it be great when we have a creek running through Miami and running right by Commerce that we can BRAG about? Tar Creek, once the most polluted creek in the nation now our playground! Our County Commissioners, our mayors, all of our elected leaders will be saying “Get ‘er Done.”

I am that Broken Record; I am the Tar Creekkeeper and let’s amplify the message.

We want a clean Tar Creek that won’t poison our land, our fish, and our hopes for the future. Let’s stand with the Quapaw Nation whose only reservation lands have been so harmed by what the mining companies left behind, now a superfund site named for the creek that runs right through the middle of it. All of us downstream depend on the cleanup. Some of the lands of the Miami and the Peoria, then the Ottawa and the Cherokee need this done right. But every one has this inherent right to clean water. Be a Broken Record, too.

this is NOT RIGHT.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim