I saw Nancy Gee early Monday morning standing in line for jury duty along with surely another 100 people waiting to get into the courthouse. They allowed me to get into the County Commissioner's Monday morning meeting to make sure they had the information on the Tar Creek Strategic Plan and know that the deadline for comments had been extended to May 10.

When Kindergarten classes were held in what was called Lincoln Elementary School a couple of decades ago, I remember seeing Nancy Gee taking her students out to meet their community. They kept together, minded and always returned knowing more about the town where they lived.  This week that sort of happened again. It was a joy to see a whole covey of students emerge out of what is now Miami's Academy and begin their walk into the community. I saw it all. For me it takes 380 steps to go from their front door to the front door of the LEAD Agency which was my lookout.

LEAD had invited the students and their teachers to come over to begin a partnership for the future. We are not sure what it will look like, but it starts with that first step (and finishes 380 steps later!). What a great beginning with the teamwork effort they demonstrated when constructing a new raised bed donated from the Miami Public Library Community Gardening project to our organization.

The Academy students had already performed some incredible work this year on what we are calling their BF Goodrich Project. When we informed them about the asbestos that was discovered this year at the abandoned tire plant, they used their personal skills to develop ways to educate themselves about the dangers present there, the known benzene, but the newly discovered risk of exposure to asbestos left on site.

The state of Oklahoma might try to stop towns and cities from banning this or that, but the students at the Academy will take it on, they will educate themselves and figure out ways to educate the public.

Everyone at the Academy wrote letters that we made available to the City, the DEQ and the EPA, not asking for much, just for the cleanup to make this town safer to live in. They took a stand and they can do more. If you have a club or organization and want to learn more bet you could book the students, or we will share their presentation and short movie with you. If you teach and need a good way to interest your students these last weeks of school, think about this lesson.

Asbestos was widely used at the BF Goodrich plant during the 40 years it operated and lots of it was left behind. Asbestos can take almost that long to ruin a person's lungs and cause Mesothelioma, "a rare, aggressive form of cancer that develops in the linings of the lungs, abdomen, heart or testes. The only known cause of malignant mesothelioma is asbestos."

We don't need any more people exposed and these young people have been our best hope out in their circles of friends, letting them know for months, the risk that lay just inside the fence surrounding the BF Goodrich plant, and warning them to STAY OUT.  The chain-link fence is a barrier that can keep some folks out of the site, but the fence continues to be breached and anyone entering can bring out these deadly fibers on their clothes and share them with family and friends. Spread the word there are now cameras watching!

There will be actions occurring on the site very soon, but if EPA, the City and the DEQ thought there were really people concerned, there could be quicker actions. It is worth the effort to ask for more, even to have our status as a Superfund site reassessed since it sits there on the list with many more like ours that "do not qualify based on existing information" all over the nation. There are already BF Goodrich Superfund sites and our mess is not new to their corporate ways. Remember, companies believe it is cheaper to pollute than the fines would be.

The State of Oklahoma has some new laws that will go into effect this year. People in towns don't have to worry about organizing and attempting to curtail pollution, our state just took your rights away.

But Nancy Gee and others who have followed her have led our children out into the world, wide-eyed to see how their community works, and more will wake up soon and really get what she was showing, that they would be those leaders stepping into those roles and taking on the future we will live through, and wouldn't she be proud to know there are still young people walking out of that old Lincoln school, stepping out and standing in the street with the message, this is our world now and we want it better!

It was like the Wizard of Oz  how Nancy Gee came into this story and how this came together. God bless her!

Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim

Last Saturday I rode with internationally known geologists James and Susan Aber, retired Emporia State University professors on a field trip. A group of students followed with their instructor Marcia Schulmeister to the Flint Hills to discover the beauty, but also to learn about the Cottonwood Limestone formation.

There it lay exposed because of what is known as "Kansas Burning" the annual burning of the tall grass prairie. And exposed it lay. As if the rocks were the back bones, perhaps the ribs of the earth, starkly white against the green of the new emerging grasses. To determine these were the Cottonwood limestone in yet another way, one could strike it with some vigor with your hammer, and it has a tone that almost rings! (In my mind, I wondered if a series of the stones could be struck to create a tune of some sort out there on the prairie?)

We paid attention and found evidence of the Neva, the geological formation beneath the Cottonwood, which for some reason was James Aber's favorite, unusual because of its different "look" caused by its relationship with exposure to groundwater. The Permian era strata laid together throughout time and though exposed on the ridges of the Flint Hills, their presence and durability have kept the hills from change the ages might have brought.

The Abers are really a pair, and James looks at the BIG PICTURE, but Susie was reminding us all day to look down and notice the rock samples we might find. I found a doosie! It looked like an arrowhead on one side and a vertebrate on the other, with each side a perfect worry stone to develop. When I was a teenager, I gave my dad his first "worry stone" and he wore it plum through worrying about me.

To get to Emporia, means driving 3 hours through Kansas and seeing the burnt or burning fields, the greening grasses and evidence of oil and gas production. I asked the Abers about fracking and they promptly stated, it isn't the fracking, which by the way was introduced in Kansas, it is the injection wells that cause earthquakes. James explained in 1912 people were looking for domes and anticlines in the quest for oil in the Mississippian and hit granite and gave up. But it looked like they had found it now.

Lots of the middle of the United States were shallow seas and all the marine life through the ages are what later became the Cottonwood formation we studied all that day with the students.

That shallow sea made me think of Great Lakes and that brought me to thinking about how Toledo, Ohio as a city made a decision that may change the way we think about our current water bodies. That city passed a law giving Lake Erie Personhood status. This allows Toledo citizens to act as legal guardians for Lake Erie, and make polluters pay for cleanup costs.

Imagine this for a minute. I am. First thing I will do is bring a resolution to the LEAD Agency Board of Directors at our next meeting, always the last Thursday of the month, which is open to the public, and ask if they would vote on declaring personhood status to Tar Creek. She has had a really hard time, and although she has a Tar Creekkeeper, wouldn't she fair better if she got more respect and our organization, even if the city of Miami, or the town of Commerce might not want to give her personhood status, LEAD Agency could.

Why not?

We will start with Tar Creek, then we will look at Grand River next. What goes down Tar Creek ends up in our dammed up Grand River doesn't it? AND don't the Spring River and the Neosho when they join form the Grand River? Well on this trip to Kansas, right in the middle of the valley we were following observing the Cottonwood Formation, was the Cottonwood River, which the Abers explained was actually the headwaters for the Neosho River.
After the students gave it up that day, we traveled on to a special place few people get to see, the Kaw Nation's, Memorial, the "People of the Wind" who by treaty left Kansas in 1873 for present day Oklahoma.

The colorful circular memorial reads,
“Wiblaha Wakanda. Bless all who walk here. May we know and respect all your creation and what you have taught our people.”
We looked on quietly with respect and felt the presence of the Kaw as the wind joined and chilled us.

It is wind that was my first introduction to the Abers when they came to NEO several years ago and taught Kite aerial photography (KAP), a form of remote sensing—collecting information about an object from a distance. We took pictures of NEO football stadium with using aerial photography that day. We have one of the fanciest kites ever and can use it to take photos when drones are not allowed.

The wind and the water and people who bring them together remind us to walk gently on this Earth, her bones are showing as we eek more out of her and pollute her streams and foul her air.

For us all Everyday must now be Earth Day.

Respectfully Submitted  ~ Rebecca Jim

This State of mine allows mine water to roll down Tar Creek 40 years without outrage into a drinking water reservoir understanding that at this rate another 30 years may pass before it runs clean. This state of mine will find a way to allow runoff from passive treatment systems in the Tar Creek Superfund site to be loaded with nutrients and celebrate it as a success, replacing metals with nutrients. This state of mine puts up with decades to complete the cleanup of the once largest superfund site and celebrates success because it will be deemed smaller.

This state of mine passes bills to give polluters rights so quickly and quietly no one knows it is happening.
This state of mine could pass rules to protect children from living in housing that is known to contain lead paint. It could pass legislation to protect children and teams of people could be taught how to renovate, repair and paint safely and be protective of the young. State-wide and individual towns might seek funding opportunities to address the issue of the OLD housing stock we have in Oklahoma. Homes which were built before 1950 almost always have been painted and that OLD paint was probably loaded with lead and poison children living in them.

This state of mine protects oil and gas by not allowing towns to ban plastics bags while 59 countries like France, Greece, Mexico AND India, the largest democracy in the world has. 6 US states including New York  have, too. But this state of mine stands tall with Alabama to not allow a ban of any sort for plastic bags. Goodness, we must stand with our state's real blood, oil.

Oklahoma won't be able to keep oil and gas alive all by ourselves. the world is waking up, and someday Oklahoma will too. The choice does not have to be a state's choice. Each individual can walk into any store in the state and BRING THIER OWN reusable sack or vessel to carry your goods home. You and I have choices each time we make purchases. Forget the styrene food containers, too. Bring your own take home containers, have them filled or use a bit of aluminum foil. This state won't say a peep against these personal efforts until they find out it is a movement and then they will attempt to ban personal choices somehow.

This state of mine is an example of what can go wrong very wrong. But as a land owner and Tar Creekkeeper I will not remain silent. But this state of mine could use new thinking not "stinking thinking" as Albert Ellis the Behavioral Therapist would call it. The great land run taking place now will place more fertile ground under roofs of chicken barns and more fracked land ruined and the water underground tainted with chemicals we can't even pronounce, should we be privy to be given their names.

The great land run will take all our water this time, too and the old lead paint and Tar Creek's chat will leave ever more children too dumb to know better.

This all sounds so dire and negative because sometimes we have to face where we live and the choices being made here are looking dire.

But the look on the faces of the children living in the home in Commerce, OK where a couple of gentle old souls spent some time sealing the lead paint on their front porch, made all the difference. Why bother and fret over what the state does or doesn't do, when we as individuals can lift our own selves up and make someone else's life better.

That is what Jennifer Lunsford did every time she got up in the morning, she brightened the lives she encountered, ones she went to school with, worked with and spent her life loving. She came into my life when I first went to work in Miami at Will Rogers and Indian Education agreed to let us start an Indian Club and start assisting our students in designing and making their tribal dance clothing. Barbara, her mother was set on making sure Jennifer could dance in her Apache dress and made it. I remember the color and weight of the skins that were used.

I do have to admit, some years back I prepared photo albums, so looking through them, there she was as a 7th grader doing the Lord's Prayer in sign language. So many people have seen her perform. She was such a young child. And really that was how I felt again, seeing her in her Apache dress in her coffin, she was so young, a gift and bright light now gone.

        So be good to your kids, go gently upon this earth, think about your garden because:
                       "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."- Audrey Hepburn

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim

UN Messenger of Peace, Jane Goodall turned 85 this week. Some other things happened this week that made listening to her message extremely relevant. She said, "What is important is hope. If we don't have hope we give up. We do nothing. and in this world we must have hope for a better future."

She went on to say what I have been feeling lately and that is, "It is you young people who give me the most hope. When you understand the problems and are empowered to take action what you are doing around the world is unbelievable." Two of the most remarkable young people allowed me to join them at the Fairland Schools' Denim and Diamonds fundraiser. When the two were Cherokee Volunteers at Miami High School after their study of our environmental and political issues faced at Tar Creek they stood up, took on all the members of then Governor Keating's Task Force on Tar Creek in an exemplary demonstration of empowered youth. Moments such as this are embedded in my memory especially after reading Jane Goodall's reminder of the hope she has for the future because of the indomitable human spirit she has seen with people overcoming seemingly insurmountable problems around the world.

I was on a panel this week at the University of Central Oklahoma with degreed and credentialed people to discuss Environmental Justice and Inclusive Sustainability at the student organized  Summit, and after listening to the higher level approaches to the questions posed, I simply said environmental justice happens in places to people who are exposed to environmental toxins where they live and gave the invitation to come and see ours and meet us.

This week the EPA took the Tar Creek Superfund Site off the Administrator's Emphasis List of Superfund sites. Not yet a month ago the Strategic Plan was issued which we have until April 12 to submit comments. Remembering Jane's message, on hope, my hope is our comments will be considered.

We are grateful for the commitment of $16 million a year, but at this rate, their own plan states it will take decades to complete the cleanup. That does not seem accelerated to me. Chat piles will be trucked this way and that way, sold or stacked on site and while we will have thousands of residential yards not yet even sampled. The sampling is voluntary, and the EPA funding is keeping up with demand, because few people are calling the DEQ number 800-522-0206. I am eternally optimistic, but hope is hard to hold on to when a county full of thoughtful people do not seem to want to ensure the future generations won't have to deal with lead in their yards. Because so few children are having their blood lead checked, our percentage of children lead poisoned is really low, but we have no way of knowing if there are more who have yet to be found. I do have hope but what did Ronald Reagan say, trust but verify? Shouldn't we verify our kids are not silently being lead poisoned? If they are, the source can be removed and the child's future can be protected since lead poisoning is a totally preventable disease.

Another EPA deadline next week is for your comments on the change to the Clean Water Act which would change the definition of Waters of the US. Streams, creeks and rivers fill when it rains and dry creek beds, ditches and wetlands fill and flow into them. Sometimes these can transport pollution and cause harm. This happened here last summer with the J-M Farms spill that ended up in Tar Creek killing thousands of fish. Because of the Clean Water Act as it is now, J-M cleaned it up and paid their fines. We have until April 15 to let EPA know we want our water to continue to be protected, whether it is our Tar Creek or the Neosho or all the other water bodies you care about. We want the Clean Water Act to protect our water, not be changed to protect polluters.

Jane Goodall has the hope we need right now, "When you understand the problems and are empowered to take action what you are doing around the world is unbelievable," she said. I want to have hope you will make some comments about how you want the cleanup to happen in Ottawa County at the Tar Creek Superfund site, that you want it cleaned up before the decades pass your kids by. AND find out if your children are lead poisoned and where it is coming from so the lead can be removed. I have a great deal of hope just like Jane and know that, "we will only gain our human potential when head and heart work in harmony."

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
 
Comments can be made until April 12 by emailing R6_Tar-Creek_Site@epa.gov
To review the proposal, go to https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0601269 and click on Tar Creek Strategic Plan.
Read the proposed rule change to the Clean Water Act here: https://www.federalregister.gov/…
By April 15 Submit your comments,  identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2018-0149, at https://www.regulations.gov