The Montana trip last week found me three hours away from Coeur d' Alene and Kellogg, Idaho. Bunker Hill in the Silver Valley was so close and a flight change was do-able for a quick visit with the rental car. The Tar Creek Superfund site and the Bunker Hill Superfund site were both mining sites where children were lead poisoned, both sites had mining waste ending up in their treasured rivers and lakes. We have so much in common I have long called us superfund sister sites.

But the fires continued and the smoke blocked out the mountains and roads were closed, towns were being evacuated and so was the plan. After returning home the next book on the desk, Tainted Earth, was the obvious choice and the "Bunker Hill" chapter a must read before any visit to Idaho.

Our sisters and their children suffered lead poisoning way beyond the scope of Ottawa Counties' lead levels. The state of Idaho and the Bunker Hill Mining Company worked together for years to cover it up and enable the company owned by Gulf to continue making profits from the mining of silver, lead, cadmium and mercury.
The state and the mining company colluded to skew the data from research they funded. They first tested urine of children knowing that it was a poor measure for lead. They excluded children from the research with the highest lead levels and children whose parents had sued the company. The state of Idaho even refused to let CDC, the Center for Disease Control help.

Years ago after we incorporated LEAD Agency as a 501 c 3 organization, I met an angry woman at a meeting in Atlanta for CDC's other half, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ATSDR when I served on the Community and Tribal Subcommittee for the Board of Scientific Counselors. Her name was Barbara Miller and she had something to say but didn't get a turn before she had to leave, but left me a statement to read to the group the next day. After reading that chapter in Tainted Earth, I wish I had that statement to re-read now.

Susan Waldron was such an advocate for children at the Ottawa County Health Department, reading about her counterpart in the county health department in Idaho working against the health needs of their children was shocking. Years ago when we discovered the numbers of children lead poisoned in our county, I remember reaching out to the sister site in Idaho for copies of the outreach materials they were using there to HELP US HERE, not knowing that in 1980 that would have been the LAST place any useful materials would have been available.

No wonder Barbara Miller was so mad when I met her. She didn't have a Susan Waldron and her trusty Ramie Tirres, she didn't have an EPA Rafael Casanova to translate lead prevention materials and explain the need to have children's lead levels checked to our Hispanic parents. Those Silver Valley sisters and their children didn't have the tribal elders representing all the area tribes serving as Clanmother and Clanfather lay health advisors or the Cherokee Volunteer Society members sharing vital information to every mother and every child they could reach in the county. They didn't have the experts from the Harvard School of Public Health and a Children's Center doing topnotch research with mothers and their children like we did here at the Tar Creek Superfund site.

We have slacked up and the number of children in Ottawa County having their lead levels checked is low, but of the children being tested, some are having levels much higher than we were used to here, not as high as the Bunker Hill kids but high for us.  A lead poisoned child gives few symptoms, but the effects from lead can last a lifetime.
I am not mad like Barbara Miller, but I am pushy and getting children checked for lead should be on every parent's list of to-dos. Find it high, then you can figure out where that exposure is coming from and it can be removed and your child's lead level can be reduced.

Years ago, MANY of our children were lead poisoned and at the time 10 micrograms per deciliter was high and alerted the parents of the danger. But now we know that NO level of lead is safe! Zero in one of the largest superfund sites in the country can be achieved. It will be easier when every yard in the county is lead safe, when every chat pile is gone. They aren't yet, so check your children, and have your own property checked for lead, have all the neighbors on the block do it.

And continue doing all you can to reduce exposure. Forsake the "Five Second Rule" when there could be lead in the dust on the floor, just don't do it. Remember Hand washing is important. Wash everything your child puts in her mouth, every time it is thrown on the floor for you to pick up! Keep outside toys outside, inside toys inside. Wet dust. Eat good nutritious food.  Now that's my favorite rule.

Tainted Earth, Smelters, Public Health, and the Environment by Marianne Sullivan, 2014

I spent last week in the Smokey Mountains, not the old Cherokee homeland, but the mountains of Montana, smokey from the multiple forest fires occurring in Washington, Idaho and Montana. On arrival in Missoula, the sky was clear, the land looked mowed, though actually the short grass of the northern plains, the mountains slowly gathered pines as the elevation rose on my way to the Flathead Reservation for the Say It Straight Training - Preventing Destructive Behavior and Promoting Wellness.    I was joining David Golden for the training with the Salish and Kootenai Tribes. I did my original training with David's wife Paula Englander-Golden a quarter century ago, and it has been part of my life ever since. Reconnecting with the Goldens and Say It Straight has been good for me. I credit SIS for my ability to stand up and speak out. Say It Straight is powerful, but a power used with respect.

On Highway 93 North to Polson place signs are written in the Salish language. I learned from Wendy Askan the same sites going south are written in the Kootenai language. A tribute for these two tribes put unwillingly together during the Indian land taking era of the U.S. Government.

After the first day of training I spent the evening beside the Flathead Lake with the mountains so beautiful I could not quit looking until it was totally dark. The second morning and the rest of the week the mountains were gone, the lake was smaller, the smoke arrived and the sun was not seen again before leaving the state.

The last day there, we learned from Marcella Adolph, originally from the Colville Reservation that three firefighters had died in Washington and her family was evacuating. Their sacred mountain had been burned. She had tears for the loss, the firefighters, her family, the animals, and she began to talk about the confusion the animals must have looking for their young in that chaos, their routes to the rivers, the streams for safety, the smoke and fire.

I drove on the 56 mile highway that was built to the Flathead Reservation to be a visitor in the landscape that is respectful to the people, wildlife and "spirit of the place" who have survived there for a millennia and built in a way to protect people and wildlife.

Wildlife exclusion fencing with dig barriers funnel animals toward crossing structures like caves open on two sides to allow water to flow, providing water, shade, shelter for large and small animals. Safe crossings were also designed to allow animals caught along the road to escape oncoming vehicles.

I stopped the car and got out to see the sign in Salish with the other sign in Kootenai both for the bridge made only for animals to cross the highway safely, "the Animal's Trail." It wasn't paved, it was covered with native grasses, it was for the animals! I thought back to the animals trying to flee the fires in Washington on the Colville Reservation and all the other fires burning the west. If they had a bridge to safety they might make it, they might survive.

My eyes burned for four days miles away from the heat and flames. Health warnings were issued for children and the elderly to avoid the smoke to protect their health.

I went to Montana for Say It Straight, to train leaders in communities and schools who work with young people on the reservation to prevent destructive behavior and promote wellness. They learned to Say It Straight and will teach these skills and ripples will be felt throughout their communities on that  reservation and change can begin.
Now I have an environmental message: Humans have caused climate change and it may be too late to stop the cascading changes, but everyone of us can do something differently. We can all do something to lessen our footprint, or leave fewer fingerprints on the mess we are leaving on this our only home. To Say It Straight: We need to stop our destructive behaviors now.
After this experience in the mountains of the west it is obvious climate change is drying our forests, stressing our pine trees making them more vulnerable to the Pine Bark Beetle causing ever more die-offs producing more fodder for the next fires.

In the last issue of the Sierra Club magazine on the next to the last page is a photo of what looks like a tall pine tree in Yosemite National Park. It isn't a tree. It is a cell phone tower disguised as a pine tree. Is this our future? Will all of our National Forests have to be filled with imitation pine trees?

EPA had paid the contractors for years, but last October that responsibility was given to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality. The question of who answers for "past work" became pivotal with this change for resolution.

Pleased people don't tell many but people with complaints do.A word pair that was new to me, "past work" was a phrase I heard when reporting concerns local home owners had on the yard remediation conducted on their property or near it. The concerns were really complaints with suggestions for change, which is another way to say "fix it" and this is how.

EPA has been doing yard remediation in Ottawa County since 1995. They have sampled lots of yards and many of them have tested high enough in lead to have had to be dug up and replaced. There have been times contractors really messed up but there are more times where the property owners were satisfied even pleased with the results. EPA had paid the contractors for years, but last October that responsibility was given to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality. The question of who answers for "past work" became pivotal with this change for resolution.

Pleased people don't tell many but people with complaints do.

     A creek, a river, a water body all can be assets for a community to embrace. People have settled near water throughout history. Water is our life and with it we are sustained and often inspired. Miami is blessed by both a river and a creek. It is no wonder why the town would have been built on this spot.  A river town with a creek is twice blessed.
     Listen to the 6 o'clock news and you will hear Tulsa all over its self working on ways to enhance their asset, the Arkansas River into the growth plans for their city with the "river runs through it campaign" as the new place to "gather."
     The creek running through Commerce and Miami has been an asset, enough so one of the richest men in Oklahoma built his home on its banks with the money he made in mining. For the last 36 years legacy mining waters

     The Boys and Girls club ended their summer at the club this week, and some spent one of their last mornings with LEAD Agency at the garden they planted this spring. They learned to work and enjoy the hard work gardening can be. They learned to work in pairs and in small groups and ultimately to see the efforts a group is able to accomplish. Every week we toured the garden seeing the changes different plants made as they struggled for awhile during the deluge of rains we had early in the season and then when the rains returned and hit us again. The children learned that poor soil makes it hard for plants to root and thrive. They learned the importance of compost and the benefits it provides to the plants. They learned the art of weeding and the joy of getting the whole root out! And the particular delight in getting rid of the "Devil's Shoelace."