Through the years there have been casual comments generating some tinge of laughter when Tar Creek comes up, with the quip about the Tar Creek Monster. Art students have depicted the monster in various ways. One of my all time favorites, was Meredith MacQueeney's done simply with pen and ink. But I saw him for real the other day myself. He can be found not far after leaving the Neosho River upon entering the mouth of Tar Creek. He doesn't greet you as you enter, he is more the sentry for those who leave.

As the Tar Creekkeeper, and using my vessel, the kayak bearing its name, I went down the ramp at Riverview Park to find the confluence of the creek from the Neosho River. Butch Flick, who had recently returned from being a fishing guide in Alaska agreed to accompany. The ramp was muddy but the launch easy, witnessed by the folks visiting in separate vehicles. The Neosho is a brown river but easy mover. It is a lot farther to the train trestle than it looks, but just before the bridge over the highway, turn left and there you are in the slow to sluggish for sure "Tire Creek," the tire always visible along this stream, Tar Creek. There is little evidence it is ever found. It is wide and slow. The big trees bare the orange stains of the past floods.

The Blue Heron complained along our route for the intrusion. And a big fish or his brothers leaped for joy to have us there. Quiet and slow. Both sides of the creek's wild spaces were slowly joined by tree stands back from the water indicating some people join the site during certain seasons. What we found was the makings of a treasure, a wildlife refuge, practically untouched. We came upon 2 fellows standing on the bank, one owned 30 acres with 300 pecan trees he had just listed for sale. Land is a hard thing to give up, didn't Will Rogers say, "they ain't making any more of it?"

But this land this creek will get a brand new start, once EPA is funded enough to get to it. It is complicated, first fix it in Kansas, then follow it, keep chat from the big piles from getting into it, dreg what bad is in it and then figure out how to deal with the mine water discharge, keep dredging it all the way to the other train trestle, the one past Twin Bridges. With funding this could already be over and Luke could get that land sold, or be glad, very glad he kept it as its value increases with the clean stream he would have on both sides of him.

We have to think about this stream and figure out how we keep it clean, and then we have to consider all those sister streams and those unnamed streams that feed into streams that must be protected. That means we have to think hard about choices we make now that may impact our neighbors. Each of us with portions of land must think hard about holding on to it or making restrictions on our deeds that will end up protecting our heirs and their neighbors. What we do to the land we do to the water. And we all need water and all the future generations must have it too.

When we consider the future, we must think big. It is heavy the responsibility we have. Do we protect the land owners right to pollute your air, your water, your land? How right is that?

The Tar Creek Monster is really there, it is the choices made many years ago to fail to spend the money to keep pumping out that aquifer so water would not hang out long enough to become toxic and taint us for the rest of our lives. The monster is the choice humans make that create the monsters that will haunt us, poison our children and make our lives intolerable.

My homework is to study the Oklahoma Agriculture Statutes. This section looks out for Agriculture, not our land, our water or our people. Ag is for Ag. Those pages indicate a lot of laws have been repealed, sections of our anti-corporate farming laws, because our early Oklahoma lawmakers already knew about corporate farming and put protections for us and those laws have been degraded since 1992 when Big-Ag started seeing our plains as gains for their companies.

Kent Ryals, an attorney in Vinita said that can be changed. I agreed and legislators need help in making the laws protective of what is important, our future. What we also need are people who want the laws changed, not to infringe on farmers, which there aren't that many of anymore. But to help farmers make good choices and the state's future. We need no more monsters, no more degradation.   

My other homework can be shared. Pick up a pen and write your letters now. Have an opinion. With the election coming up soon, write to those running for governor, since the winner will be appointing people who will serve in positions of power in every department of our state government. Elections have consequences and we must give the right to protect us seriously when we vote.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim

I grew up with parents who enjoyed time together. But every so often they would Rooster Fight. Each would pull a bent arm up close to their body and then flap it a time or two before the "fight" began. It never seemed like a real fight because they both began to laugh and it was over practically before it began. It was my kind of chicken fight.

But what we have happening right now is a Chicken Fight on a much larger scale and no one is laughing. It is just now reaching Ottawa and Craig County, but our sister counties are covered with trouble already.

It is time to join the Oklahoma Chicken Fight for Water and our Future. You can begin right away. No one has to know you have joined. You can start in your very own house, or on your break at work. Make a decision to do something. That phrase, see something, say something, that was made for us. Go in your kitchen, turn on the tap, see the water? Want to keep seeing water you can drink? Then, yes, say something about it.

Who will you tell? You can start with your household members and they can pass it on. We can inform the people we know that water and a healthy future is at stake.

Then what? Tell every local elected official you are concerned and you want them to speak up. Every local tribal elected leader. They all respect our Mother Earth and know Water is Life. Call the next layer of elected officials, the Governor and everyone running for Governor. Call the Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry James Reese and each of his board members. Good start. Then call every other agency that has something to do with water in the State of Oklahoma, and by all means call the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.

Many of us learned to write letters while we were in 5th grade and because of email and texting, we probably haven't written one since, but this would be a great time to start. Write all of those folks you called, as a follow up. Just like in texting, use ALL CAPS SO THEY KNOW YOU ARE SERIOUS. And you really could TEXT most of them too, without a stamp.

The dirt is being moved on new chicken houses south of Miami and north of Vinita. Each of these BIG ones are 3 football fields long. Some of us can't even walk that far without getting winded. But once they come in getting winded could happen quick for folks you know who already have asthma and COPD. We could care about them and the air we breathe. We could protect the air quality and speak up for it to all those folks you contacted about the water quality.

Ottawa County has paid her dues, providing the lead for both World Wars and having the land left like it was the war zone. She dutifully provided jobs for breadwinners with BF Goodrich which now sits abandoned like a second warzone with fears of asbestos and Benzene beneath the ground nearby. Ottawa Countians have had generations of our youth lead poisoned and their potential and our communities' hopes for their futures dampened. All that heavy metal dust has fairy dusted all of us ensuring many lives have been lost years before their expected expiration dates. Tar Creek got hit in 1979 and has been the blight we want to forget as she runs silently past us and dumps her load of metals into the Neosho out of sight, just past the boat ramp in Riverview Park.

We are a Superfund Site with her name. We are a damaged place. Every resident in the county can have the soil they live upon tested for lead because it could have been spread and been long forgotten. But lead does not sleep, it will not cease having the power to harm children, no matter how long it lays there. It must be removed.

Craig County for the most part has protected herself all these years. We are not a superfund site, we did not grow with the influx of workers to a polluting plant like BF Goodrich. We have good people who breathe good air. Your neighbors need your support now. Your neighboring counties need your support now.

Vinita and the Rural Water District #2 drink Grand Lake. For an 18 month period ending last year we were all drinking water with HAAs which can cause cancer and other illnesses especially for our most vulnerable. That was because the lake water needed more chlorine added to kill what was in the lake water before you drank it. The chlorine changed our water. More chicken houses produce more litter and that litter can lie in the Grand Lake watershed and add to its burden which will cause it to be treated and that treatment can harm us. More chicken houses = more waste that will be distributed on the land, harming our Grand Lake or her sister lakes downstream.

We pay with our health, we pay for treatment and we pay for corporate farming. This is an industrial disaster come upon this land and her people that can harm our environment and suck water right out from under us. Chickens love water, just like you do. And when you have 300,000 chickens per house and 6 going in right away, you might want to add in your message that you want our Roubidoux to remain drinkable, the tap water you drink is at risk. Why?

It goes back to mining days, when they mined the Boone aquifer, and when they quit, water filled those abandoned caverns where it brewed into a Toxic Tea, not like J-M Farms Toxic Tea compost nutrient rich water that got loose and ran into Tar Creek this summer and killed fish. No this Toxic Tea is loaded with heavy metals, and when the caverns got full it has flowed down Tar Creek ever since.  The Roubidoux lies beneath the Boone and if lots of water is pulled from the Roubidoux, the Boone will try to fill it, and if it does, it can contaminate that tap water you like. You might not drink the Roubidoux but your Bluejacket and Ottawa County neighbors do.

Lots of chickens can drink lots of water millions of gallons per house quickly. So be quick with your letters, calls, texts. Very quick. It's your chicken fight now. My parents would be all over this one.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim

Our 20th National Environmental Conference began with environmental justice and ended with water. Trevor Hammons, the Supervising Attorney for Environmental Complaints with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality had presented at our annual conference and explained that there was water protecting us from being exposed to another dangerous substance, asbestos.  We were told water covers all of the asbestos that is left at BF Goodrich. One of our volunteers without our knowledge took a walk around that site -and came back with a flat light-weight fiber-covered item stuffed into a baggie.

DEQ was called immediately asking for the man in charge of asbestos sites in Oklahoma familiar with BFG, but he had retired and the new guy didn't know about the site, would look it up and get back with us. Our volunteer has left the state, but the site is here and a tempting place to take a walk about.

From our knowledge the only way left to be exposed to asbestos was to fall into the uncovered flooded basements, swim down a couple of levels grab some stuck to something, pry it off and bring it out of the water and dry it out. We remain concerned about the potential to cause harm left as it is.  The current owner left the state,  pays the taxes on the property to avoid the $10,000 a day fines that should be accumulating with DEQ.

There ought to be a way to be able to protect the public, clean up the site, deal with the benzene plume and rename the street after the other long standing building: Will Rogers, named after the man who never met the man who left that mess or the company that abandoned the town.

Waterkeeper Alliance asked all of their members to do a Clean Up in their watersheds in September. We listed it as an option for the Conference last week,  A Walk to Tar Creek and Clean Up, but no one signed up for it. We were going to walk to the creek that runs through the NEO campus right to the spot Jason Miller loves and not clean up the creek. Because number 1, we don't have the multiple millions it would take Number 2, we are regular  people and this is not a regular cleanup, this is a superfund site contaminated with heavy metals that are hazardous to people and obviously the environment. This will take a federal agency with big bucks to fund this, an agency and a program within it made special to handle this.

Even if we wanted to do a "regular cleanup" along the creek banks, pulling out debris and trash, should we? Every item would be covered with the superfund site metals and get all over us as we lift it and turn it to bag it. And where should the bag go? It would basically be toxic waste. Put it in the "regular" trash pickup?

How do we clean this place up? with power washers to the debris covered rocks? What about the fish eggs, the start of new life by the ones already taking up residences in our creek? Do we humans destroy other life to make our space look like we think "good" is?

We didn't have to explain this by the creek last week because no one signed up for the walk and cleanup. But imagine this creek gets her REAL CLEANUP and the metals are dealt with by the EPA through the Superfund Program created to be funded by fees placed on companies that manufacture substances that can pollute. So while we are imagining, we would include Congress re-authorizing that provision in the law so it is funded enough to do this cleanup with those fees and not be done with taxpayer funding from US.

THEN, we use the fire circle, Jason Miller brings his guitar, we have the cleanup and spend some time along the Tar Creek old timers remember singing the old songs and the news ones like the Tar Creek Anthem written by Jim Stricklan.

 This week brought some time to rediscover our Community Garden and a young woman in it getting  a couple of our home grown tomatoes who exclaimed they were the best birthday gift she had ever had.

She was a happy young woman vibrant active and as we pulled tomatoes and talked in the last light of the day, she told me I had been the woman who knocked on her door last year and found her beat up. But she got out of that relationship got a new life, a job and was totally unrecognizable now with her brand new life and tomatoes.

We can take the time to knock on a door, we can ask the big question, are you alright? Thousands of woman received help through the Community Crisis Center led by DeeDee Cox. Think of all the brand new lives she has been able to start.

I am hoping she in her retirement and they all get a garden going to share what they grow with the folks who wander by, and doing so ask those questions, are you alright? are you safe? Do you need help?

Our conference is available on the LEAD Agency Facebook page. Catch up and watch Channel 8 for the expansion of chicken houses in northeast Oklahoma series. Craig and Ottawa need to be concerned.
We care about water and all our efforts are needed to protect it. We require it for life.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
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