The Osage had a word for water and also what can happen to it. Neodesha.                                          From my queries: Ni for water. Odesha for where the waters meet, it is smoky with mud.
 
The Osage allowed a trading post on their Kansas lands that has kept its Osage name and is known as Neodesha, Kansas, where the Fall River meets up with the Verdigris River. They then purchased their own land in Indian Territory in what is now the state of Oklahoma.

In a 1943 W.J. Small of Neodesha and Dr. Lyle Goodhue, a researcher with the US Dept. of Agriculture who developed the first aerosol container formed a company. Airosol Inc. set out to manufacture aerosol containers of insecticide for the military during World War II with 12 employees. The name changed slightly with new ownership in 1949 to Airosol Company. Last week they had 75 employees in a 100,000 square foot facility in Neodesha, Kansas, selling all sorts of products in US and foreign countries.

Two days before Thanksgiving there was an explosion at the Airosol Company. Townspeople felt and heard it and began to see the smoke. One officer posted a map of the plume from the fire and some people were evacuated around the plant.

The blast and subsequent fire injured at least three employees, including a 57-year-old man who was treated for burns.

Areas of the plant continued to burn a day later but large chemical storage tanks were no longer in danger of igniting, according to Wilson County Emergency Management. However, some aerosol cans in storage continued to explode periodically. Officials decided to let the fire burn its self out.

Because of the huge amount of water used to keep the fire from reaching the storage tanks there has been some chemical residue runoff which seeped into nearby streams and Fall River contributing to the problem of low water pressure which caused the water plant to shut down. Untreated water was pumped into the city’s system as firefighters depleted the fresh water supply when more than 2 million gallons of water were used to contain the fire.
Runoff from the plant further complicated the issue by spiking the level of chemicals in nearby waterways used for drinking water. Kansas Department of Health and Environment officials advised residents not to use tap water for cooking, bathing or activities that might spray the water that it could be easily inhaled. Bottled water was offered for residents and 4 rural water districts.

In 1990, the most recent year on file, Airosol Co Inc released 1,000 pounds of pollutants.  500 lbs of methanol and 500 lbs of cyclohexane. Polluter data was obtained from the Toxic Release Inventory Program. I could find no more recent reports on releases on TRI or other EPA sites. When researching the company website after this incident, page after page of their products came up with the message: Oops! That page can’t be found.  But out there on a facebook post for a TV weather person was a short comment from a former employee of the company: "I worked there in 1973. It was a dangerous place."

It certainly was last Tuesday.

Airosol Company Inc. is a superfund site. It received a preliminary assessment in 2002, a site inspection was not completed and the last action taken by EPA was in 2010. It is not yet on the National Priorities List. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies sites such as Airosol Company Inc. because they pose or had once posed a potential risk to human health and/or the environment due to contamination by one or more hazardous wastes.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback issued an emergency disaster declaration to allow Kansas National Guard to assist the impacted areas. A countywide burn ban was instituted through Monday to deter any threat of outdoor fires, which would require existing water supplies to extinguish. 

A water emergency got my attention. Going without water certainly would be an emergency. After watching the news about towns and water districts with NO USE notices going out, who wouldn't think, " Too Bad, on Thanksgiving." But reading the individual city notices, showed another piece of it. Coffeyville, KS: all non-essential use of water is prohibited.  All restaurants and delis, car washes and Laundromats are to close.  Residents are to limit water to life sustaining use only – drinking, medical needs and food preparation. (The water was bad enough, you couldn't even wash your car but drinking was still ok?) Independence, KS City Commission asked all customers to cease all water consumption and usage except for life-sustaining activities defined as any event that is needed to prolong life, such as medical needs they gave the example as kidney dialysis. (?)

The DEQ believed ethylene glycol (antifreeze) could have leaked into the Verdigris River so parts of Oklahoma are now being affected by the Airosol Plant explosion in Kansas.

Residents of northeastern Oklahoma had their water service turned off because of possible contamination. Both Kansas and Oklahoma authorities are examining the water quality to see what chemicals from the plant and the chemicals used to put out the fire.

That "muddy" water could contain a laundry list of chemicals that were seen flowing from the plant into the Verdigris River.

All water is precious and that is all the more obvious when we have to do without it. That bad water is passing through and will end up in the Oologah Lake.

When checking the Kansas and Oklahoma maps to see the direction the river flows and where the affected towns lay, I couldn't help but notice the Verdigris River is the same distance as Grand Lake, my drinking water source is to my house. How quickly one incident, one accident can occur and how the impacts flow and affect all those downstream. Our water sits out there innocently waiting to give itself to us for life and yet we are lining up industries of all sorts to sit along her waterways dangerously able to ruin it for all of us.

Which takes us back to Standing Rock and our water protectors, and how important for each of us with every glass of water we drink to thank them for waking us all up. There at Neodesha, they also had oil. A successful oil well drilled in what would become America’s first significant oil well west of the Mississippi River and have been left with the remains of the Neodesha Refinery and its legacy waste and fears for their health and the safety of eating the fish from their rivers.

And now this.

Respectfully considering Muddy Waters  ~  Rebecca Jim

On a street you might have driven on this week was a tree with every leave splendidly red. Across the street was a woman in a chair set at the edge of her yard looking in awe of it, so much so, I drove on, knowing that tree was getting appreciation far beyond what just passing by would provide.
 
Trees have feelings, you know that if you ever climbed a tree and stayed anytime at all, especially in a tree that seemed injured or marked to be cut down.

A month ago I went to Georgia and saw what drought can do to a wetland, but the drought has also turned pine trees into torches and forced evacuations in dozens of communities in the southern Appalachian mountains.
 
Forests in seven southeastern states are burning and the drought conditions have contributed to more forest fuels being available.
 
Many of the forest fires burning in the southern states are located in the ancestral homelands of the Cherokees. Our trees are burning and it brings me a great sadness. Years ago I got to spend some time in the valley Cherokees discovered Hernando De Soto and listened to an old song about our first sightings of the horse. Former Vice Principal Chief of the Cherokees Hasting Shade taught me how to make a long bow by cutting a long slice of a tree taking 1/4 of it. It would not kill the tree he assured me, and there high in the trees in that forest were long healed over scars the length of a long bow at least 30 feet above my head.
 
These trees are at risk now in these fires and another piece of our Cherokee connection to the land that makes tears fall will be lost. The beauty of what we left behind and a way of life gone forever is now at risk of fire.
 
I discovered in The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben that to save the world’s forests we must first recognize that trees have innate adaptability, intelligence, and the capacity to communicate with — and heal — other trees. Trees are sophisticated organisms that live in families, support their sick neighbors, and have the capacity to make decisions and fight off predators. Trees can learn, and can remember a drought its whole life and act on that memory by being more cautious of its water usage. Trees are oxygen producers, timber producers and creators of shade.
 
Wohlleben believes humans are weakening ecosystems by indiscriminately cutting timber. We destroy tree social structures, and destroy their ability to react to climate change. We end up with individuals that are in a bad shape and susceptible to bark beetles.

With climate change there is more CO2 so trees are growing 30 percent faster than decades ago which makes trees less healthy and more susceptible to illnesses. The wood is also of lower quality, so the price we get for it is going down. The cells of these fast growing trees actually become bigger and more susceptible to fungi.
Remarkably this week Alaska Airlines landed the first commercial flight powered in part by a new renewable fuel made of wood waste. The demonstration flight used a 20 percent blend of jet fuel made from cellulose derived from limbs and branches that typically remain on the ground after the harvesting of sustainably managed private forests, known as harvest residuals.

Cellulose, the main component of wood, is the most abundant material in nature and has long been a subject of investigation for producing sustainable biofuels. The harvest residuals used to make fuel for this flight came from forests owned by Weyerhaeuser in Washington and Oregon, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe in Washington and the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes in Montana, a place I visited but couldn't see the mountains for the smoke from their neighboring forest fire.

I sat under the Supermoon with the Lorax family in Fairland and was reminded that they took that last name after the character of Dr. Seuss' book, The Lorax, who spoke for the trees. Nick and Kelda of course speak up for the good of mankind and the sustainable use of our earth and her resources. But definitely have gone on record as ones who speak for the trees.

Images of the pages from The Lorax come to mind, as I imagine the processes happening in the Weyerhaeuser forests as harvest residuals are collected to feed the need we have for fuel. That and the forest fires burning in the Cherokee homelands makes me want to speak for the trees, too.

Respectfully Speaking up for the Trees  ~  Rebecca Jim

 

What an experience to be asked to be part of Will Rogers Middle School Indian Heritage assembly organized by Terry Yazzi, a Native teacher and former Will Rogers Indian Club leader herself. For a quarter of a century Ron Seat and I sponsored the district's Indian Club and to have it continue was greatly satisfying.

The energy in the room was so different. Students were engaged and interested, but they were focusing, listening, reacting appropriately, and sitting still. Thirty eight years ago the body-language, the ability to sit still, their bodies in movement, feet shuffling, elbows moving, jostling the next person, caused reactions. The students were visibly wound up, physical signs of hyperactivity, some challenged by I.Q. losses which we know now could have been caused by lead poisoning. Those signs were gone in the current Will Rogers students.  The difference was absolutely striking.

I remember all those years ago attending assemblies in that gym, with the atmosphere alive with unsettledness. That same wound up uncontrolled energy was evident in every classroom. The successful teachers at that time were able to harness it and by doing so allowed everyone to learn. But teachers who lost control, or never got it were overwhelmed and students in that class suffered. One hyperactive lead poisoned kid can change the dynamics in a classroom and as was discovered in the Indian Clinic records in the early 90's one out of three Indian children were lead poisoned. Later blood sampling found lead at levels of concern in non-native children as well.

We know that lead levels in children declined due to prevention awareness and the actions by EPA to remove contaminated soil from yards and playgrounds throughout Ottawa County. That opportunity still is available for any residence, just by calling the DEQ Hotline number 1-800-522-0206. We have to be vigilant, no child should suffer because we failed to act in their behalf since lead poisoning is totally preventable.

Ms. Yazzi's heritage program with Steve Daugherty, BIA Police giving encouragement to the students, MHS student Talon Silverhorn played his flutes, David Lane, Richard Zane Smith and Talon sang while students demonstrating the Alligator dance.

Patti Shinn, a Seneca elder gave an important history of tribal encounters with the European immigrants who came to this country and how that quickly tribes suffered because of the quest for land and resources. She brought me back to my deep feeling of impending doom after the recent election. Much like my Cherokee ancestors must have felt when Andrew Jackson won his election and later overrode the Supreme Court decision and enforced the Removal Act that brought my tribe and so very many others to land in Indian Territory in such tragic ways.  Also how the tribes must have felt during allotment, and when Oklahoma became a state.
What I had hoped to share with the students that morning was what brings us all together native and non-native, our most basic need for water. It is truly life and with that statement how fundamental it must be to protect it from poison.
 
On learning of an act that could taint our water, it would be one thing to say to yourself, "that isn’t right," the next step to say out loud, “hey, don’t do that!" And the next step standing up to actually protect that water, such are the actions taking place by native people joined by countless others from around the country who are peacefully and prayerfully protecting their water on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s land in the Dakotas from an oil pipeline set to go under the Missouri River, their source for water. During the construction process, the pipeline has also knowingly destroyed graves of their ancestors. They are worried because it is well known that pipelines leak and a leak will endanger the safety of their drinking water.
 
Protecting goes beyond protesting. In these coming weeks we will need to practice standing up as protectors, whether that is to protect our precious water or protecting ourselves and others from racist or hateful words or actions.
 
We can do this remembering that all our ancestors are behind us and we are the result of the love of thousands. We have within us the strength of our roots. And we will need it.
 
With Deep Regards,
Rebecca Jim

Fall brings back memories of school, long hours of sitting in classrooms absorbing facts and at times random ones come back, as clearly as if I were seeing the blackboard or my own notes on the subject once again like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow was interested in human potential, and how we fulfill that potential. He believed motivation drove us toward unmet needs beginning with basic physiological requirements: air, food, water and shelter.

Imagine a triangle with horizontal stripes, five levels of needs, starting with the bottom layer being those physiological needs. Once we have the basic needs met, Maslow believed we begin to strive for the layers above which would be safety, followed by love and belonging then esteem and ultimately the top layer being "self-actualized."

He described that as "the full use and exploitation of talents, capabilities, potentialities, people seem to be fulfilling themselves and to be doing the best that they are capable of doing."
 
My mentor Paula Englander-Golden taught me to believe that everyone is doing the best they can at that moment and as they develop that will change too.

Maslow's theory got me thinking about the connection tenants have with their property managers or landlords, a word that may be going out of style. Tenants are provided shelter, meeting one of their most basic needs. Then the next step in this hierarchy of needs would be to insure the tenant their own safety. 

Since we spend about 90 percent of our time indoors, and buildings have a unique ability to positively or negatively influence our health so it is important to make sure the indoor environment is a safe place to live and raise children.
Indoor air quality can be influenced by mold, particulate matter and dust from construction or renovation, mold, cleaning supplies, pesticides, or other airborne chemicals  and deteriorated lead based paint. For Ottawa County it can be metals like lead from use of chat in the neighborhood, even in residential soil tracked indoors by residents and their pets.

 “Pollutants in the air don’t only harm children’s developing lungs – they can actually cross the blood-brain barrier and permanently damage their developing brains – and, thus, their futures. No society can afford to ignore air pollution.” “We protect our children when we protect the quality of our air.  Both are central to our future,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said.

Lead poisoning can cause irreversible damage, including lower IQ and cause lifelong learning and behavioral problems. Lead poisoning can be prevented and though cases had dropped here, the numbers of lead poisoned children is rising in Ottawa County. Generally here the exposure to lead is coming from lead paint in older homes or from the soil in their front or back yards. All residential yards in Ottawa County can be checked for lead by calling the DEQ Hotline number 1-800- 522-0206. If high levels are found with permission, they will be dug up, hauled away and replaced with clean soil or gravel for driveways.

Research now shows there is no safe level of lead exposure for infants and young children.

"Even at very low levels, children can have trouble learning and have other problems with their brain function," said Dr. Kevin Osterhoudt, medical director of the Poison Control Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "It robs them of their potential to achieve all they may have otherwise."

And that is what connected Maslow to property managers. What a great opportunity to serve the public by providing shelter for our community members, but also what a great responsibility to make sure that those properties are safe and will protect the potential for all who will reside there.

Doctors and teachers use the term "delayed" to describe children who fail to succeed in school, a  word a parent in Philadelphia  believed gives parents false hope. "This is not a delay — it's a permanent condition. It's irreversible and parents need to understand that this is permanent."

Housing built before 1978 will probably have been painted with lead paint. If the original windows and doors are still in use, check for lead paint. You can get swabs from Sherman-Williams and do it yourself. Look on your front or back porches for the telltale alligatored paint cracking. Get a copy of the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting Program Rules, contact your property manager and ask for this to be checked, dealt with and you and your family will be protected, your safety ensured, your children's potential protected. All involved will be reaching the upper levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

 Lead dust at dangerous levels, invisible to the eye, was lying in wait for its next likely victim, but not anymore, not in your yard, house or apartment.

Anticipating your Potential  ~ Rebecca Jim
 

 
https://www.learning-theories.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html
https://www.verywell.com/maslows-needs-hierarchy-2795961
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/conation/maslow.html
https://www.epa.gov/lead/lead-renovation-repair-and-painting-program-rules#rrp
https://www.unicefusa.org/press/releases/pollution-300-million-children-breathing-toxic-air-
unicef-report/31291
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Philadelphia_ignores_thousands_of_kids_poisoned_by_lead_paint.html