Local Environmental Action Demanded
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Tar Creek Conferences
    • 2022 Conference
    • 2020 Conference >
      • 2020 Speakers and Panelists
    • 2019 Conference >
      • Poetry Slam and Cartoon Contest
    • 2018 Conference >
      • Registration
      • Science & the Arts
      • Lodging & Accommodations
    • 2017 Conference >
      • Speakers & Agenda
      • Science & the Arts
      • Lodging & Accommodations
    • 2016 Conference >
      • Speakers & Agenda
    • 2015 Conference
  • Grand Riverkeeper
  • Tar Creekkeeper
  • Contact Us
  • Scholarship
  • Partners
  • Camp

Bales of Hay

7/24/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Since I became LEAD Agency's Tar Creekkeeper, recognized by the Waterkeeper Alliance for being her best advocate, I have struggled to get my vessel from one place to the next. Hiking it up and onto my Jeep since you might not have noticed, my height has made this a challenge, until yesterday.

There in my barn are the last remaining square bales from hay we baled back after the 2007 ice storm. They have lost their prime and have dried out to be so light as to allow the smallest of people to lift them with one hand. And as such are the perfect step stool to use to stand upon to lift that kayak up and on for traveling.

People don't value square bales like they used to. Boys earned their first real money during summers of the past by working the hay fields, lifting those fresh, heavy bales up and onto a truck. They got stronger by doing it and used it as prep for the fall's football season. Technology has changed and tractors lift and carry those bales that teams of football players would have difficulty getting huddled around to move.

But the remnants have become my new method of mounting kayaks to service.

This week these also are assisting in gathering samples for the scientific research Wellesley College is conducting here in the Tar Creek Superfund site and where her contaminants come to reside. The value to us all is that others coming with questions may provide answers we had not known to ask.

Dan Brabander has a long history at this site, having accompanied teams of researchers in the 2000’s who looked both at human health but also the substances lying in our environment that we know impact our health. He, as others who have worked here, we have learned, come to never forget us. You, by the way, in the amazing way you are you, have been part of the reason, too. When a community is open to meeting strangers and providing information, greetings on the sidewalk, casual conversations at a café. You are remembered. And our site gnaws at them, too. Respecting us impounds their need to come back to wrestle with their universities, colleges, foundations to fund work that can ease our load of toxins and help us have an environment that seasons bring joys to enjoy.

So this week, Dan has brought his team of female students: Iris Cessna, Alice Dricker, and Leslie Monzon
and a former student, Claire Hayhow, who took her own vacation time from a job at the Silent Spring Foundation with actually another former researcher at our site. They are investigating for us the things that are required for life on this planet. Air, water and soil. They are exploring how we measure what and how much and how big particulates are that hang in the air we breathe. Samples are being taken at wetlands near chat piles, both of the plants that are thriving in them, but the sediment beneath and the water they release into our creeks. What about the orange staining on the trees we are now so used to seeing we don’t even see it anymore? They are XRF-ing it in the field checking for the levels of metals that reside ON our trees.

A fleet of vessels join us this morning as we lift off at Riverview Park with the Grand Riverkeeper boat, the Tar Creekkeeper kayaks, the 3-woman canoe, with Paige Hankins at the helm took off to take a core sample of the channel bar where Tar Creek meets the Neosho. Dan was with other researchers in those early years of this century and took a similar core there and brought it back to our other LEAD Agency office and laid it out on the floor of that building. It looked like a tiger-tail, with orange and black stripes, solid and tube like. And we are off to collect its sister this morning. With the cool morning, the rare coolness this morning, we hope to continue down to Twin Bridges to find the next one where the Neosho meets the Spring. I have heard it called almost a dike that is forming that may be helping to flood us in those high rain events. If we find it and can core it, Dan and his team can tell us what it consists of, and perhaps much more.

We are launching and would love for you to join us in future launches as we explore and try to better understand what lies beneath us, what we float upon, what our soils hold and what we are breathing.

In the meantime, be kind to strangers, they come back to find the answers to what harms us.

Respectfully Submitted ~  Rebecca Jim



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Rebecca Jim

    Rebecca is the Executive Director of LEAD Agency and one of its founding members. She also serves as the Tar Creekkeeper with the Waterkeeper Alliance.

    Contact Rebecca

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Built Environments
    Children
    Gardening
    Other Endangered Waters
    Tar Creek Conference
    Toxic Tour
    Yard Remediation

Local Environmental Action Demanded Agency, Inc.
Miami Office:                                Vinita Office:
223 A Street SE                             19289 South 4403 Drive
Miami, Oklahoma 74354             Vinita, Oklahoma 74301
(918) 542-9399
Follow us on Facebook