Oct. 6—MIAMI, Ok. — The 26th annual National Environmental Conference at Tar Creek will be held this week in the ballroom of the Bruce G. Carter Student Union building on the campus of Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College.
The conference will run from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8, and Wednesday, Oct. 9, and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 10.
The three-day agenda is free for Ottawa County residents and features topics including:
—Tallgrass prairie and pollinator restoration.
—Lead poisoning prevention.
—Flooding and the city of Miami’s response to Grand River Dam Authority’s (GRDA) relicensing request.
—Environmental Protection Agency and Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality Superfund site updates.
—LEAD Agency’s flood survey report results, research projects and grant announcements.
—Impact of heavy metals on migratory birds.
There will also be film screenings, morning and afternoon breakout sessions, specialty demonstrations and speaker panels. It also will feature a variety of activities including art from the local community, morning coffee with speakers, a fish fry and silent auction, a taco dinner with traditional native foods, a raffle, and more.
“This year’s conference will take you from bees and tallgrass prairies to the devastation legacy mining has had on our former grasslands, once known as a hay capital,” Rebecca Jim, LEAD Agency executive director and Tar Creekkeeper, said in a statement. “We will learn what harm and what value the remaining mine waste holds to our future from scientists and the state health department officials.”
Booths and exhibitors will also be set up daily throughout the student union building. Residents can bring household items to be tested for lead during the conference.
“The public is invited and encouraged to come for the three days and evening events, or even for a single presentation,” said Jim.
Registration for the 26th annual Tar Creek Conference is now open and can be completed online by visiting www.leadagency.org/event-details/26th-national-environmental-tar-creek-conference.
Tar Creek is one of the oldest and most complex Superfund sites in the nation.
It is a former lead and zinc mining area that was part of the Tri-State Mining District, which also included Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas. Lead and zinc mining occurred throughout the region from the 1870s for nearly a century. The area was left with toxic heavy metals, giant chat piles and abandoned mine shafts that polluted water and left residents with elevated levels of lead in the blood.
Large-scale pumps were used to control groundwater inflow to mines, but once the mines ceased operation, they flooded. In 1979, acidic water from former mines began flowing to the surface near Commerce and flowed into Tar Creek, running red and killing most of the life downstream as a result of contamination.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added Tar Creek and 40 square miles of Ottawa County to the federal National Priorities List, making it a Superfund site, in 1983 due to high concentrations of cadmium, lead and zinc in the mined areas of Ottawa County.
Millions of tons of mine waste have been removed; mines and bore holes have been plugged; and steps, including yard remediation, have been taken to reduce lead levels in residents. However, more than 40 years later, cleanup efforts are ongoing. Picher and nearby communities also were bought out and residents relocated.
In 2022, Tar Creek itself, an 11-mile stream polluted with heavy metals, was named one of “America’s Most Endangered Rivers” for its second consecutive year. The designation came from American Rivers, a nonprofit conservation organization whose mission is to restore rivers.
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