Tar Creek Mining in NE Oklahoma

The mining operation in the Tar Creek District, Ottawa County, Oklahoma started in the late nineteenth century and lasted all the way into the mid-twentieth century.  The mining has left the area with environmental and health issues that continue on to the present day and will do so way into the future because of the cost and time it will take to clean up the mess that was made, accumulated for about 60 years.

“Time” reported that, “The prairie here in the northeast corner of the state is punctured with 480 open mine shafts and 30,000 drill holes. Little League fields have been built over an immense underground cavity that could collapse at any time. Acid mine waste flushes into drinking wells. When the water rises in Tar Creek, which runs through the site, a neon-orange scum oozes onto the roadside. Wild onions, a regional delicacy tossed into scrambled eggs, are saturated with cadmium — which may explain, local doctors say, why three different kidney dialysis centers have opened here to serve a population of only 30,000” (Roosevelt, 2004).

The Tri-State Mining Area started around the 1850’s.  This area was also known as the Joplin Mining District, because most of the financers of the mining in the region were in Joplin, Missouri.  It would gradually cover portions of Southeastern Kansas, Southwestern Missouri and by the 1890’s included Northeastern Oklahoma.  The railroad industry encouraged the Tar Creek area as a site for major mining operations because it made easier the transportation of a lot of products throughout the country (Everett).  Roughly 53 square miles within Ottawa County, Oklahoma is the Tar Creek district (Polk, 2004), which was owned by the Quapaw Indian Tribe, given to them by the US Government as they were relocated from the neighboring state of Arkansas (NRE 492 Group 5).

In the 1890’s the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA, now part of the Department of the Interior) leased land owned by the Quapaw Indians to lead and zinc mining camps in operation throughout the Tri-State area.  Not all of the Indians agreed to the terms, but the ones who opposed were largely ignored as being incompetent and the plans went forward.   Through a series of lawsuits, mining was allowed on the tribal lands.  This move might have been justified by keeping the chat and tailings behind so the Quapaw Indians could profit from them.   In this way, the BIA could say that they were looking out for the best interests of the people they served (NRE 492 Group 5).

Often times, the owners of private property, in which their land was being mined, would lease out the land to individuals who did the actual mining (Everett).  After the First World War the demand for lead and zinc decreased and so did the production.  Many individuals teamed up together and with other groups of people to form corporations so that the profit of mining the minerals would still be profitable.  By the 1960’s the production and demand went so low that the operation of these mines was no longer feasible so the mines shut down.  The last mining shaft closed in 1967 (Everett).

To establish ore location and grade, exploration holes would have to be drilled.  In heavily concentrated areas, thousands of these drilled holes can be identified using maps that cover the area.  Unfortunately, not all these holes are shown in these maps because some of the areas that have already been mined are no longer in use and have been consolidated into other maps of the past, so in any given map, there are at least that many holes shown that are in actuality greater in number.  These in turn, when no longer in use, are filled in by sections of telephone poles (R. Bruce Sheibach, 1982).

Pumps were used to keep the groundwater from infiltrating the mine sites.  This led to the sites sinking and created depressed areas.  When a mine shaft was abandoned, mainly due to the exhaustion of mining, these depressions were used as dumping sites, where the mining wastes were put and accumulated (R. Bruce Sheibach, 1982).

Lead and zinc would be taken out of the ground through the method of carving out chamber rooms and having them supported by columns.  The by-products were two.  The chat accumulates in humongous piles, some reaching over ten stories high.  The water wastes would be put in ponds, called tailings.  The mines used pumps to keep the ground water from flooding the mined areas.  When the mines shut down, the pumps were turned off.

The mines at Ottawa County, Oklahoma used a milling process of extracting the lead and zinc from the ground.  Rocks were broken up through gravity (chat mining) and through water (tailing).  The chat accumulated and was piled up in what is creatively called “chat piles.”  In order for the tailing process to work, the rock would have to be grounded up into a size similar to sand; the water washes away the light stuff, but keeps the heavy metals (lead) there, separating the two.  The water that carried away the unwanted minerals was detained in again, what is creatively called, “tailing ponds”  (Polk, 2004).

Pumps were used to keep water out of the area being mined.  When the mines ceased, so did the pumps and the water returned.  By this time, the by-products had oxidized and became heavily reactant and the water could not dissolve these, for they were heavy metals, like lead.  As these were depressed areas, lower in elevation than before, the water was able to easily come to the surface and by 1979, the groundwater was contaminated.  By 1980, this problem was noted in the water supply of Picher, OK as it appeared in the town’s aquifer (R. Bruce Sheibach, 1982).

Tar Creek runs down from Picher, OK goes to the east of Miami and empties out into the Neosho River.  Just before the Spring River empties out, also into the Neosho, it forms an estuary of the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees.  All the water being drained out of the Picher District is going south to the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees and resulting in high concentration levels of lead, zinc and cadmium in the lake.  There is an advisory from the state to limit the amount of fish eaten from here (Gillham, 2011).

What is the solution to this problem?  Clean the area up and while doing so, relocate the families living there to live in a cleaner, safer place.  What?  Clean up this mess?  On this photo is a very large and looming chat pile overlooking an empty town of Picher, OK.  Doesn’t the job description of reclaiming the land back to its natural, original state seem quite daunting at this point?  After all, that mountain shouldn’t be there!  It will definitely be a very expensive, time-consuming process. (Gillham, 2011)

The US Army Corps of Engineers has suggested:

“The preliminary Watershed Management Plan will evaluate short and long-term solutions that could be constructed or implemented to reduce flooding and improve the ecosystems. The plan will identify the best method to implement after looking at various costs and benefits and the appropriate agency (Federal, state, local) to implement each measure. Some of the items this plan will evaluate include:

· Comprehensive GIS Database
· Native Grasslands and Agricultural Lands (short term)
· Mine Drainage and Run-Off Treatment Systems (short term)
· Real Estate/Relocations (short term)
· Flood Reduction (long term)
· Traditional Wetlands (long-term)
· Chat Pile Removal and Millpond Remediation (long term)
· Mine Shaft and Borehole Closure Program (long term)
· Subsidence Prevention (long term)”

(Polk, 2004)

The solution is very expensive and will take a lot of time.  This is a disaster area that has as its problems accumulated toxics, over years, being left behind.  It has been reported that if one was to fill 10 railroad boxcars a day, that it would still take over 30 years to completely remove the chat from the area (Gillham, 2011). 

Bibliography:

Branson, H. (n.d.). OU students, researchers help clean up Tar Creek. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Routes: http://routes.ou.edu/story.php?storyID=246

Everett, D. (n.d.). Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Oklahoma Historical Society: http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/T/TR014.html

Gillham, O. (2011, September 27). Tar Creek Superfund site requires much more cleanup, money . Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Tulsa World: http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20110927_11_A1_CUTLIN900375

Hatley, E. (2009, October ). Tar Creek (Ottawa County) Oklahoma. Retrieved from K-State Engineering.

NRE 492 Group 5. (n.d.). The Results of Mining at Tar Creek. Retrieved from University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/cases_03-04/TarCreek/TarCreek_case_study.htm

Polk, J. (2004, August 20). Tar Creek and Lower Spring River Watershed Management Plan Development. Retrieved March 17, 2012, from US Army Corps of Engineers: http://www.swt.usace.army.mil/library/tar%20creek%20and%20spring%20river/index.htm

R. Bruce Sheibach, R. E. (1982). Controlling Acid Mine Drainage From the Picher Mining District, Oklahoma, United States . International Journal of Mine Water , 45-52.

Roosevelt, M. (2004, April 19). The Tragedy Of Tar Creek. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Time: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,612395,00.html

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Tailingscontinuum.jpg