Picher, Oklahoma: A Uniquely American Disaster.

Think of a ghost town. You’ve maybe been to Bodie in the Sierra Nevada or Silver City in Idaho. They look old, Victorian, wooden, antique. Abandoned a long time ago; the Dust Bowl, the Depression. But that is not the case for Picher, Oklahoma right on Route66 which was finally left empty in 2015.

Lead and zinc mining started here in 1913, the population peaked in the 1920s and then slowly declined to the 1960s when mining stopped. Having produced over $20 Billion worth of ore, this was the largest lead mine in the world. The original company wanted the lead for paint but this one field produced half the lead and zinc used in World War I and over 80% of its output went to make munitions in WWII.

By the 1970s, water had flooded into 14,000 abandoned mine shafts and over 70 million tons of toxic tailings and was now running into Tar Creek and the local water supply. It wasn’t until the 80s that the area was declared a Superfund Site by the EPA and mitigation started, But people stayed on in Picher and thought the place was a great place to live and bring up their children who were swimming in the sink holes and sledding down the waste piles. They thought the skin colouration was sunburn but it wasn’t. It took to the 1990s before half the kids were found to have dangerously elevated lead levels. On top of that the buildings started to collapse and the Corps of Engineers judged 90% of them highly unsafe.

The EPA and Engineers said it was time to move. This is America’s most toxic town. The government offered to buy every house; today most of the buildings have been demolished but some still remain.

In one last nauseating twist to this tale, the land was originally leased from the local Quapaw and Miami tribes who received very little of the wealth created but who are now being asked to take their land back.

We can have a healthy debate about the role of government versus the private sector, but this story has been repeated thousands of times – company extracts wealth, pays shareholders, then leaves taxpayers to pick up the consequences. Buildings can be bought but the health consequences are forever.

Photos: Remaining housed in downtown and some Google Earth pictures of the town showing the huge dunes of waste material and the sinkholes surrounding the school.