Word: tarring
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With the EPA's clout slackening, private attorneys are moving in. At Tar Creek, lawyers are suing seven mining companies on behalf of scores of lead-exposed children. A separate suit demanding a cleanup was filed by the Quapaw Indians, whose land was leased for the mines. And environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has joined a class action to force companies to relocate the population of two polluted towns, Picher and Cardin. Court papers suggest that mining executives knew as early as the 1930s that the contaminated dust was dangerous but sought to, in their words, "dissuade" the government from...
Just how dangerous that dust might be is still a matter of dispute. Doctors at the Harvard School of Public Health have begun extensive studies in Tar Creek, not just of lead exposure but also of the cocktail mix of lead, manganese, cadmium and other metals that interact in unknown ways. "We're looking at four generations of poisoning," says Rebecca Jim of the L.E.A.D. agency, a local group. Meanwhile, parents like Evona Moss wonder what else the toxic brew might have done. Did it cause her obesity and bad teeth? Is it responsible for the malformation of her daughter...
Administration officials say they are cleaning up the nation's 1,240 highest-priority sites as fast as they can. But that will be harder, since the multibillion-dollar industry-paid trust fund, set aside for abandoned sites such as Tar Creek, ran dry in October. The fund was supplied by taxes on the purchase of toxic chemicals and petroleum and on corporate profits above $2 million. But the Republican-led Congress allowed the fees to expire in 1995. Bush is the first President to oppose the levies, and last month Lautenberg and other Senate Democrats lost a narrow vote...
...Tar Creek is an extreme case. But like Tolstoy's unhappy families, every Superfund site is tragic and contentious in its own way. In Libby, Mont., a massive mine blanketed the town with asbestos dust, killing at least 215 people and sickening 1,100 more with cancer and lung disease--yet cleanup funds have been cut so sharply that it could take 10 to 15 years to finish the job. In Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, miners dumped 60 million tons of toxic metals into waterways, but state officials are fighting a Superfund cleanup, fearing a stigma that might hurt tourism...
...Tar Creek, many residents have given up hope. Even the EPA, which has spent $107 million at the site, isn't sure if it can ever be repaired. "We don't have an off-the-shelf remedy," says EPA Superfund official Randy Deitz. "What do you do with the enormous chat piles? When does cleanup become impracticable? We have limited resources." In a show of no-confidence, the Oklahoma legislature last week passed a $5 million buyout for all families with children under 6. John Sparkman, who heads the Tar Creek Steering Committee, a group of buyout supporters, veers between...