Polluted Kan. mining town seeks federal money

TREECE, Kan. (AP) – It is barely a town. A ghostly remnant of nearly a century of mining is more like it – not much left except for a few dilapidated houses nestled amid mountains of gray mine wastes.

Massive sinkholes and uncapped shafts dot the landscape, a deadly reminder for the unwary of the abandoned underground mining caverns below. The smell of sulfur wafts across the road. A creek runs red from minerals left behind by long-gone lead- and zinc-mining operations.

Children have grown up here swimming in some of the 200-feet deep sinkholes where the blue water is so acidic that for years people thought they were getting a sunburn playing in them. Toxic dunes of lead-ridden crushed rock and sand called chat have beckoned a generation of motorcycle and four-wheeler enthusiasts.

For the 70 or so families who live here, this polluted land is the place they call home.

Now the town’s future may be decided by Congress as it mulls the fate of a $3.5 million bill to buy out the last of its residents. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., introduced the bill after the state’s two senators were unable to convince the Environmental Protection Agency to fund a buyout using federal stimulus money.

On Thursday, Jenkins will host a delegation from EPA on a tour of Treece to hear from the residents and see the problems left here by the town’s mining past.

The EPA plans to use stimuls money to clean up about 380 acres and 2.1 million cubic yards of mine waste around Treece and nearby Baxter Springs. But Kansas lawmakers hope to convince the EPA officials that more is needed.

Among the EPA officials coming are Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator; Bob Sussman, senior policy counsel; and William Rice, acting Region 7 administrator. They are joined by Roderick Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and other state officials.

Mines deep beneath the region where Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma meet once contained the richest lead and zinc ore production in the world. Today, the area has soil and water contaminated with cadmium, lead and zinc. So vast are the caverns left by mining operations that the ground can collapse into them. in some places, such cave-ins are a greater risk than the pollution itself.

Treece lies less than a mile from Picher, Okla., where the EPA has funded a buyout and moved residents. Treece residents argue that their town was originally part of Picher, and it now faces the same challenges.

The Cherokee County Superfund Site, which includes Treece, was listed in 1983 on the EPA’s national priorities list. The agency boasts it has restored nearly 1,100 acres of land and reduced blood lead levels by 43 percent in children since then.

Across the street from the Treece City Hall, Tonya Kirk, 38, lives in an old mobile home with her husband and three sons, ages 15, 7 and 4. She moved from Picher to Treece after getting married.

“We grew up in Picher, with a big chat pile behind our house,” Kirk said. “We always played on that chat pile, it wasn’t a big deal for us.”

She became concerned after blood tests revealed that her youngest boy, Colton, had elevated lead levels. In children, lead can damage the nervous system and cause problems with learning, memory and behavior.

Treece Mayor Bill Blunk said about 98 percent of the town wants to move but cannot sell their houses. Land values have plummeted and banks won’t finance homes here.

“It saddens me to see the city has become what it has because of the toxic Superfund site,” Blunk said.

The mayor was also scornful of the EPA cleanup. He said the agency would spend less money just moving the residents.

But the EPA has said that even if the residents left, it would still have to tackle the mine waste. Heavy metals from the Treece site are carried by erosion to nearby streams to the adjacent Tar Creek Superfund site in Oklahoma and several American Indian lands downstream.