Tulsa World: As residents leave Picher, city hall prepares to close

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As residents leave Picher, city hall prepares to close

By SHEILA STOGSDILL World Correspondent
Published: 8/26/2009 2:24 AM
Last Modified: 8/26/2009 4:19 AM

PICHER — In less than a week, the town of Picher will officially close its city offices.

As the community prepares for the last of its residents to move away, about 40 people turned out Tuesday evening for a meeting of the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust.

The town is expected to shut down Sept. 1. After that, "there will be no city government," Mayor Tim Reeves said after the meeting.

Contract employees will be closing out the financial books, he said.

The trust is overseeing a voluntary federal buyout of homes and businesses within the Tar Creek Superfund site in far northeastern Oklahoma.

Homeowners and business owners are receiving offers of fair-market value for homes that have been devalued by lead and zinc pollution from decades of mining in the area.

About 50 families and three businesses — a funeral home, a pharmacy and a fast food drive-in — are left in Picher.

Before Tuesday's meeting, Quapaw city officials said an agreement is being negotiated among the community of Picher, the town of Quapaw and the Quapaw Tribe to provide water to the last remaining Picher residents.

A meeting is scheduled for Monday to work out the details, Reeves said.

The neighboring community of Cardin, which also is within the Superfund site, is expected to shut down soon, also, but no date has been set, said Larry Roberts, trust operations manager.

The last Cardin residence was approved for buyout

at Tuesday's meeting, he said.

Cinnabar Service Co., which is overseeing the appraisal and acquisition of the properties, told trust members that 807 properties have been appraised and that 725 offers have been made. Of those, 687 offers have been accepted.

Twin Bridges Co. informed the board all of the bought-out houses would be demolished by Dec. 31.

The 40-square-mile area known as Tar Creek was put on the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund site in 1983, years after the lead and zinc mining companies pulled out, leaving countless environmental problems behind.

Medical research has shown that children growing up in the area have been poisoned by lead contamination believed to have been caused by the mining, which ended in the area in 1971.

Additionally, a 2006 Army Corps of Engineers study showed that the abandoned mines underneath Picher and the nearby communities of Cardin and Hockerville had a high risk of caving in.

That information prompted the federally funded buyout. By SHEILA STOGSDILL World Correspondent

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Some reader comments for this story were copied from "Meeting signals Picher's Sept. 1 closing," which was published on 8/25/2009.

	Report Comment Mar, Tulsa (8/25/2009 9:52:14 PM) Finally. Let it go and move on.
	Report Comment my view, Sand Springs (8/26/2009 11:38:13 AM) Those that are left may just find themselves better off. No city government to get in the way.
	Report Comment Harold Brookens 1, Tulsa (8/26/2009 3:49:33 AM) Coming from the western US, I've enjoyed visiting a lot of dead long forgotten town. Many from western lore. But this is sad. It's living history. But it wasn't time that did this town in, it was a man made disaster. The rape of the environment is leaving sadness and pain on a once thriving community. And it's sad.
	Report Comment Centrist, close enough (8/26/2009 3:55:24 AM) God, my heart just goes out to the families that lived there and the damage it did to their lives. What's sad is those who could not afford to move away when they found out the contamination and effects it had on them and their children and the slowness of our government to help them out.
	Report Comment okie ridgerunner, Small Country Town State Line (8/25/2009 10:58:22 PM) Time to move on and start anew.

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