Sunday, September 27, 2009
Treece, Kansas, may soon be no more. The tiny community near the Oklahoma border is so polluted with chat—mining waste filled with lead and zinc—that the Environmental Protection Agency wants to buy out those left in Treece and level it in an effort to decontaminate the area. But first EPA officials are seeking permission from Congress. Republican Senators Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, of Kansas, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma are supporting the plan, which has cleared the Senate and is awaiting resolution in a conference committee with House members. Roberts said he does not anticipate any trouble getting the Treece amendment approved by Congress.
It will cost about $3 million to buy out the 100 or so residents of Treece, whose neighboring town of Picher, Oklahoma, was already evacuated by the EPA. Both communities were once booming towns, until the mines shut down in the early 1970s. The area surrounding the towns is polluted with toxic tailings and marked with sinkholes that have become flooded with polluted water.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
EPA Gets Approval to Move Residents from Polluted Town (by Dion Lefler, Wichita Eagle)
Comments