<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/15/quapaw-nation-oklahoma-superfund-cleanup>
"They call this land the Laue. In the late 1800s, part of these 200 acres of
grassland inside the Quapaw Nation were allotted to tribal citizen Charley
Quapaw Blackhawk. After forcing dozens of tribes into Indian territory before
the civil war, the US government then parceled out reservations and property to
individual members. It was part of the government’s attempt to “civilize”
Native Americans by turning them into private, not communal, landholders and
yeoman farmers in the model of Thomas Jefferson’s ideal citizen.
Yet, for the last century, little grew on the Laue. Half of it was buried
beneath towering mounds of toxic rock known as chat piles. The waste rock,
laced with chemicals, was left after miners extracted millions of tons of lead
and zinc from the Tri-State Mining District, where the valuable ores stretched
across Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma between 1891 and the 1970s. By 1983, the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had designated 40 sq miles that include
nearly all the Quapaw Nation as the Tar Creek Superfund site, joining the EPA’s
list of the most contaminated places in the country. Informally called a
“megasite”, Tar Creek remains one of the largest and most complex environmental
disasters in the country.
After years of cleanup, the Laue has been cleared of chat. The ground has been
restored and tested. The soil is healthy again. Like hundreds of acres across
the Quapaw Nation, it has returned to agriculture. And the Quapaw, a community
with more than 6,000 members, have led this revitalization themselves as the
first and only tribal nation in the country to manage and carry out a Superfund
cleanup. By cleaning contaminated ground – a slow process that began 40 years
ago and will likely continue for decades – the tribe can expand its farming
efforts and food production on its own terms."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
