Documentary to be featured at 10th annual Tar Creek conference w/ September 2008 EPA Tar Creek project progress report

By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

MIAMI, Okla. — The 10th national conference on the Tar Creek Superfund Site, slated for Sept. 15-17 at the Miami Civic Center, will feature a keynote address by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson and the showing of a new documentary film, “Shall We Gather at the River.’’

The conference, in part, will explore the connection between river-borne nutrients from chicken CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) in Missouri and their impact on the consumption of heavy metals by fish in Grand Lake.

Edmondson has taken a tough stand against chicken CAFOs in Arkansas. Water-quality problems have been prompted for the Illinois River, Lake Eucha and other water bodies in Oklahoma, authorities say.

Edmondson will speak on the issue at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the civic center. A period for questions will follow his talk.

Edmondson and several local residents will appear in the film, which will be shown at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Coleman Theater in Miami. Tickets at the door are $10. Panel discussions will be held a half hour before the showing of the film and again after the film is shown.

Also appearing in the documentary will be Earl Hatley, a community organizer for the LEAD Agency at Miami, Chief Leaford Bearskin, and Bill Berry and Riley Needham, who live along Honey Creek in Northeast Oklahoma. The creek, which flows into Grand Lake, receives wastewater from a chicken rendering plant north of Southwest City, Mo.

Rebecca Jim, a community organizer with the LEAD Agency, said this year’s conference will focus on the heavy-metal-contamination issues associated with Tar Creek.

Tar Creek, a small stream that flows through the former Picher Mining Field and the city of Miami before emptying into the Neosho River, is contaminated with high levels of lead and zinc that have leached from the mines.

Hatley said Honey Creek, Spring River and Elk River all are listed as impaired streams when they enter Oklahoma because of nutrient loading upstream in Missouri and Kansas. The nutrients, he said, bond with heavy metals in the sediment of the lake and become part of the water column during seasonal turnovers of the lake.

Hatley said, “So what do CAFOs have to do with metals in the lake? The nutrients from the CAFOs make the metals constantly bio-available to fish in the lake. It’s all tied in, and it’s clear we’re all downstream.’’

Hatley cited a report released by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality in 1998 on the presence of eutrophic conditions in the lake as the source of the research.

“Rivers and lakes in Northeast Oklahoma are all bearing the brunt of the poultry industry waste, with loadings of heavy bacteria and nutrients in these waters, changing the way they can be used, if used at all,’’ Hatley said.

Jim said residents of Northeast Oklahoma who successfully fought the construction of a large egg-production CAFO should view the documentary.