Initial tests: No toxic lead dust in Picher air
Initial tests: No toxic lead dust in Picher air

By John David Sutter

Published: May 13, 2008

Residents returning to Picher to recover their belongings from a weekend tornado are not in danger of inhaling toxic lead dust, according to initial air quality tests released today by the Environmental Protection Agency.

However, agency officials still are warning residents to wear dust masks and gloves while they dig through the rubble of their homes, said Dave Bary, spokesman for the EPA’s office in Dallas. The precautions are designed to prevent the storm’s victims from inhaling lead.

Picher, which is a former lead and zinc mining town in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, is surrounded by 150-foot mountains of mining waste that contain toxic metals.

Officials and residents worry tornadoes that tore through the town on Saturday could have scattered dangerous heavy metals around Picher. Lead, which is a dangerous neurotoxin, clings to dust particles and can be breathed into the lungs.

Pieces of the potentially toxic gravel are visible in the town’s soil, and one resident said his home was “sandblasted” by the gravel during the storm.

Just because the mine waste is found around town doesn’t mean it’s a threat to public health or the environment, Bary said, adding that the preliminary tests show there is no such threat.

He said the agency will continue air and soil testing until it can prove no public health threat exists. Agency workers are trolling the disaster area with hand-held X-ray devices that can find lead, Bary said.

Meanwhile, Picher residents continue to sort through their belongings.

Picher is the heart of the Tar Creek Superfund Site, which the EPA listed as one of the most urgent environmental disasters in the country. Since the early 1980s, the agency has spent at least $150 million trying to clean up the site. Another $167 million is planned for the cleanup. The agency plans to sell off the mining waste that towers around Picher.

Since 2006, the town has been under a federal buyout program that seeks to pay all willing residents to relocate from the town. That plan came about because a study showed hundreds of homes in the area were undermined to the point that they could collapse into the vacated mine workings.

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