EPA pledges $16M per year for Tar Creek Superfund cleanup

Ty AlbrightMarch 12, 2019

Tar Creek Cleanup — FILE - In this April, 6, 2008 file photo, Picher, Okla. is nestled among huge lead-laced piles of rock. On Monday, Sept. 22, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state officials will commemorate the end of major cleanup efforts of some 3,000 yards, parks, driveways and alleyways in nine communities that lie in or near the Tar Creek Superfund site. Cleanup of the Tar Creek site _ once considered among the most polluted places in the country _ has been roughly 30 years in the making. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

(AP) The Environmental Protection Agency has pledged more than $16 million annually for the continued cleanup of toxic mine waste at the heavily polluted Tar Creek Superfund Site in northeastern Oklahoma.

Superfund is a law that gives the EPA funding and authority to clean up contaminated sites. Tar Creek, in Ottawa County, covers a 40-square-mile area and is one of the nation’s oldest, most complex Superfund sites.

The Tulsa World reports the EPA, in collaboration with Oklahoma and the Quapaw Nation, announced Monday that their plan is open for a 30-day public evaluation. The plan provides an update on cleanup progress and establishes framework for cleaning up mining waste in Ottawa County over the next five years.

The EPA is expected to release a final Tar Creek Strategic Plan this summer.