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NBC News: Last Residents of Picher, Oklahoma Won't Give Up the Ghost (Town)
Complete article at: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/last-residents-picher-oklahoma-wont-give-ghost-town-n89611
PICHER, Okla. -- Thirty years and hundreds of millions of dollars since work began to clean up this former lead and zinc mining boomtown, progress is still being measured in inches or feet. That gauge is provided by the towering but slowly diminishing piles of “chat,” or tailings, that still loom over what is now a virtual ghost town.
Picher, which in its heyday in the 1920’s boasted a population of nearly 20,000 people, no longer exists as a town. After being labeled one of the most polluted places in America by the EPA, declared a federal “Superfund” hazardous waste site, and also getting hit by a destructive tornado, it ceased municipal operations in 2009.
That same year, Picher-Cardin High School, perhaps best known for its distinctive “Gorilla” mascot, graduated its last class of 11 students.
...
Today, there are only about 10 hardy souls left in Picher to watch as the clean-up slowly carves away at the dozen or so remaining piles of chat and restores Tar Creek, whose waters still run red from heavy metal runoff, to some semblance of its former self. If their health holds out, they likely have another 20 or 30 more years to take in the slow-motion show in this quiet northeastern corner of Oklahoma, near the Kansas and Missouri borders.
Picher, which in its heyday in the 1920’s boasted a population of nearly 20,000 people, no longer exists as a town. After being labeled one of the most polluted places in America by the EPA, declared a federal “Superfund” hazardous waste site, and also getting hit by a destructive tornado, it ceased municipal operations in 2009.
That same year, Picher-Cardin High School, perhaps best known for its distinctive “Gorilla” mascot, graduated its last class of 11 students.
...
Today, there are only about 10 hardy souls left in Picher to watch as the clean-up slowly carves away at the dozen or so remaining piles of chat and restores Tar Creek, whose waters still run red from heavy metal runoff, to some semblance of its former self. If their health holds out, they likely have another 20 or 30 more years to take in the slow-motion show in this quiet northeastern corner of Oklahoma, near the Kansas and Missouri borders.
