An early step in Tar Creek restoration efforts asks the public for direction on how best to spend at least $34 million collected so far from damage settlements.
Comments, due at the Tar Creek Trustee Council by Friday, will help the group in choosing one of four possible guidelines moving forward. The process is explained in the 65-page “Draft Natural Resource Programmatic Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment” that, essentially, lists environmental challenges and asks the public for flexibility in spending.
The council was established under federal law to guide public compensation in connection with the Northeast Oklahoma Mining Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Site.
The site is a portion of the 2,500-square-mile Tri-State Mining District, which includes portions of Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. Lead and zinc mining began in the district around 1848 and continued until the 1970s, leaving widespread contamination, including at Tar Creek and three other Superfund sites.
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The council includes representatives of federal and state agencies and affected Indian tribes. They are to act as trustees to assess damages, recover monetary and other damages and make restorations that “will compensate the public for loss of its natural resources and the services they would have provided but for the hazardous substance releases,” the document says.
Representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and of seven Indian tribes on the council agreed to provide background information but requested not to be quoted in this story.
They emphasized that these regional restoration efforts yet to come are not to be confused with remediation work already underway on the Tar Creek Superfund Site under direction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and the Quapaw Tribe.
Under federal restitution guidelines, the council has $34 million available in cash settlements from cases dating back to 1995 and 2009. The amount could change with additional settlements, accrued interest or expenditures on projects, according to the document.
The cash is to be used to “restore, replace, rehabilitate, and/or acquire the equivalent of natural resources and their associated services,” the restoration plan states.
The guidelines in question are not specific to projects but merely set a framework for the scope of the work. The document as a whole lays out examples of the types of work that might be done; however, each project would go through its own planning and public participation process.
The crux of the request for comment focuses on four options for the council:
1. No action: Relying on natural recovery after completion of the EPA’s remediation work.
2. On-site restoration: Projects that would focus on restoring terrestrial and aquatic resources and associated services within the Oklahoma site boundary only.
3. Off-site restoration: Restoring, replacing, enhancing and acquiring equivalent natural terrestrial and aquatic resources and associated services outside of the Oklahoma site that may be near, but not directly affected by or associated with mining activities, and may include restoration in different states.
4. Combination of on-site and off-site restoration projects: Terrestrial and aquatic restoration projects could be implemented on site or off site, or the equivalent of the injured natural resources and their associated services could be acquired.
The council states its preferred alternative is No. 4, a combination of on-site and off-site projects.
Chief among the reasons cited for the preferred alternative is being able to embark on some restoration projects before EPA has completed on-site work and having the option to acquire nearby lands for natural restoration where landowners within the site might prefer to use their lands for other purposes.
The plan also gives examples of the types of restoration projects that individuals or groups might propose in the future and offers guidelines on how to submit those ideas.
Under examples of restoration projects, the plan lists prairie, savannah and forest restoration, stream habitat improvement and fish and mussel re-introduction, and similar and related efforts that have particular importance or cultural significance to Native American tribes of the area.
