Cardin Post Office To Close

Associated Press

CARDIN, Okla. (AP) -- Saturday will be the last day residents in the Ottawa County town can go to the Cardin Post Office.

Mail will still be delivered to homes in Cardin, but the U.S. Postal Service will close the post office because the lease is expiring and there are environmental issues, said David Lewin, Postal Service regional spokesman.

"The post office will be open from 9 until 10:30 a.m., and then it will close for good," Lewin said Thursday.

Residents can pick up their mail in Picher beginning next week, but that post office will close in a few months, he said.

Lewin said the Picher lease expires in June, and the owner isn't interested in renewing it because of a federal buyout of homeowners and businesses.

Picher and Cardin are located within the Environmental Protection Agency's Tar Creek Superfund site.

The 40 square-mile area in Oklahoma's northeastern tip was left contaminated by years of lead and zinc mining. The region is dotted with mountains of lead waste, called chat; the land is prone to cave-ins and tests have shown area children to have high levels of lead in their blood.

The Cardin post office opened Dec. 1, 1951.

Of the 58 post office boxes at the facility, 31 are being used, Lewin said. Cardin post office box holders will not have to change their addresses.