Keating names Tar Creek task force

Friday, January 28th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Gov. Frank Keating named an eight-member task force today to get the facts and find solutions to environmental threats posed by the Tar Creek Super fund site in Ottawa County. Brian Griffin, Keating's secretary of environment, was appointed chairman.

Others on the Tar Creek Super fund Task Force are state Sen. Rick Littlefield, D-Grove; state Rep. Larry Roberts, D-Miami; Mark Coleman, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality; Ed Rogers, chairman of the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma; Karl Ahlgren, chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Virgil Jurgensmeyer, Miami businessman, and Dick Seybolt, northeast Oklahoma businessman.

"The Tar Creek Superfund site has been at the top of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's priority cleanup list for close to 20 years," Keating said. "The purpose of this task force will be to examine the facts and determine what role the state of Oklahoma can play in finding solutions to the difficult health and environmental threats that exist in Ottawa County. "I have the utmost confidence in Secretary Griffin and the members of this body. I am confident they will work diligently to propose recommendations that will lead to the final solution to this long problem." He said the group is expected to:

--examine the long-term health implications from elevated blood lead levels. ---determine the effect of high concentrations of heavy metals in the mine water that flows into Tar Creek.
--explore the economic aspects of using chat, a term for more than 60 million tons of mining waste contained in the area, "in a matter that is protective of the environment and health of residents."
--examine the cost and strategy for plugging as many as 1,800 abandoned mine shafts that pose an immediate danger.
--review past and pending funding of the project, which is currently estimated at more than $40 million.

Griffin said the action demonstrates Keating's commitment to protect the health and safety of Oklahoma citizens, especially young children "who are most impacted by the high concentrations of lead found in the Tar Creek Super fund area."