Keating to form task force on Tar Creek site

(Oklahoma City-AP) -- Governor Keating says he'll appoint a taskforce to find a way to resolve environmental and health problems at the Tar Creek Superfund site in Ottawa County. Keating says he'll

Thursday, January 6th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(Oklahoma City-AP) -- Governor Keating says he'll appoint a taskforce to find a way to resolve environmental and health problems at the Tar Creek Superfund site in Ottawa County. Keating says he'll appoint state secretary of environment Brian Griffin to head the task force. The announcement yesterday came after a meeting of state and federal officials, including Gregg Cooke, the federal Environmental Protection Agency's regional director from Dallas.

More than $40 million has been spent on a 40-squaremile Tri-State Mining District to address health and environmental problems since Tar Creek topped the E-P-A's Superfund cleanup listing 1983. The list includes some of the most polluted sites in the country.

The E-P-A has spent more than $7 million in themid-1980s to rid the creek of groundwater contaminated with heavy metals that seep out of flooded abandoned mine shafts near Picher. Water from Tar Creek flows into Grand Lake to the south.