Pollution brings end to Oklahoma mining town

The federal government has stepped in with a plan to relocate residents, a buyout program that could cost $60 million.

As of April, nearly 800 applications had been turned in by home and business owners, according to the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust.

More than 300 offers have been made so far and of those, 272 accepted. Only a handful of offers were rejected.

The payouts won't make anyone rich — a 1,200 square-foot home fetches around $60,000 — but most residents believe this is the only ticket out of the depressed area.

The town has been whittled down to 800 people. Most businesses are long gone. The truck stop on the edge of town closed when unleaded was going for $2.79 a gallon. The school system is down to 99 kids and already axed extracurricular activities like band, art and sports.

But there are the holdouts, perhaps as many as 30 families, who plan to stay put.

"They thought they were going to live here for the rest of their lives," says Larry Roberts, a former state lawmaker and operations manager of the relocation trust.

Why remain at a Superfund site?
Candie Crites tries to explain, even as the ground under her feet rumbles almost every day. A mine shaft lies just on the south side of her driveway, 15 feet from her shotgun house in Cardin, a spit away from Picher. When the tremors come, it sounds like a dynamite blast and shakes windows.

But she can't leave the land she's lived on for decades, where the forsythias her parents planted bloom and the best memories with her late husband were made.

"It hurts to see what's going on, it's literally like tearing away pages of your life or layers of your skin," Crites says, sobbing.

Hoppy Ray's son, Steven, is also staying. Stubborn like his old man, the 61-year-old rattles off reasons why he thinks this place can be something again.

What about the city water being turned off? "It will turn into a rural water system."

Or living in a deserted city? "No more lonely than if you lived out in the country."

Charlie Riedel / AP John Sparkman is dwarfed as he looks into a sinkhole near Picher.

The lead pollution, then? "I've got four college degrees, and I grew up playing in the chat piles and swimming in the mill ponds. If I'm lead-damaged, by God, what would I have been, another Albert Einstein?"

If 67-year-old Roberta Richards had her way, she'd probably stay, too, but she's afraid to make a go in a town without law and order.

Sentimental strongholds
She hopes to get $70,000 for her house and is looking at a new place about 25 miles away. The hardest thing for her will be getting used to life without her daughter and grandkids as neighbors.

Some who left as the mines were closing are still sentimental about the place.

Steve Darnell remembers playing football on a field coated with lead dust and a town big enough to have two hospitals, three movie theaters and a bowling alley.

He sympathizes with the holdouts, but doesn't pretend to know what's in store for them if they stay.

"You can only go so far," says the 55-year-old, who now lives in Missouri. "It's not that much different than a gold-bust town."

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