The Town of Silent Poison (Documentary) - How Picher, OK Became the Most Toxic Town in America

The now defunct town of Picher, Oklahoma was once considered the most toxic place in the United States. Decades of lead and zinc mining scarred the landscape, with scattered 200-foot-tall mountains of waste sitting on top of severely undermined land and highly acidic water flowing through and out.

The decline of mining activities and subsequent abandonment of mine shafts and waste resulted in widespread toxic metal and sulfuric acid contamination over decades - an active contamination that continues to this day. At the time of its placement on the EPA’s National Priority List and its designation as a superfund site in 1983, it was considered the worst active environmental disaster in the United States. Despite this distinction, the EPA dragged their feet on cleanup for decades, turning a blind eye wherever convenient, all while barring the Quapaw landowners from participating and contributing to cleanup efforts.

The massive piles of mining waste, otherwise known mine tailings, or “chat,” contain dangerous concentrations of lead, zinc, and cadmium. And the effects of these toxic metals would become tragically apparent due to a growing number of health problems in children living in and around the waste.

This documentary tells the story of how a small town in northeast Oklahoma became the most toxic town in America, what effects that toxicity has had on residents, the decades of ongoing and fragmented cleanup efforts, and what the future holds for the Tar Creek Superfund site.

▬▬CONTENTS▬▬
0:00 - The Intro
2:55 - The Quapaws
5:57 - The Boom
8:23 - The Town
10:09 - The Bust
12:05 - The Contamination
15:13 - The EPA
18:12 - The Silent Poison
22:19 - The Buyouts
27:26 - The Danger
31:11 - The Disaster
33:31 - The Hope
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Camera: Will Reich

Drone Footage:

Photos:
Picher, Oklahoma: Catastrophe, Memory, and Trauma - Todd Stewart, Alison Fields
Quapaw Tribal Museum

▬▬FURTHER WATCHING/READING▬▬
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[seeingtheforest]

Can a man love his country and simultaneously be *utterly disgusted* by it?

[witchy]

The fact that Senator Inhofe didnt want to do anything until he had to, and that he was a senator until he resigned this year (in 2023) really says a lot about politics.

[farrahupson]

For anyone who is disgusted by Senator Inhofe's role in this story: Please consider (and tell everyone you can, whenever you can) that the problem is MONEY IN POLITICS. Americans need to accept that we need to remove money from the political equation if we want to keep this story from happening again, and it will solve most of our problems. Term limits will not be effective. We need a Constitutional amendment requiring publicly-funded (only) elections. No more campaign contributions. Our representatives need to represent the people, not the few that give them big donations.

[Entwife]

What a sad testimony of rampant greed. The land taken from the Quapaw tribe, completely trashed, made toxic then given back to them. Inhofe is an abomination.

[VidGirl]

The fact that Inhofe did everything he could to serve himself while callously destroying others is atrocious. What a subhuman.

[tessybest]

I grew up right outside of Pitcher, my family farm is 10 miles away. My father, 2 of his brothers and my grandfather all died from the same cancer that manifested as a lump on the jugular. My father and 2 of his sisters survived breast cancer. Genetic testing proved it was environmental. I am 50 and lived there from 5-12. I swam. in the pits and got the chemical burns (we always thought they were sunburns), road our 3 wheelers on the Chat piles. We had no idea.

[christic]

My grandpa had lived there during his childhood. He told me about playing on the huge piles as a kid, he was telling me how the kid he was playing with ended up falling into the pile. They weren't able to get the kid out. He told me it had happened a couple times through the years. Him and his sisters all died in the same year due to lung cancer, pretty sure it was due to growing up in Picher. His grandfather, so my great-great-grandfather was a miner who had saved some other miners during a cave in. Apparently there was a memorial to those who died and my great great grandfather was considered a hero. I never been in Picher but i know a lot of my family history comes from there.

[LOCKnLOAD]

Now retired, with James Inhofe being the longest serving US senator (1994-2023) from Oklahoma is a tragedy in itself !!!

[robertfolkner]

Inhofe is a fine example— of why you should never put anyone in a position of public trust who cannot personally be trusted.

[LuteaNelum]

Ok, if there is anything I learned from this, its that James Inhof is one truly horrible man.

It's a damn shame he will never be held accountable for the destruction he turned a blind eye too.

[anitaheubel]

How many people in such affected areas were pronounced as “imbeciles “ by Eugenicists in the past, and locked up in institutions to be experimented on, just because they suffered industrial poisoning….

Thank you ever so much for this superb documentary 💐

[Kat-zhpv]

I'm from Picher and I was in the tornado as a child (now in Miami), I've watched a lot of documentaries on Picher and in this one, I actually learned things I didnt know about the town history/governmental business. Thanks for your great video!

[kmrfbpc]

Sounds about right...find a way to take the Quapaw's' land, desecrate it, and give it back for cleanup. Thanks for sharing the well told story.

[dark_attribute]

I've grown up in the area, about 20-30 minutes out from Pitcher. It is just awful. Hearing Inhofe claim that manmade pollution is a myth while children just a short drive from home were dying from lead poisoning brings anger that is hard to describe. I hope that the situation with chairman Inhofe sheds some light on the wider problem of corporations funding politics.

[RyanHarris]

When you covered the tornado disaster, my first thought was the toxic metal in the soil became airborne and scattered to the wind. Was there any measurable impact from the tornado making the particles airborne and spreading the toxic metals around?

[addisonraeisfat]

it’s crazy seeing this finally get attention when it’s never talked about around here anymore

[jonkeau]

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Pitcher Oklahoma and the Tar Creek Superfund were an entire chapter in our school’s required state history classes.

[who]

Ya know, until now I had never heard of this place. Could you do more on each of the Superfund Sites America has within the United States? I would like to know how much America still doesn't learn from it's mistakes and how much gaslighting and denial is still being used as the go to tool upon the long suffering public.

[KnKs]

I remember as a kid and an adult driving past the chat piles in Pitcher Oklahoma, and watching this video brings back memories. We always knew that it was an EPA worst site, but just not to this level. I had no idea about the story of the Quapaw Indian trip, and the terrible things the US Government put them through. My father in law told me stories years ago about him driving a dump truck for a 2nd job when my wife was a baby, and entering mines in SE Kansas and driving miles and coming out in Oklahoma. He mentioned driving past creeks that we all rust colored. You have to wonder how Miami and Grand Lakes toxicity levels are today verses 10 years ago, and what direction that toxicity levels are moving.
Thank you

[christianbenedetti]

I'm in Australia, this film made me cry