Thursday, December 18, 2003

Tar Creek

Wow! The Tulsa World is all over US Senator Jim Inhofe on his opposition to buying out the residents of Superfund Site Tar Creek. The World has run a five-part series on the controversy and at least two editorials in recent days. According to the World Inhofe wants to spend $45 million more to try to clean up the site or sell the homes to some company that for some unexplained reason wants to buy homes in a Superfund site. Governor Henry seems to want the feds to buy out the Tar Creek residents but Inhofe says the Governor doesn't really want that. Congressman Brad Carson (who is running against Inhofe's buddy, Kirk Humphries, for US Senate) also wants a buyout for the residents.

The very suspicious part of this story is how Inhofe brought Bush's new Secretary of the EPA into the Tar Creek site the day before Thanksgiving - all in secrecy and without meeting with any of the locals - because Inhofe didn't want them embarrassing the new EPA chief. Like that's the most important thing to worry about while hundreds of families are living in a toxic waste site.

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