Abandoned Tar Creek Superfund Site: Picher, Oklahoma

America's Most Toxic Ghost Town. This is Picher, Oklahoma! It used to be a center of lead and zinc production in the Tri-State Mining District but over 100 years of unrestricted digging dangerously undermined most of Picher's town buildings and left huge piles of toxic metal-contaminated tailings piled throughout the area. The discovery of the cave-in risks, groundwater contamination and health effects associated with the chat piles and subsurface shafts—particularly an alarming 1996 study which showed lead poisoning in 34% of the children in Picher — eventually prompted a mandatory evacuation and buyout (via eminent domain) of the entire township by the EPA at Tar Creek.
In today’s video we explore this abandoned town and see what is left of this once bustling mining community.