The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state officials will commemorate the end of major cleanup efforts of some 3,000 yards, parks, driveways and alleyways in nine communities that lie in or near the Tar Creek Superfund site.
But some environmental agencies say it could take decades longer before the area in northeastern Oklahoma is completely remediated.
Monday's event in Ottawa County will mark the $60 million remediation work done in the towns of Afton, Commerce, Fairland, Miami, Narcissa, North Miami, Peoria, Quapaw and Wyandotte.
Decades of lead and zinc mining gutted the area's landscape and produced tons of a hazardous byproduct called chat.
Cleanup of the Tar Creek site — once considered among the most polluted places in the country — has been roughly 30 years in the making.
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