Duncan Residents Say Halliburton Hasn’t Done Enough to Clean Pollution from Plant

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Halliburton Co. has spent more than $25 million responding to pollution found at its old plant in Duncan, where the company had Cold War-era defense contracts to clean fuel from spent missile casings, The Oklahoman’s Brianna Bailey reports.

Water and soil contaminated with ammonium perchlorate has been discovered near the Osage Road plant, as have small amounts of radioactive contamination. The company has spent at least $4.3 million to purchase at least 15 homes, paid the city of Duncan $1.6 million to extend a municipal water line to serve about 90 homes, and has bought pallets of bottled water for local residents, Bailey reports.

The company hasn’t been fined by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality because it has agreed to voluntarily clean up the site, but local residents say Halliburton hasn’t done enough:

Today, [Voris “PeeWee] Owens keeps all of his pill bottles in a gallon-size bag in his yellow kitchen on Quail Drive. The prescriptions include medication for hypothyroidism. Charlotte Owens has liver and colon cancer.

PeeWee Owens blames the well water and Halliburton for his dead fish, for his wife’s cancer and all the pills he takes.