{"id":18458,"date":"2014-02-13T06:15:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T12:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=18458"},"modified":"2014-02-13T07:08:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T13:08:16","slug":"cleanup-of-hazardous-oklahoma-refinery-site-went-unfunded-until-people-moved-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/02\/13\/cleanup-of-hazardous-oklahoma-refinery-site-went-unfunded-until-people-moved-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleanup of Hazardous Oklahoma Refinery Site Went Unfunded Until People Moved In"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tyler<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Tyler Lane pulls up a wooden marker covered with oily sludge in the land behind his Bristow home. Lane uses stakes and rope to keep his two children out of the oiliest, most dangerous parts of his property, which sits atop the abandoned Wilcox Refinery, Oklahoma\u2019s newest Superfund site.<\/p>\n<\/div>

You can\u2019t see it from street, or when you look out the window of Glen Jones’ parents\u2019 house, but the Wilcox Refinery is still here. Parts of it, anyway.<\/p>

In December 2013, the abandoned refinery complex near Bristow became Oklahoma\u2019s newest federal Superfund site<\/a>. The Wilcox Refinery closed more than 50 years ago, but lead and other toxic chemicals remain, and residents are uneasy about the long cleanup ahead.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality<\/p>\n

The Wilcox and Lorraine refineries operated at the 125-acre Bristow Superfund site. The complex was abandoned in 1963. The cleanup was crude, and much of the oily sludge, waste and equipment was simply buried.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Complex Cleanup<\/h4>

\u201cSee the black stuff all over the rocks and all over the leaves,” Jones says, walking alongside a creek bed behind the modest home. “Kinda looks like crude, don\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>

The complex was home to the Wilcox and Lorraine refineries and opened shortly after statehood.\u00a0The small town, now home to about 4,200, welcomed the jobs and the refineries’ role in helping bring to market the riches of Oklahoma\u2019s first oil boom.<\/p>

The refinery was employing about 75 locals who were helping process about 5,500 barrels of oil a day when it closed in the mid-\u201850s. Another oil company bought the refinery with the hopes of re-opening it, but gave up, and the site was abandoned in 1963.<\/p>

Efforts to decommission the complex \u2014 which included a cracking and skimming plant and batteries of storage tanks, and pits of oily sludge and waste \u2014 were, in a word, crude.<\/p>

“They said the tanks were here, and they just bulldozer-ed over the top of them,” Jones says, pointing out corroded metal pipes poking out of the ground, and half-buried bits of rusting machine parts. “There\u2019s stuff all through this ground, we just don\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bristow<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Bristow residents packed the public library during a January 2014 town-hall meeting, where officials from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency explained the Superfund cleanup process and answered questions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“I\u2019ve had it all over me”<\/h4>

The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hosted a town hall at the Bristow Pubic Library in January to explain the Superfund cleanup process and answer questions.<\/p>

Residents packed the room and spilled into the library\u2019s foyer, where overflow seating was added. Monty Elder, public land participation officer with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, gave a presentation about the history of the Wilcox Refinery site, and detailed some of the site’s environmental hazards.<\/p>

When the refinery opened in 1915, the oil industry health officials “weren’t even aware of environmental problems,” she told the crowd.<\/p>

Worried residents, like Rachel Lane, took turns at the microphone. When Lane and her husband, Tyler, bought their home, they thought they were buying a farm \u2014 not a tank farm.<\/p>

“We\u2019ve got the actual sludge \u2014 or whatever you want to call it \u2014 coming up,\u201d Rachel says.<\/p>\n

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