BY JOHN DAVID SUTTER
Published: October 3, 2008
COMMERCE — A University of Oklahoma researcher is shifting Mother Nature into overdrive in an effort to clean up toxic mining waste in the northeast corner of Oklahoma. Bob Nairn, an associate professor of civil engineering and environmental science, has developed a system to filter metal-contaminated stream water from abandoned mines at the Tar Creek Superfund site through a series of natural treatment ponds and wetlands. The water comes into the system looking neon orange — contaminated with lead, iron, zinc and cadmium from underground mines in the area — but leaves clear, he said. And no chemicals or fossil fuels are used in the process.
“Natural chemistry and biology does the work for us if we harness it correctly,” said Thomas Landers, dean of OU’s college of engineering. Bacteria, oxygen and cattail reeds help suck dangerous metals out of the water.
The $1 million project, which is under construction and should be running in a month, was funded through 2004 federal appropriations. But even if it’s successful, it won’t be included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to clean up the former mining district, which is among the nation’s largest and most polluted.
The EPA’s latest cleanup plan, which totals $167 million, won’t include the research unless major changes or amendments are made, said Dave Bary, an EPA spokesman in Dallas. Bary declined to elaborate as to why the idea wasn’t included.
Nairn said the EPA in the 1980s did some work to prevent water pollution in the area, but that pollution still is occurring. This technology wasn’t available then, but should be used now because it’s available, he said. At the very least, he said, the research will help improve cleanup at other polluted mines.