The EPA has started surveying those Oklahomans who live and work around the Tar Creek Superfund site in an attempt to learn how their lives are being affected by the environmental dangers.
The EPA’s Technical Assistance for Communities group, TASC, started making inquiries about how much fish the residents eat and how much they play in the local waters, according to the Tulsa World.
The survey wanted to know how much fish was eaten by the residents and how long adults and children swam or waded in the site-impacted rivers. On average, the residents ate 61.6 grams of fish a day. They also spent an average of one hour or 28 days a year swimming and wading in the waters.
Rebecca Jim of the Local Environmental Action Demanded or LEAD explained, “The EPA uses a formula to determine human health risk, and this was an opportunity residents to say if it was accurate and if not to give information that could support making ity more protective.”
LEAD is a nonprofit formed in 1997 and designed to educate the community about environmental hazards.
The EPA also plans to use the public comments to ensure the local uses of the rivers and streams are accounted for when the cleanup goals for Tar Creek are developed.