KOAM TV 7 Joplin and Pittsburg News Weather SportsPicher chat piles may soon start shrinking
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Nearly two years ago the Environmental Protection Agency lifed its moratorium against buying chat off of tribal land in the northeast Oklahoma Superfund site.
On Tuesday, EPA officials, tribal members and local contractors met to discuss the next step of purchasing chat.
Dozens of paving and asphalt contracters filled a conference room at Downstream Casino and Resort, all very interested in buying the mining biproduct.
The Superfund site, located in northeast Oklahoma, has been an EPA priority since 1983.
Oklahoma universities in connection with the EPA has finished extensive research on the safety of chat piles.
The results show combining chat particles with asphalt is not dangerous to humans.
Quapaw tribal members will soon begin selling chat from property within the Superfund site.
Before they can sell the product, buyers must present a plan proving how they will safely transport and use the chat.
"It's sort of a misrepresentation that believe chat is a hazardous substance," says John Berrey, Chairman of the Quapaw Tribe. "Chat is a biproduct of a milling process that extracted lead, ore from the rock that was in the mines, and this is just sort of the leftover pieces of rock. But they are not really hazardous until they become super fine and get into the air and become dust."
Tonight on KOAM News at 6 we'll hear from one local paving contractor who is interested in buying chat from the Superfund sites and they have to do to keep their product safe.
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