Chat Heap – Picher Oklahoma

Picher OK is the historic center of the richest zinc and lead mines in America, fueling two Great Wars with munitions. Mining companies extracted billions, leaving little beyond rapacious rental agreements with Native People.

Today the Quapaw are left with a Superfund site, a scraped earth, and the remains of 70 million tons of tailings – cancerous chat, once used to top driveways and fill sandboxes. Chat was everywhere, and everyone was slowly becoming sick.

Reparations began in 1983, and continue through this day, yet the restoration of health is never repaid. The resulting relocation is a pattern continuing for almost 200 years.

Picher no longer exists as a community.