he's totally. family. dynamic. among. the headlines here on r t and straight to live pictures for you two to rear a square in cairo where the egyptian army has launched a major was sold on protesters there almost a thousand of those rallying against the military rulers have already been injured in fierce clashes you can see still many people in attendance so though many squads of the military riot police there protesting the ongoing military rule that came in they protested on alstead former president hosni mubarak live pictures on arts. and other news that shaped this week clouds darken over the syrian government as the deadline set by the arab league to end the violence expires but president assad is

still defiant. and two months of corporate protests in america marked with thousands strong marches all over the u.s. with reports of heavy handed police. our special report tells a story of a town on the verge of an environmental disaster by the mining industry. we're right at the eight hundred thirty elevation level right here and a lot of. mine discharges are coming out. right at eight hundred foot. i. mean you can tell that when the red water mixes with a clear water that's the difference. although this looks clear it's still got a lot of metals in it because it's discharging out of the chaff. the sides of the mine that has the minerals that are submerged beneath the water and it's isolated

from oxygen oxygen is the key. there back when they first going up there was a lot of oxygen available in the mines and that was causing oxidation of the matter which in turn creates space for software so if you're a castle you have torque free which starts up in kansas runs through the mining belt becomes contaminated and down to that which is just south of picher it then runs on the east side of connors runs through the center of miami only into neo show river on into green light but you're safe been doing this since eighty three nothing but orange yucky smelly into. this watershed has been clocking five million gallons a day since there have been clocks and water rolls into the mines or slides off the

chap pilot flows out from the underground is real bad news. isaac newton says the reaction to the mining is a lifetime polluted water. and this mine system swallows any groundwater hole and then coughs up one's blood. look at these problems and say this has been here for a long time. it's not just twenty five years in superfund it's it's since money. and we all benefited from that money either directly or indirectly. it's a good thing for the united states but this is the legacy. kind of a obligation to fix. if you drive through picher right now and drive down the road nothing's changed nothing is really change so. they put us all the m.p.l. list it's a disgrace and it's sad. but no one has done anything about

the water. but i'm ashamed right now of the environmental protection agency the bureau of indian affairs with the part of the interior because they've spent all this time talking to us telling us you know what they think we want to hear but if you drive through pitcher and you drive down douse the road it looks the same as it did with it turned off the pope's the walk away no one cares about the people that live there this is not a safe place to live it's a good place there's good people here and it's not fit they've been whispers about buying this place out since it was named the superfund the ninety three i mean horrible water all of this mine waste direct danger to children if they can get the help they need it should have been easier to put a bio together whether it's a dioxin scare they want to build

a lake or highway somewhere buyouts happen all the time and human health dangers here seem to qualify plus starkey graydon said an ace in the hole oklahoma senior senator jim inhofe chair of the environmental and public works committee in the senate this committee over seas and directs the e.p.a. and in awful oversaw the committee as far as environmental bio money goes in half was the faucet you have a place like this in your home state you're sharing the kind of committee that can actually help people and you refuse well we could also know what he was going to the problem was that in office a soldier industry. fact is an awesome brother even used to work for the insurance agency owned by the mining company inhofe is indeed with polluters so he can't just order a buyout because that would prove this land is not fit for people and it's not fit and someone's got to pay for what got done and that could get expensive so they just pay in hope to make this buyout talk disappear and the citizens have to stay

well to prove that he was working for auto walk county folks he put together an eighteen million dollar cleanup plan to stand in for a buyout made everyone wait three years while he pulled it together he was going to move all the check they were in the math on the planet same day it was released if you're in fifty trucks a day all day it would take forty years just to move the check forty years doing that said would cost two hundred twenty five million not eighteen but complete by i was estimated at fifty million and everyone knows inhofe not much of a science man could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the american people i believe it is but it turned out he was no magic guy either i think came news that not even enough could spin if you got away from the minute and didn't hear new movies or

anything. else always a problem and he just said. and i am surprised that richard just feel you know they looked at water and i looked that way and all the trouble is they forgot to look at subsidence risk which is of course the undermining that goes along with hard rock market you know it turns out that the earliest significant undermined which really shouldn't be a surprise to anybody so state took out i don't know two hundred fifty million tons of or maybe more you know this underground mining was done sometimes clear up the worley of what. tree roots. when you have a several hundred foot mine room that's going almost a surface guess what. class on these days in battle and that you're seeing out there it's all wonder mind and pitcher and garden where people are live and they could wake up one day in their house that they collapsed in the moment.

they didn't care what they've done to the city. is just statement builders and i don't. think the publishing oh medium sized cave in now this is media. this is a song. and why it's the biggest cave in in the area that you're field right here with probably almost another hundred fifty thousand deeper than what the water is right now. but i think there is a public policy issue here. if you can account for all the risk of environmental side it should be in charge well i've been around these my whole lot of and i'm still scared i mean there's just there's just no forgiveness if anything happens around me. if you start going down it's it your history.

it sounds crazy but those holes are actually a blessing and state can afford to move everyone out and often already counted his gavel that the current problems weren't bad enough so things had to get worse to get anything done several areas collapse that summer on and off finally agreed to a study to prove the extent of the undermining. not that need to be proven another study felt exhausting you know it felt tired to have to prove that the land was actually undermined and more holes were coming but it was a material chance to get a buyout some nobody feeds this two million dollars starting. you can't ignore the there or what the data shows in regards to the severity of the underground mining that was done appear and cannot be disputed in any way

as we were able to get political support to evaluate their risk then it became obvious that people should live there and it's best for in the long run because not to worry about anymore kids mean to raise innocent. you know what we've got to put into it what we're doing is we are going in finding comparables outside the projects area. and you can keep in mind superfund site is a bigger area and the project there the project area is that area that i told you about the forty square mile area that was in that subsidence team study they're finding properties outside that area and then giving them comparable value for their property the trust has tried to make some provisions to make sure that everybody gets a minimal decent level of housing so in other words if you live in a in some standard housing we don't want to give you just enough money to go live in substandard housing and i am or somewhere else people get an appraisal and and i

don't care if you live in a five hundred thousand dollars house in a variable and you know i never thought my house was worth more than you know and so what i keep telling people is be realistic in reality if you took that house in the condition that it's in take it and stick it in my oklahoma can sign on the front yard how much do you really think you're going to get for that house kind of interesting we've been so busy trying to do the appraisal issues and those kind of things to get people that are very first values i mean that's our plan. but with any appraisal that everybody's happy with their phrase that. it's that it's a chance for these people that they really would never have otherwise i would not stay braced for my lot in fast here because had i feel like i got maybe a year or two years you know maybe not even had simply god but you know is that god made. when i write i hate to move you know you

stuff. keep stuff and just have to get rid of. different things that's about it it could be nice to have high sounds you know very i'm not a good take care of her and it's a hard thing you know so. yeah they much but it's home and it's got to be hard leaving home practically being made to leave this places are just on their health and their children so it's one of the property values but it's still home and once the bio reaches critical mass there won't be any more fire department any more polies any more electricity or water stores it'll just be paved country lined with rusted street signs and when you go through all that and are told the one place you can't live is home you deserve a buyout process that's dignified and clean so the trust was appointed to represent

the citizens during the buyout process they carry out orders from the federal government and appraisal issues and cut checks for the homes and i'm just making a little short statement i was offered fifteen dollars a square foot for my piece and there's no way that you can build i mean a storage space i know it's not our game it's just forty buildings and but it is nice i'm not there let it go look at it we're paying for my health and for the baseplate huge the gunshop the house the land three lots a need or and there's no way you go to mom and replace this for eighty thousand dollars is impossible. hundred two thousand the fair yes and i don't think i can actually go nine and replace it for one hundred. and i went through a lot of try to find out why they said well that's just what we have heard today that their prices are have been in business for twenty five years they should know

what they're doing. live below the dole. the appraisal company cinnabar services out of tulsa is doing shoddy work and the trust is panem one point eight million dollars to do shoddy work they're rude to the people they have consistencies and the trust will not hold them accountable. to listen i was sick and i i i listened what you guys listen we have people want to say this is not like the first by a well we did the same things we put something out for bid we hired a contractor we have gone and and gotten their appraisals and we've had that review i mean and i don't want to state the values are higher in this buyout than they were in the first one and what do you see in the news record here's today's news record trust the fans buy out approach the trust of circling the wagons

you know the tourist is supposed to take care of these people and they're not doing it how they're going to be people who feel like they were to more yes what i can do it sure is that there's been no conspiracy on the part of anyone to get higher values for certain people let me finish it well. look there is is a lot of innuendo and accusation and yet there is no proof. ok we're coming out on details rather than again hard work very have his lap siding hundred fifteen thousand. their houses all of them are very. probably failures. ok this house on the left longs to see and say rebates and they've been offered seventy thousand cinnabar said there is nothing wrong with

the beat appraisal so as user tress why did you not tell me we did we actually hear the really big but you didn't raise that doesn't mean that we get you just because we get worse about. there's something wrong with the later praising also listening to the same and. i don't know what that means we got three new top property it if it is significant that. marquee can make it mean tell me you didn't find anything wrong. thank you. the appraisers probably have a tough with this town there are some poor people here there are some bad looking homes and i'm sure those create some challenges you know missing sammy's house is the same size as the hearts missing sami's as much newer and even if you're blind

in a little crazy and think these homes are in similar condition and they can bedroom isn't a bedroom if it's not close to a bathroom there's still a forty five thousand dollar difference in a town where the average home is fifty eight grand that's almost the cost of a whole other house and this is the kind of appraisal work the trust stands behind it and they said mysie on her couch and say maybe we gave the cards too much i mean we made a mistake. and in the same breath order the thing missing sammy got a good run five thousand dollars if you're it's not a hollywood story where does this leave those who've already worked a lifetime and of course i'm ok i paid back a chapter eleven and ninety two years old. and once i did that it. jackie bird see and she called me the other day she's so worried about what she's that want she got not neighbors run across the street so she's god and she don't know

about her house since they offered two hundred two thousand on it i think she said tell me so i don't know russians who wonder. they offered eighty four years young jackie bears the twenty two thousand dollars for her home it doesn't matter what her home is like or can you move on that she says gentleman the purpose of this letter is to explain why i do not have a bill of sale but i was twenty one i bought my home in picher oklahoma in the fall of one thousand forty three from doing fields for three hundred seventy five dollars i've lived here for almost sixty three years and now almost eighty four years old and have lived in the neighborhood seventy seven years longer as far as i know than anyone now living or dead it is with much regret that i will have to leave my home at this late time in my life but i cannot stay without police protection sewer service utilities and safe neighbors please let me be among the

last to go. how do you expect an eighty year old woman and live in their house for sixty years who's on a fixed income. how do you expect her to move out of the superfund site out twenty thousand dollars and out you know it's easy for outsiders to live there are say oh my gosh a house in worth five thousand dollars that's right but that's a lady's home that's all she had us and you're going to take it away from her and you better make her get into it to get it out of here and the funny thing is we can meet here and spend seventy thousand dollars to dig up her yard but we can't give her another money to be about a town. you know when he was only three and he got her

after her this is what environmental problems look like her they look like people problems environmental problems are people problems as long as gravity still holds us here. they aren't separate you said your offer here. and these folks have been stolen from their land rate their names dragged through the mud they are tough as hell break everything else you can grab that these people ain't breaking on your science on your say so on your legislation of the month hell yes they get red headed mad when things seem counterfeit what else do you have and there ain't much. just your word or so and you're back. one hundred years later they're still here still fighting for their health and their cool spot of their. weather is fair weather again they are gone this will not be home anymore. and

a hundred years after the first pickaxe struck oklahoma go they're handing this place back to the quapaw appreciate your here's the worst superfund site in the country. thought group was already. you know just because the buyouts will all those who need to go over will be just. taken by these people out which is that what they're going to do but the tribes going to be here forever because the government's not going to give him any more land you can see that with all this mind why it's cover my hands capers really not used in the sixty's you go push through this procedure for to get out of that or lisa's you want to move you in also offered to put. him back in the mines. department of interior. stating.

there. were no longer really good for anything they were rooting for our culture or you know their purpose but the only economic derivative left. the gravel on the surface when they could sell the gravel when they started realizing that heavy metal than it was was environmentally hazardous parv interior realized that that's a liability since they manage the asset of the tribe if they allow that to be sold and they would incur liability because if this chat were sold and put somewhere else that place might become a superfund site they're lucky there's so little left today there's no telling what the epidemic would look like if there were five times as much lead poaching their young polluting creeks making the ground tremble but eighty years later there's that seventy five million times eighty years of kids gassing through struggling in

school. here gone this chad didn't just started the kids who tested i. read was here in mountains before anyone driving test. so not only is the chad left on the indian lady swear the tribal member can use the land then they found out they couldn't sell it either so their land became useless as a result the cats been just sitting here for eighty ninety one hundred years you know we're being restricted for more sales put them on indians or not this check causes lead poisoning that's not an opinion it ruins this very land that was given to the quapaw to replace what they gave up in the b i a made sure this jet stayed right here the v.a. said these are the people who are going to bleed because of this waste. what is now

so clear about this function is that damaging the land is not a separate act from damaging a culture. the whole reason that prepared from it gave me tried this way and was to replace the land where they came from you know that the quapaw tribe occupied most of what is now arkansas. you know and i feel bad for the people that are living over in picher. i feel bad that they're going to have to move i feel bad that they're going to have to be relocated but you know what paul posed in one leader council. so. it's giving bad out here. but not saying hardly any birds squirrels you know. darts you know i don't know what's going on here

this this is like rachel carson's nightmare today you know we're having a silent foer here and you know where are the birds where's the water live. just don't see this is really unusual i've never been on this river and seen it you can even hear a bird chirping you know. i think the worst story would have to be. so we're story would have to pick the kids we let slip through the cracks.

the kids. didn't get any help early on. because if you look back. look what i can still see history and if you talk to families. well those probes are here. and we didn't know. hundreds of towns and cities have managed even died when industry pulls up stakes but these downs in oklahoma began to die because industry arrived way back when it would have been impossible to know the dimension of destruction they'd be left with

or who would be hurt by it back then jobs trumped everything maybe they still do back then they had no concept of the future and now we are the heirs of our grandparents mess and here we are about the porch light on this town i mean more times when we strike lead or uranium or oil before there's no more country. for me.