SURFACE-WATER AND SEDIMENT QUALITY IN TAR CREEK, NEOSHO RIVER AND SPRING RIVER, NORTHEAST OKLAHOMA, 2004-05

The Picher mining district in northeastern Oklahoma was the site of extensive zinc and lead mining from about 1900-1970. Open mineshafts and fully exposed “chat” or “tailings” piles subject the area's surface water to potential trace metal contamination. The Grand-Neosho River Basin carries water from the mining district directly into Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, raising concerns about the water quality of Grand Lake. The United States Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe and the Wyandotte Nation, collected high flow water-quality and bed sediment data from Tar Creek, Spring River, and Neosho River to characterize water and sediment quality entering Grand Lake O' the Cherokees. Water samples were analyzed for physical properties, major ions, and dissolved and total metals. Sediment samples were analyzed for metals only. Unfiltered water-quality samples contained concentrations of lead ranging from less than 10 to 152 micrograms per liter and zinc concentrations ranging from 7 to 3,100 micrograms per liter. Cadmium concentrations were below detectable limits in most of the samples collected from the Spring and Neosho River sites, but ranged from less than 5 to 15 micrograms per liter at the Tar Creek sites. Bed sediment samples contained larger concentrations of aluminum, iron, zinc and manganese than other constituents. Lead concentrations in the samples ranged from less than 10 milligrams per kilogram to 262 milligrams per kilogram. Fourteen sediment cores were also collected from the Tar Creek floodplain at Tar Creek near 22nd Street Bridge, Miami, OK. All of the core samples had detectable concentration of aluminum, barium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese, nickel and zinc. Twelve sediment cores had mean lead concentrations of 15 to 29 milligrams per kilogram but two cores, collected near a slough on the west side of Tar Creek, had mean lead concentrations of 147 and 518 milligrams per kilogram.