Catching up with the #Documentary TAR CREEK

While Netflix sometimes lacks in quality features, it has troves of fascinating documentaries, including the 2009 environmental cry of anger Tar Creek, about the human and geographical devastation wrought by lead and zinc mines in northeastern Oklahoma.

The town of Picher, which along with its residents and the relocated Quapaw tribe are the focus of the film, was officially dissolved this past week in a federal buyout action.



The film is extremely effective in showing the human costs of hell-bent expansion, stripping land for all its worth, the ongoing injustices upon Native Americans, and the extremely poor use of government action and money once a fix is decided. It combines excellent music by blues legend Watermelon Slim, damning geography lessons and gut-wrenching testimony by very eloquent witnesses. The film elevates them to speak widely on the horrible consequences of their region's lead-fueled "economic development".

All around the residents of this area, mine-depleted earth is cratering into war-scarred like horizons we may all eventually be gaping into.