10—That's a Lot of Lead
The RPA Leased Area is scheduled to reopen this Friday.
The north side of the west cofferdam for the Zink Dam development, seen from the River Parks Authority (RPA) Leased Area on Jan. 13, 2021. Josh Miller, program officer with George Kaiser Family Foundation, said the outflow into the river was removing seepage and rainwater from the construction area inside the cofferdam. Video credit: Molly Bullock
Most Tulsans don’t know that a stretch of River Parks belongs to HF Sinclair Tulsa Refining LLC, the owner of two active petroleum refineries along the Arkansas River.
Before the area became a staging lot for the city’s construction projects in the river, the original pedestrian bridge took you there.
To move from the sanctuary of the old bridge to the “RPA Leased Area,” as it’s called in refinery reports, was to be transported. Dappled light and the rhythmic thrum of the boards delivered you down a concrete ramp into a sun-bleached landscape.
With sparse vegetation, no public facilities and an industrial tank farm just over the fence, this part of the trail between the old bridge and West 25th Street tended to feel both isolating and ambiguous.
Between the tank farm and the recreational trail, a distance of a few hundred feet, a greenbelt conceals a landfill for historical refinery waste.1 Ten or fifteen feet below, a hydrocarbon plume floats on the groundwater.
Hazards like benzene, napthalene and methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) turn up in monitoring wells across the refinery and next to the trail, located just across the river from Gathering Place.
In May 2024, HF Sinclair revealed that the RPA Leased Area was not brought up to recreational standards for toxic waste and industrial contamination until 2018.
The City of Tulsa and River Parks Authority (RPA) have leased the area from the refinery for public use since 1977.2
Subsurface samples of the leased area (more than 2 feet below ground) in 2017 showed 14 contaminants exceeding screening levels for residential soil.
This included Mercury at concentrations as much as 1,655 times typical levels for the Tulsa area.
Industrial hazards turn up in places you might not expect. At the Tulsa refineries, they can migrate in the soil, volatilize into the air, and runoff or travel subsurface into the Arkansas River.
West Bank Soccer Complex sits about 200 feet southeast of a waste field (called a land treatment unit, or LTU) at HF Sinclair’s East refinery.
Roger Bush, executive director of Tulsa Field Sports Alliance, said his organization drilled irrigation wells at the complex in 2013 because they were trying to save money on their water bill. The group manages the complex under an agreement with River Parks Authority.
In a phone interview July 29, 2022, Bush said neither River Parks Authority nor Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) warned him of potential refinery contamination when they gave him permission to drill the wells.
Bush said Tulsa Field Sports Alliance was preparing to raise funds for a system to pump and filter the well water when the refinery reached out to him and Matt Meyer at River Parks Authority to share water testing results.
“They've assured us that there is nothing that is too terribly dangerous, I guess you could say, inside the water,” Bush said. “But that there might be some minimal contamination.”
“And so what was their guidance about that?” I asked.
“Their primary guidance was to not draw water from the wells to use it to irrigate,” Bush said. “Or to make sure that it was not in proximity or contact with any people.”3
Contamination has also been found in the RPA Leased Area.
In 2017, the refinery reported “a few localized surface waste expressions” at the site, “predominantly” between the fenced landfill and the River Parks trail.
The report noted that the expressions “tend to be ‘tarry’ in nature and usually under a foot in diameter.”
I asked Matt Meyer about these incidents in July 2022. At the time, Meyer was outgoing executive director of River Parks Authority.
Meyer said he “vaguely” recalled the issue with the wells at the soccer fields but did not review monitoring reports for the refineries. He said he was not aware of the tarry waste in the leased area.
“I’m not terribly surprised,” Meyer said. “But there’s no reason why they should tell me.”
I later learned that River Parks Authority uses groundwater to irrigate River West Festival Park, the longtime venue of Oktoberfest. The park sits a little over half a mile upstream of the RPA Leased Area and about the same distance from either refinery.
Maple Ridge resident and geologist Shane Matson was riding his bike through the newly renovated festival park in April 2016 when he first noticed that the light poles were pitted and rusting and the concrete stained reddish-brown.
In September of that year, the sprinklers along the eastern edge of the park were running when Matson passed through with his wife, the artist Wendeline Matson, and their two sons.
Matson recounted their observations to his former neighbor Michael Overall, who wrote for Tulsa World until 2023.
“Wendy and I both smelled live oil,” Matson said in the Sept. 21, 2016 email. “All of the new trees that have been planted in the park are dying.”
Matson returned to the park with Guy de Verges, a geologist and environmental consultant to industrial clients in the West Tulsa area since 1992.
In a phone interview July 24, 2024, de Verges said he detected “a slight hydrocarbon smell” coming from the irrigation.
“You could tell it wasn't fresh water,” de Verges said. “We were surprised, and shocked [at] the poor planning and that nobody had noticed. … It was pretty obvious to me what was going on.”
Matson and de Verges spoke with a facility employee and confirmed their suspicion that River Parks was using the groundwater.
“I said, ‘How deep are your wells?’” de Verges said. “And he said, ‘Oh, I think they're about 25 feet.’ Twenty-five feet, you're not gonna get clean water anywhere in the city of Tulsa. Certainly not in West Tulsa. … In general, you never want to use shallow groundwater anywhere, in any city.”
State law requires a permit from OWRB to irrigate more than 3 acres using stream water or groundwater. (River West Festival Park has 10 or more acres of permeable area.)
Janet Kendall, who has worked for River Parks Authority since its inception in 1974, said in recent emails that financial records showed three irrigation wells were drilled at the festival park in 1989.
“Back in those days, in addition to Oktoberfest and 4th of July drawing large crowds to Festival Park, RPA did a booming business in outdoor concerts and had a summer movie series,” Kendall said. “With the heavy foot traffic and hot Oklahoma summers, the grass really struggled over there.”
Kendall said irrigating with municipal water cost more than River Parks Authority could afford.
If the agency obtained permits for the 1989 wells, Kendall didn’t find them. She said founding director Jackie Bubenik, who died in 2018, “would have been the person involved.”
“I don’t see any indication that there was a file created for those wells,” Kendall said.4
Four new, unpermitted wells were drilled in 2014 or 2015 during the city’s renovation of River West Festival Park.5
In an Aug. 7, 2024 email, Meyer said River Parks Authority “couldn't afford City water for irrigation, so the wells were the next best option.”
“I don't know what (if any) permits were required,” Meyer said. “I do recall that OSU tested the water and they said it was fine for irrigation in spite of the stain it leaves.”
Records show that Oklahoma State University Extension conducted $15 worth of water quality testing for irrigation at the festival park in 2014.6
As the cost suggests, the tests looked at basic parameters, not refining and industrial hazards. De Verges reviewed the results to confirm.
“These results would not provide any usable info on industrial activity,” de Verges said in an email.
De Verges said groundwater down to about 500 feet below the surface (considered “shallow”) takes pollutants from aging sanitary sewers, stormwater, and historic contamination.
He said the groundwater beneath River West Festival Park “is probably contaminated with residue from industry.”
Matson and de Verges said the wells might also be coming into contact with one of the natural oil seeps known to occur along the river.
In an email, Matson expressed dismay at “illegal water wells ruining a multi-million dollar municipal investment.”
De Verges said it’s hard to know the potential health risks of exposure to the compromised groundwater without testing it.
“The chances of having historical impact in West Tulsa, in that area, is high, let's put it that way,” de Verges said. “Much of the contamination in West Tulsa is a soup of things that have gotten into the groundwater over the last hundred years. But a lot of them are things that individuals wouldn't notice.”
Greenish foam, oily slicks and noxious odors have been observed in this part of the Arkansas River for decades. Yet the City of Tulsa planned the Zink Dam development, sold it to voters and began working in the river without educating the public about the risks of exposing construction workers and park users to industrial contamination.
To reduce the amount of oil seeping into Zink Lake, HF Sinclair capped about 250 feet of shoreline below Zink Dam in 2022 and about 800 feet above it in 2024. The new concrete river banks are easy to spot if you’re looking from Gathering Place.
The caps were not the result of planning by the city. Rather, they are part of an iterative, long-term process of managing hazardous waste to meet federal requirements.
Additionally, HF Sinclair built the caps well into construction of the new Zink Dam. The corporation expedited and installed the second cap after the city’s cofferdam had been moved to the east half of the riverbed, requiring further disruption of the river.
At a meeting about the caps on May 22, 2024, HF Sinclair and Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) inadvertently acknowledged that the RPA Leased Area (the location of the north cap) was not brought up to recreational standards until 2018 despite public use since the late ‘70s.
The revelation followed comments by Arsin Sahba, corporate environmental specialist for the refinery, that the public could return to the leased area now that the caps were complete.
I asked Sahba about the tarry surface waste from 2017 and the leased area’s proximity to the adjacent refinery landfill, called Solid Waste Management Unit H (SWMU-H, pronounced Shmoo-H).
Sahba replied that HF Sinclair “got this River Parks area cleaned up to a recreational standard” since the tarry waste incidents.7
“Actually, a residential standard,” Sahba said. “Which is even stricter than a recreational standard.”
Hillary Young, chief engineer for DEQ’s Land Protection Division, clarified that the cleanup only extended “to 2 feet below the surface.”
“To clarify, you brought all of SWMU-H up to residential standards down to 2 feet?” I asked.
“No,” Young said. “The part of the area where the public has access.”
“Well, but that’s right by SWMU-H,” I said. “I mean the trail literally runs along that—”
“SWMU-H is, I believe, to industrial levels, right?” Young asked.
“Yeah, it’s fenced off,” Sahba said. “There’s no access to the public.”
“And there’s no access,” Young said. “There should be no public access to SWMU-H. There should be no members of the public [accessing] SWMU-H.”
“The fence was temporarily moved during construction and will go back up before Labor Day,” Sahba added.
Brookside resident Jonathan Pinkey, a musician and cancer survivor, told Sahba he’s ridden his bike and walked in the leased area for decades.
“Are you basically saying that it didn’t used to be up to a recreational standard in that area?” Pinkey asked. “And if that’s true, how long was that the case? What kind of risks have members of the public, possibly including myself, already been exposed to before this hard work to get it up to a recreational standard? Do you know that?”
Sahba did not specify the risks to River Parks users.
“No, when we go through this process, the data we collect is the data at that time,” Sahba said. “And then we move through the process with DEQ to get it to that standard.”
“So you don’t know,” Pinkey said.
“Before we did our testing, I—you know, we—we really didn’t have any data,” Sahba said later.
Sahba’s statements do not reflect the extent of the corporation’s knowledge of refinery hazards.8
In 2017, HF Sinclair found 11 contaminants above screening levels for residential soil in surface soils (0 to 2 feet deep) at the RPA Leased Area.
The highest concentration of lead detected in 2017 equated to more than a sweetener packet of lead in a loaf pan of soil.9
One sweetener packet of lead is enough to contaminate the area of a football field with more than twice EPA’s current limit for lead dust on floors.10
Because no amount of lead exposure is safe for children, EPA has proposed lowering the hazard standard to zero.11
Although Mercury did not exceed screening levels for residential soil, the highest concentration detected in surface soils in 2017 was 450 times what is typical in the Tulsa area.
In an email, communications staff at DEQ said the agency “does not recommend nor prescribe the use of constituent concentration multiples nor maximums to describe or characterize environmental risk.”
However, DEQ affirmed that findings like these point to the need for further investigation, which subsequently occurred.
De Verges said my characterizations of the data were “fair” and worth sharing with the public.
He said the implied health risks of such findings depend on factors like how close to the surface the varying concentrations were, and the extent of an individual’s exposure.
For instance, whether you dug in the soil, breathed in construction dust when earth was disturbed, or came into contact with tarry surface waste.
“We just don't know, because we don't know the [exact] depth,” de Verges said. “And exposure is based on concentration, how you're exposed to it, and the length of time that you're exposed.”
“But,” de Verges said, “that said, that's a lot of lead. … It would've been nice to know that this was not a place that you would want to spend a lot of time.”
Subsurface samples of the leased area (more than 2 feet below ground) in 2017 showed 14 contaminants exceeding screening levels for residential soil.
This included Mercury at concentrations as much as 1,655 times typical levels for the Tulsa area.
According to DEQ, HF Sinclair determined in a 2020 risk assessment that subsurface soil remediation was not necessary in the RPA Leased Area due to the current land use and institutional controls for excavation.
However, DEQ noted in an Aug. 15, 2024 email that the institutional controls for excavation had not been finalized or approved by DEQ.
At the May 22, 2024 community meeting, I asked Sahba whether the cleanup ensures that tarry waste will not continue to appear in the leased area.
Sahba said they “haven’t seen any since [2017]” but offered no guarantees it won’t happen again.
“You know, we’re—you know, in that area, we’re doin’ our part,” Sahba said. “And we’re committed to the community. This area does have public access through a lease with the River Parks. … And through that risk assessment [and cleanup], DEQ approved our conclusion that [the RPA Leased Area] is safe for recreational use.”
I sent the following questions to HF Sinclair Aug. 16, 2024:
Did HF Sinclair collect and analyze soil samples from the RPA Leased Area at any point before 2017?
Does HF Sinclair have soil data from the RPA Leased Area from any point before 2017 (for example, from previous owners)?
When did HF Sinclair determine that the RPA Leased Area was not up to recreational standards?
Did this determination result in closure of the River Parks trail in the leased area? If so, during what timeframe? If not, why not?
Did HF Sinclair notify River Parks Authority, Tulsa County, City of Tulsa or any entities other than DEQ of its determination that the RPA Leased Area was not up to recreational standards, and the specific findings in the leased area?
If so, how and when did HF Sinclair share this information, and with whom?
Aug. 20, 2024, communications manager Leslie Ellis replied.
“Can you please confirm which land you are referring to?” Ellis wrote.
“The RPA Leased Area,” I said. “The area leased to River Parks Authority, immediately upstream of Zink Dam.”
“Thanks for clarifying,” Ellis replied the following day. “As part of historical operations, we have monitored and sampled our property, including the RPA Leased Area, in accordance with ODEQ's requirements. These records are available from ODEQ.”
I also sent questions to Matt Meyer, who has not replied, and Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum:
Are you aware of HF Sinclair's determination (in what appears to be the 2017-2018 timeframe) that the RPA Leased Area was not up to recreational standards for industrial contamination, and the resulting soil remediation that occurred in 2018?
Are you aware of what HF Sinclair found in the RPA Leased Area during that investigation?
Did you share any of this information (the determination it was not up to recreational standards, or what HF Sinclair found) with city councilors, other officials, or the public?
If so, where and when did you share this information, and with whom? If not, why not?
Did any of the above information result in trail closures at the RPA Leased Area? If so, during what timeframe(s)? If not, why not?
Aug. 21, 2024, City of Tulsa Communications Director Michelle Brooks replied that “we do not have a comment at this time.”
Next: The City of Tulsa began sharing the results of nominal testing for refinery contamination in Zink Lake in January 2024. The city tests for Cadmium, a highly toxic metal, and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH), a general way to detect the presence of hydrocarbons found in crude oil.
Sampling occurs just once per month, with results taking a minimum of 4 to 5 days for Cadmium, and 10 to 14 days for TPH to be posted online.
Previously:
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If you’re new to Watershed, start at the beginning:
The landfill, one of several throughout the refinery, is called a solid waste management unit, or SWMU (pronounced Shmoo). It measures roughly 200 feet wide (east-west) by 2,000 feet long.
Oct. 28, 2022, in his first week at River Parks Authority, Executive Director Jeff Edwards said he was “not familiar yet with the arrangement, or who owns what, or any of that” with regard to the RPA Leased Area.
“That portion of land is gonna be instrumental,” Edwards said in a phone interview, referring to recreation access in the Zink Dam area.
Edwards said he had a meeting scheduled with HF Sinclair for the following week. I asked whether anyone had talked to him about the contaminants detected in monitoring wells at the site.
“No,” Edwards said. “Nobody’s made a peep on that one yet.”
Edwards also said he was not familiar with offsite consequences.
Bush did not respond to an Aug. 5, 2024 email requesting details about the planned overhaul of the soccer complex.
OWRB’s groundwater well mapping tool shows three River Parks Authority irrigation wells on the west bank dated Sept. 5, 1980. I have not verified that those are the same wells described in an April 8, 1982 Tulsa Tribune article by Stephen J. Logue titled, “Walls to block oil seepage,” but it seems likely:
In summer 1980, Bubenik’s agency drilled wells seeking water during a hot summer when water was being rationed; the drillers of wells near the Sun Co. refinery [now the HF Sinclair West refinery], also in the west bank, struck gasoline and other refined petroleum products a dozen feet below the surface.
Michael Crumb, director of operations for River Parks Authority, said the new wells were drilled because the older wells did not work with the new design of the park.
In an Aug. 13, 2024 email, Janet Kendall said the new wells were not part of the city’s construction contract for the renovation. Kendall said River Parks Authority paid for the wells with private funds from the River Parks Foundation.
Crumb said he did not remember why River Parks coordinated and paid for the wells.
“I know we arranged for the guy to come out and do it,” Crumb said, adding that the drilling business owner, Mickey Moore, died in 2023.
The City of Tulsa located no files or correspondence about the wells in response to an Oklahoma Open Records Act request. OWRB also did not have record of the wells.
Edwards said the results were the only electronic record he found related to testing performed at River West Festival Park.
Crumb said many of River Parks Authority’s records from 2015 are not digital. He said he did not know whether additional testing occurred.
According to DEQ, HF Sinclair performed surface soil remediation in 2018. I have not fully reviewed or vetted documentation of the remediation work.
DEQ did not indicate that HF Sinclair collected and analyzed soil samples from the RPA Leased Area before 2017. However, studies since 2007 have produced “soil and groundwater data from a multitude of locations” at the refinery, including SWMU-H, according to a 2019 report.
Additionally, HF Sinclair submits groundwater monitoring reports to DEQ twice a year.
I have not reviewed HF Sinclair’s soil data from subsequent years.
The highest concentration of lead reported in surface soils at the RPA Leased Area in 2017 was 1,250 mg (1.25 grams) of lead per kg: about 21 times typical levels for Tulsa.
In 2023, the EPA proposed lowering the hazard standard for lead dust on floors from 10 micrograms per square foot to any amount above zero, and the lead remediation standard from 10 micrograms per square foot to 3 micrograms per square foot.
One sweetener packet of lead distributed across the area of a football field would exceed the proposed hazard standard many times over.
So frustrating that we have to live with the status quo of refinery pollution and then folks complain about the environmental impacts of mining for clean energy technologies (solar, batteries, etc.). You said it in an earlier article that this is a massive superfund site yet to be classified. 100%.
They should be testing on the other side of the river also given all the flooding in the leased area. They would have had to have done soil testing to build the GP, unless of course money/politics/expediency got that waived (happens). I wonder if the building permit exists (aren't those public record?) to show what they found or if there was a granted waiver?
Another great, technical piece.