Barbara VanHanken

My chosen lifestyle has a rich and healthy understanding of the environment including wildlife and plant life. I am all about being outdoors.  Sierra Club became my adult educator about the importance of the need for balance in our global ecosystem including its relationship to humankind. I have spent many years working to stop the senseless destruction of our natural environment.  Economics and the industrial age have created an opposition to the value of preserving nature. 

This has now gone too far and we must restore balance in our human interactions with nature or succumb to dangerous and life-threatening industrial pollution.  The Arkansas River has been in my life since childhood.  I have lived most of my life in Tulsa and after a few years away, on my return, I could see an immediate difference in the color of the sky and the addition of allergies.  Tulsa is now a center for poor air quality and poor water quality in the Arkansas River due to over 100 years of abuse by the fossil fuel industry including other industries and economic development.  Restoring the quality of the Arkansas River water is a touchstone for me to know it is not too late for our city, our state, and our planet.