It was their dream home, a newly built, 2,500-square-foot modern farmhouse with a playroom that Mitch and Kara Meredith had saved for 12 years to buy for their growing family. During construction, family members had written their favorite Bible verses on studs throughout the house. For four idyllic years on Darlene Lane, the couple hosted birthday parties for their two young daughters, who became fast friends with the other children in the recently built subdivision in Fort Gibson.

Then one evening last summer, five weeks after the couple’s third child was born, their bathroom flooded.

When their 7-year-old ran into the garage to report that water was all over the floor, Mitch assumed a pipe had burst, or perhaps the toilet was backed up.  

Then he entered the bathroom. A thick, black fluid with an oily sheen covered the floor. Kara yelled from their bedroom for him to come quickly; the same substance was flowing out of the floor next to their bed.

Mitch, along with several family members, fought the flood all night, vacuuming up the sludge and emptying buckets out the window. Black goo covered their arms. Shiny rainbow patterns covered their shoes. After pulling the bathtub away from the wall, Mitch saw that the substance was gushing through the house’s foundation. It was clear this wasn’t a plumbing problem.

Around 5 a.m., Mitch’s uncle turned to him. “I think this is oil,” he said. The family called the fire department, and Kara rushed their three children, including their infant, to her grandmother’s house.  

“And that’s the last time we got to be in our home,” Mitch said.

The Frontier and ProPublica’s reporting on oil and gas pollution in Oklahoma over the last year has shown how old oil wells abandoned by the industry pose severe public and environmental health risks. Officially, the state lists 19,000 orphan wells that state regulators are responsible for cleaning up, but the true figure is likely over 300,000, according to federal researchers. 

State records suggest that the Merediths’ house may have been built on top of an improperly plugged oil well drilled in the 1940s. And on that fateful Saturday last August, something woke it up. 

Mitch drilled a hole into his home’s concrete foundation in hopes of diverting the sludge out of the house and into the yard. It worked: The foul-smelling water began to pour out of the cavity, filling a deep trench they had dug. 

Many of their possessions were ruined. A strong smell of gas hung throughout the house, permeating clothes, sheets and mattresses. 

After leaving Darlene Lane, the family moved four times in four months — at times paying their mortgage and rent simultaneously. 

At the outset of the crisis, the family had pinned most of their hopes on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the regulatory agency responsible for overseeing oil and gas — including pollution from the industry and plugging old wells. They wanted the agency to figure out what happened — and help them clean it up. 

It did not take long for their hopes to transform into anger.

State regulators, according to the family, have done little to help them. 

“They wanted to act like it would go away,” Mitch said. 

In October, more than a month after the flooding began, Jeremy Hodges, the director of the commission’s oil and gas division, met with Mitch and Kara at the house. 

He told them that when his team stuck a gas reader into the hole in their bathroom floor, where the oily water continued to flow, it showed gas concentrations at explosive levels, according to a recording that the Merediths provided to The Frontier and ProPublica. 

The local public works authority had also brought out a gas reader. It found gas levels that constituted a “serious and immediate hazard,” according to a report. 

Old, unplugged wells — like the one that state records indicate is near or possibly under the Merediths’ house — are known to leak gas and toxic fluids. 

Hodges also told the couple that the agency would likely have to tear down the house to look for the well and plug it. Subsequent sampling conducted by the commission showed salt readings that suggested the presence of wastewater resulting from the production of oil and gas. Other testing by the state’s environmental quality department found elevated levels of heavy metals commonly found in oil field wastewater including barium and bromide. Mitch took his own samples and paid an environmental lab to test them. The results also pointed to oil and gas pollution.

But as the months wore on, the agency never stated explicitly that the mysterious substance contaminating the Merediths’ home was the byproduct of oil and gas production. It simply referred to the pollution as “water” in public statements. 

In a packed town hall in March convened after the family began criticizing the agency on social media, community members grilled Hodges and several other high-ranking agency representatives about the Merediths’ situation for two hours, pressing them about the environmental risks and demanding action. About half of Oklahomans live within 1 mile of oil and gas wells. 

“Would you live there?” a woman in the audience asked Hodges.

“I’m not going to answer that,” he responded, prompting jeers from the crowd.

“So you’re saying that you don’t want to answer the question of whether you would actually live in that house?” asked Mitch’s brother, Matt Meredith.

“That’s a hypothetical,” Hodges said. “I’m not going to answer that.”

Homeowners facing such an event should file damages with their insurance companies, Jim Marshall, an administrator with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, said from the front of the community center conference room. But the family’s insurance company had denied their claim last fall — citing exclusions for pollution and water damage — without ever inspecting the damage, according to the Merediths’ attorney. The Merediths have sued American Mercury, their insurance company, which did not answer questions about the case because of pending litigation, as well as their developers, who did not respond to requests for comment.  

At the public meeting, Marshall suggested underground water sources could be pushing fluid into the home, noting that the Merediths’ neighborhood once contained several ponds. If the culprit is not oil and gas, that would shift the responsibility for cleanup to other state agencies. Marshall, Hodges and an agency attorney repeatedly told the crowd that with the house likely blocking access to the well, the agency had reached the end of its legal ability to help the Merediths. 

Jack Damrill, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, did not answer questions about what the agency thinks is causing the pollution but said it “recognizes the seriousness of the concerns raised regarding the Meredith family matter, as well as the broader public interest.” The agency, he said in a statement, has “devoted significant investigative time, technical expertise, and regulatory resources to reviewing the situation and will continue to evaluate any new, relevant information as it becomes available.”

Last week, Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill introduced by the Merediths’ state senator, Avery Frix, that would create a fund to compensate homeowners whose houses have been damaged by oil and gas pollution. While hopeful that the legislation will help them, Mitch noted that it requires the commission to confirm the presence of an old well, something the agency has yet to do at the Merediths’ home.

On Darlene Lane, the flow of contamination increased in late April and continues to seep into their neighbor’s yard. 

“What I’ve begged for from the beginning is for them to help me contain it,” Mitch said. “They have refused to do anything.” 

Nine months after they were forced to flee their dream home, the family of five is crammed into a 900-square-foot, two-bedroom bungalow on Mitch’s parents’ farm where the couple had lived as newlyweds. The girls share a bunk bed. The baby sleeps in Mitch and Kara’s room.

The girls often ask to play with the neighbors they had to leave behind, along with many of their possessions. Their toys still line the shelves of their bedrooms in the house on Darlene Lane, awaiting their return. Wet clothes sat in the washer for months. Half-packed boxes are scattered around the floor, evidence of the family’s panicked retreat last August. 

The house is stuck in time, like a museum of the Merediths’ old life.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – The South Carolina Stingrays’ season came to an end in Game 5 of the South Division Finals as they fell to the Florida Everblades, 3-1, on Sunday night at the North Charleston Coliseum in front of 3,666 fans.

Neither side could figure out the goaltenders in the first period. Seth Eisele, making his second straight start for South Carolina, and Cam Johnson for Florida, kept both offenses quiet in the first.

In the second period, the Everblades started the frame on a 5-on-3 power play, but could not capitalize with Eisele denying multiple chances.

The Stingrays spent a majority of the period in their own end with Florida pressuring, but Eisele continued to stand tall in net. The Everblades had 18 shots in the second period alone as the Lake Elmo, MN native turned aside every chance, keeping the game scoreless going to the third.

Florida eventually broke through in the third. Isaac Nurse punched in a loose puck in front to give the Everblades a 1-0 lead 7:11 into the frame. Kyle Betts then doubled the visitors’ advantage less than two minutes later on a rebound.

Trailing by two in the final minutes, the Stingrays pulled Eisele for the extra attacker and converted. Jalen Luypen scored with 2:38 remaining in regulation, cutting the deficit in half, 2-1.

The Stingrays again pulled Eisele for the extra attacker, but Carson Gicewicz scored an empty-net goal with 1:09 left to ice the 3-1 win for the Everblades and seal the series, beating South Carolina in five games, 4-1.

The state of Tennessee says nine people have died in boating-related fatalities so far this year.

State data shows that number is higher than it was at this point last year.

Richard Simms with Scenic City Fishing Charters says anytime hearing about any boat-related tragedy is difficult because boating is supposed to be a relaxing activity, not a deadly one.

A great day of fun that turns to tragedy, and that strikes an emotional chord for people that you hate to see at any time, Simms says.

Simms adds that many of these incidents may be linked to speeding, collisions with other boats, or simply operators and passengers not paying close attention on the water.

Most collisions are just the result of somebody not paying attention, they’re distracted, maybe sending a text, or maybe talking to their buddy, you know, or watching something else, Simms tells us.

Two years ago Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency engineers performed temporary repairs on the ramp. Hamilton County Park officials said they had a plan in place to perform permanent repairs but that never happened until funding came via the Bill Dance Signature Lake project. (Contributed Photo)

We asked Brian Lee with TowBoat U.S. whether anything seems different on the water this year.

Lee says lake levels are lower than normal for this time of year, and with warmer-than-usual weather, more people are getting out on the water earlier in the season.

Lake levels are still very low because of our lack of rainfall. The lake levels have not come up to summer level, Lee tells us.

Tennessee law does not require adults to wear life jackets while on the water, but boaters are required to have life jackets on board.

Lee says they should consider wearing them anyway to avoid tragedy.

Anytime you accidentally fall into the water is a potential where you may not get back out of the water, Lee says.