Topeka ? State officials are asking Congress for an additional $30 million to assist with a long-awaited cleanup of remnants of the mining industry in Cherokee County.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, in a letter to the state’s congressional delegation, said the issue was about more than repairing damage to the land and water. It’s about improving life for residents in the state’s southeast corner, she said.

“The mining wastes in Cherokee County have scarred the land, ruined the streams and rivers and completely destroyed the use of shallow groundwater around the old lead and zinc mines,” Sebelius wrote in a letter dated July 28 but released by her office last week.

The governor is seeking an additional $5 million in each of the next six years.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency put 115 square miles from several different areas in Cherokee County on its national priorities — or Superfund — list in 1983. Between $50 million and $60 million has been spent since then, according to the agency.

Dave Drake, project manager for the EPA, said Monday that lumping the entire county in one site instead of having seven separate ones made progress seem slower than it was. Work is complete near Baxter Springs and Galena, he said, while other sites will take another 10 years.

Mining first developed in Cherokee County in the 1870s and continued until 1970. Zinc and lead were removed from limestone and shale bedrock in the region, which also includes portions of southwest Missouri and northeast Oklahoma.

Left behind are orange water, sinkholes, chat piles and nutrient-poor land unable to support crops or other vegetation.

Over the past two decades, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the EPA have identified the source of contamination and searched for potentially responsible parties who would be liable for paying for cleanup. However, as Sebelius noted in her letter, no owners can be found for many mines and sites, leaving the government to finance cleanup efforts.

“This is going to be a really long-term project,” said Gary Blackburn, director of the KDHE’s Bureau of Environmental Remediation.

EPA officials are proposing to remove contaminants near Badger, Crestline, Lawton, and the area in Kansas west of Waco, Mo., all in the northern part of Cherokee County. A public comment period ended in July for plans to remove mining wastes and address sediment from streams, such as heavy metals.

“Removing the material from the streams is cost prohibitive,” Blackburn said. “We need to look at a different approach.”

Efforts in Galena, including an area known as “Hell’s Half Acre,” have involved removing waste, drilling new water wells and installing water treatment units.

Kansas officials are also concerned about the effect of further delays in cleaning up the sites might have on neighboring states, especially along streams that drain into Tar Creek near Treece.

Oklahoma officials are spending about $3 million to purchase homes near Picher and Cardin, part of the 40-square-mile Tar Creek Superfund site. The EPA has spent more than $100 million cleaning up Tar Creek since 1995, primarily replacing topsoil in lawns and school playgrounds.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is requesting an additional $169 million for further clean up efforts in Oklahoma.

Sebelius said she wanted Kansas to be aggressive in addressing the pollution and not invite litigation from Oklahoma for pollution flowing across the border. Creeks in Kansas feed the Spring River, which flows from Missouri through Cherokee County and into Oklahoma, ultimately into Grand Lake of the Cherokees.

“This is a large, multistate problem,” she wrote. “The state will not be able to address these problems with state resources alone.”