Support Winchester and our environment

Winchester is a small town south of Tulsa. Like many other small towns in Oklahoma, it’s full of hard working people on small acreages or farms that enjoy a peaceful life in the country. Approximately 15 years ago the Muskogee Creek Nation purchased a 40-acre farm in our town and it operated as a community center until October 2020. That’s when we found out that our neighbors, the Muskogee Creek Nation, were using their Cares Act dollars aka covid money to convert their community center to an enormous meat packing plant and lagoon in the midst of our town..our farms…and right along our fence lines. We have spent our entire lives building our homes and farms, while Cares Act funding falls right in their lap and is now putting at risk everything we have worked so hard to earn!

Our desperate pleas to not build their plant due to the health risks it poses to our citizens and livestock have fallen on deaf ears. One of our biggest concerns is the lagoon that was intentionally placed in a flood zone! It will discharge into the air and land along both sides of a very active creek that ultimately discharges into the Arkansas River. They have made many irresponsible, even dangerous decisions in their location site. Unlike any other entity that is building at this time, they have ignored requests to show permits of any kind obtained before or during their construction. A few other concerns during construction include a bridge that they built to access their lagoon. It repeatedly backed up the creek and flooded the neighbor’s pasture. The fence erected to surround the lagoon blew down and for weeks there was access to the open lagoon. When the creek floods as it has done many times, they did not and will not have access to their lagoon as they placed it across a creek and again in a flood zone. It’s as far from their plant as they could have placed it and right next to the neighbors instead.

Our town is forced to either accept the fate of this irresponsible project or fight it. As a small town with limited resources, we are fighting a giant. In fact, the tribe has the means to and just purchased 5,570 acres in a nearby but certainly much more remote location. This is their new headquarters and where the majority of their cattle will be located. A meat packing plant in that kind of location might show responsibility and concern for their neighbors and our land.

Although this is solely Winchester’s concern right now it won’t be for long. If the Muskogee Creek Nation is allowed to operate without any accountability to anyone other than to themselves this will become a problem for every person and community where the Nation owns or buys land such as the cancer treatment center they just recently acquired in Tulsa. If they can convert their community center to a meat packing plant with zero regard for their neighbors, then what will they ultimately do with their property in the surrounding communities? What happens in Winchester will certainly determine what can happen anywhere else! We must be heard and have this stopped!

One final comment if you are reading this and think our concern is just with Natives specifically. That is absolutely not true. We are a community filled with Natives from various tribes and some of the families most concerned with the dangers associated with this plant are in fact Native themselves. We are opposed to any individual, business, or tribe threatening our health, homes and way of life. That’s a fact!

If you’d like to see some of the press written and filmed regarding our concerns, please do a search for Winchester meat packing plant and you should find plenty of links.

If you are so included to join our cause, please consider donating any amount that you are able. You are also welcome to reach out to us through our town’s website at winchesterok.com or [email redacted] to offer support as well.