[4] A former center of zinc and lead mining in northeastern Oklahoma, the town is located within the Tar Creek Superfund site designated in 1983 because of extensive environmental contamination.

The vast majority of its residents accepted federal buyout offers of their properties, and the town's population officially had declined to zero in November 2010.

[6] This was part of the Tri-State district of southwest Missouri, southeast Kansas, and northeast Oklahoma, which produced more than 43% of the lead and zinc in the United States in the early 20th century.

This was designated in 1983 under laws intended to allocate federal funding to clean up former mining sites of extensive pollution.

These towns are part of a $60 million federal buyout because of lead pollution, as well as the risk of buildings caving in due to decades of underground mining.

In April 2009, federal officials stated that only seven residences were occupied in Cardin and that the town's water service would soon be shut off.

[7] In November 2010, the last family in Cardin received its final buyout payment from the federally funded Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust.

The state and EPA estimate that years more of investment and treatment will be required to reduce contamination to acceptable levels, and restore some of the habitat and landscape.