Toxicity in our city? Not for long, hopefully.

Dear valued subscribers,

Welcome to Don't Miss Reads, our weekly newsletter highlighting some of our editors' favorite stories, photos and videos that you might have missed.

I'm Cheyenne Derksen, content planning lead for the region, and in my position with the Oklahoman, I get to read just about every story coming out of the newsroom.

This week, I had the pleasure of reading Dale Denwalt's piece exploring how abandoned oil wells are coming up on Oklahoma's honey-do list. Last month, the president signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a complex set of wide-ranging policies that includes $81 million for Oklahoma to clean up 1,196 orphaned wells. The money will help support the state's ongoing effort to clean up more than 17,000 well sites that have been abandoned.

Plugging and remediating orphaned wells is just one of several components of the IRA legislation. Another part is encouraging businesses with a green-ish purpose to get started.

It's unclear whether anyone with stacks of federal cash and a dream will pick Oklahoma for their manufacturing site or renewable energy production. If they do, it's likely they would be welcomed with open arms.

I've only lived in Oklahoma for a little over a year, (I haven't quite learned how to say "oil" with that native drawl yet), but I've not been able to explore as many sights here as I'd like to see. But I'm hopeful the cleanup (and possibly added revenue from some added industries) could give us more to enjoy.

Below, check out other stories our editors recommend.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Toxicity in our city? Not for long