Koster: $19 million to clean up railroad tie plant
More than $19 million from a federal settlement has been earmarked to help clean up a north Springfield industrial site contaminated by chemicals used in the production of railroad ties.
Attorney General Chris Koster said the money, part of a $5.15 billion national bankruptcy settlement, will pay to clean up and monitor the site so it can be returned to use.
The property at 2800 W. High St. is heavily polluted with creosote, a byproduct of coal tar that was used to coat railroad ties. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as a possible human carcinogen.
The Springfield plant began operating in 1907 as American Creosote Co. and was purchased by Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. in 1965. An estimated 900,000 railroad ties a year were treated with creosote at the plant, which closed and was decommissioned in 2004.
Stories in the News-Leader's archives mention the "creosote-laden soil and sludge" left behind on the property, as well as reports of creosote leaks that contaminated a nearby spring and disrupted operations at the city's Northwest Sewage Treatment Plant.
Not long after the closure of the Springfield facility, Kerr-McGee spun off some of its operations — as well as the responsibility of paying for most of its accumulated environmental damages — into a separate company, called Tronox. Tronox filed for bankruptcy in 2009, while Kerr-McGee's more profitable assets were sold to a third company, Anadarko.
Investors and federal authorities cried foul, however, and took legal action to force Andarko to help pay for the cleanup of thousands of sites that had been contaminated by Kerr-McGee's operations. In addition to creosote contamination at wood-treating plants in the East, Midwest and South, the company polluted Lake Mead in Nevada with rocket fuel and left behind radioactive waste in Navajo Nation territory, according to the Associated Press.
Of the total $5.15 billion settlement, Missouri will receive about $43.9 million, Koster said during a news conference at the High Street property Tuesday morning. He noted that the settlement is the largest of its kind in national or state history.
"I think it's a successful end in the process of cleaning this place up," he said.
Of the state's share, about $19.1 million has been earmarked to clean up the Springfield site. An equal share is being set aside to clean up a second Kerr-McGee railroad tie plant in Kansas City that also is contaminated with creosote.
The remaining $5.7 million will be channeled into the Missouri National Resource Damages Program, a state program that funds clean up of contaminated sites for public use.
Koster said the Missouri Department of Natural Resources will oversee the cleanup efforts.
He said the $19.1 million earmarked for Springfield is expected to be more than enough to remediate the soil and groundwater contamination at the High Street site, which covers about 64 acres and is bordered on the north by dozens of single-family homes. Koster said DNR at this point thinks the contamination is contained "within this fence line" but will be doing additional testing to determine if any of the creosote has spread.
A News-Leader story from March 8, 1977, said "globules of the pollutant" from the plant had leaked into a spring about three-quarters of a mile away. By 1990, the plant had made significant changes and installed concrete retaining walls connected to the bedrock to try to prevent creosote from escaping the site.
"The process did change over time ... They also had some industrial spills," said Jack McManus, chief counsel for the agriculture and environmental division at the Attorney General's Office. He said the funding will include soil and groundwater monitoring "for an extended period of time."