Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster today announced the state received an additional $7.1 million in settlement funds to clean up contaminated sites in Springfield and Kansas City.
In the Queen City, $3.1 million will go toward cleanup efforts at 2800 W. High St., a 64.5-acre vacant site where energy firm Kerr-McGee had conducted creosote wood treatment that led to soil and groundwater contamination. The Kansas City site also is receiving an additional $3.1 million for remediation work, according to a news release.
“Cleanup of these sites not only protects public health and the environment, it will also restore valuable land for commercial use,” Koster said in the release. “The additional settlement proceeds for former Kerr-McGee facilities will go directly to the two sites in Missouri for the express purpose of environmental recovery under the supervision of the Department of Natural Resources.”
The new funding adds to $43.9 million Koster secured in
February for the cleanup of the two Missouri sites. Springfield and Kansas City each were designated $19.1 million for the work.
The cleanup funds are part of a settlement involving Tronox, a company created by Kerr-McGee. U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency attorneys alleged Kerr-McGee created Tronox for the purpose of hiding its environmental liabilities so Kerr-McGee could be sold to Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp., according to the release.
When Tronox filed for bankruptcy - citing the costs of the environmental liabilities - Missouri in 2009 asserted a claim in the proceedings for the former Kerr-McGee sites in Springfield and Kansas City.
In April 2014, the government reached a $5.15 billion settlement with Anadarko - the largest environmental cleanup recovery in U.S. history - and designated $4.4 billion for cleanup efforts at contaminated sites across the country, according to the release.
The bankruptcy settlement also is providing Missouri’s Natural Resources Damages program with an additional $923,311 - it previously received $5.7 million - to be used to remediate contaminated sites of the state’s choice, according to the release.[[In-content Ad]]
