Koster secures more money for contaminated Springfield site

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster secured another $334,000 for environmental cleanup efforts at a contaminated Springfield site.

The total of $791,635 for sites in Springfield and Kansas City adds to $5.1 million Koster announced in February and April would be used to clean up soil and groundwater contamination, according to a news release.

In Springfield, the 64.5-acre vacant property at 2800 W. High St. was contaminated after energy firm Kerr-McGee Corp. conducted creosote wood treatment. The site already has received $22.2 million for remediation work by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

“Cleaning up the old Kerr-McGee sites is an important project that ultimately means safe properties that can be used for future development,” Koster said in the release. “The huge investment of more than $51 million to clean up these environmental problems reflects the magnitude of the challenge.”

Funding comes from a settlement involving Tronox LLC, a company Kerr-McGee created to allegedly hide its environmental liabilities so Kerr-McGee could be sold to Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp., according to the release.

Tronox filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and the government reached a $5.15 billion settlement with Anadarko in April 2014. It’s the largest environmental cleanup recovery in U.S. history.

The Department of Natural Resources also received $103,256 in the latest round of funding, according to the release.