Town Has Hope for a Cleaner Future

WWW.KANSASCITY.COM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2008 Town has hope for a cleaner future

A jury will decide how decreases property values, causes a The residents compare Neodesha to much Neodesha, Kan., health hazard and prevents develop- Sugar Creek, the town near Kansas ment, city officials say. City that successfully sued BP and gets after a refinery “Every spring, tar would start ooz- Amoco in the 1990s for property dam- polluted the area. ing from the ground” at Neodesha ages. By KAREN DILLON Plastics, said owner Ted Peitz. “Same The history of Neodesha (nee-O-da- The Kansas City Star thing at the girls softball fields. We shay) is linked to oil. The Norman had to close them because of the Number #1 Museum commemorates NEODESHA, Kan. | The first com- gooey substance oozing out of the the west’s first commercial oil derrick. mercial oil well west of the Mississippi ground.” The newspaper is named The Derrick. River was drilled here 116 years ago. The girls softball teams now travel Standard Oil originally owned the Oil still makes Neodesha special – 15 miles to Fredonia to play three refinery. In 1970, the company left it but not in a good way. times a week. almost exactly as it was when it was Just under this town of 2,800 in One business, a cabinet maker, has operating – numerous tanks of oil, southeastern Kansas is a sea of toxic moved to another town because of large open-pit lagoons of oil leaking oil that has, from time to time, gur- contaminated buildings, which were into the ground and fumes rising in gled to the surface – sometimes by a near the refinery. The largest employ- the air. church, sometimes on the softball ers – Cobalt Boats, a boat maker, and Standard Oil was gobbled up by field. the plastics company – say they will Amoco. In the 1980s at least one oil pit The oil contamination comes from remain but have moved to other parts caught fire and there was at least one a refinery built on the edge of town in of town. explosion. 1897 and shuttered in about 1970 Contamination from oil also has The state forced Amoco in 1990 into without a cleanup. poisoned the groundwater under a a consent decree that required a plan But after decades of battling the large part of the town and one of the to clean up the property. sludge and years of attempting to sue elementary schools, so some wells BP, which took over Amoco in 1998, oil giant BP, residents have some have been closed and the city’s main told residents it was doing pilot stud- hopeful news. source of drinking water is the Fall ies to determine where the oil was In a surprise turnabout last month, River. and how to remove it, but those stud- a judge ruled that BP was liable for Residents now are concerned ies seemed to continue for years. damages and a jury now must decide because experts testified that the oil is “We were getting played,” said Julie if BP should pay what the city wants – migrating toward the river. But BP Lair, a member of the school board. a half-billion dollars. and the Kansas Department of Health “There would be people in little white “We are just ecstatic,” said David and Environment say that currently suits, gloves. They would be driving Edgar, who, with his brother and there are no health risks. around in trucks, then they dug some father, represented the city in court. Recently residents accompanying a holes. It would be, ‘See, we are doing BP has appealed the ruling. reporter saw water running black something.’ “ Scott Dean, BP spokesman, said the with an oily sheen in a creek that runs By 2004, BP still had no final plans company accepted full responsibility alongside former oil lagoons and or a timeline to complete the cleanup, for addressing contamination at the flows to the Fall River. KDHE and BP KDHE says. The town hired the Edgar site and has promised remedial officials said they would investigate. law firm in Kansas City and sued. action. “That is definitely something that is “We just wanted our town back,” Dean said he could not discuss the interesting to us,” said Christopher said Daryl Pruter, superintendent of matter further. “If there is a new trial Carey, a KDHE environmental scien- the Neodesha school district. then it will be discussed,” he said. tist. By the time the 17-week trial con- For now, the city is hoping it can win If the jury awards the city damages, cluded in January, though, residents the $480 million it’s asked for. much of it will go for cleanup with had learned that BP was considering Why so much? other money going to pay for proper- one plan that would take about 700 to The contamination underlies a ty damage, attorneys say. 1,000 years. good portion of the town, which

“We wanted this cleaned up in our lifetime, not in our children’s children’s lifetimes,” Pruter said. BP argued in court that the company was committed to a cleanup and was already actively doing that. Edgar said BP attorneys also told the jury that the residents were greedy. Residents say the legal battle has been fought up a steep hill and without much help from KDHE, the state’s environmental regulatory agency. And their hopes were dashed in January when a jury ruled in favor of BP. But last month, Allen County Judge Daniel Creitz ruled that he erred in jury instructions, and he, not the jury, should have decided whether BP was strictly liable for damage. Creitz then ruled the corporation is liable. “Given the defendants’ admissions and evidence here, no rational juror could return a verdict stating that (BP was) not guilty of contaminating the groundwater underneath Neodesha,” Creitz wrote in his ruling. “The con- taminants in this case are some of the most dangerous known to mankind.” Bitterness is probably the best way to describe how Neodesha residents feel toward KDHE. “KDHE is charged with protecting the health, safety and environment of Kansans – not polluters,” said Doug DePew, city attorney. One of the most revealing points, residents said, was when Pam Chaffee, then KDHE’s project manager for Neodesha’s BP site, testified. While on the stand, according to the plaintiffs, Chaffee said that the day before she had met with BP attorneys In a statement, officials said, “KDHE KDHE has now ordered BP to do for possibly nine hours. She said the is not a party to the lawsuit and is only additional sampling and develop a BP attorneys were briefing her on how interested in making sure that BP final clean-up plan. she would testify. remediates the site cleanup.” Edgar said BP should have complet- “We were slack-jawed,” said Peitz, Chaffee has been transferred to a ed it long ago. the plastics company owner. different project. “If they started doing this cleanup KDHE acknowledged in an inter- Carey, the new project manager, 37 years ago when they said they view that Chaffee met with BP attor- said KDHE has plans to establish a were, we’d have a clean town,” he said. neys but would not make her avail- citizens advisory group so the agency able for an interview. can better inform residents.