Koster: $3 million more to clean up Springfield railroad tie plant

Missouri has received an additional $3 million to clean up a north Springfield industrial site contaminated by chemicals used in the production of railroad ties.

Attorney General Chris Koster announced Wednesday that additional money was received as part of the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation bankruptcy settlement. The $3 million comes in addition to about $19 million received in February.

Koster said previously the money would be used to clean up 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.

Missouri received a total of $44 million in February and $7 million this month, but that money is split between sites in Springfield and Kansas City.