COLUMBUS, MS (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with plans to clean up the old Kerr-McGee facility in Columbus.
In April 2014, the EPA designated $68 million in funds to clean up the 90-acre site, which was shut down in 2003, as well as other parcels in the city where creosote, a carcinogen, was located at higher than safe levels.
The funds were part of a $5.15 billion settlement between the federal government and Anardarko Petroleum Group, which had purchased the now-defunct Kerr-McGee facilities.
Lauri Gorton, environmental programs manager for Greenfield Environmental Trust Group, tells The Commercial Dispatch’s Slim Smith field testing around the site should begin next month.