Background/ History
The BP Products North America Inc. site is a former oil refinery, located at 1000 N. Sterling Ave. Standard Oil of Indiana built the refinery in 1904 on 450 acres of land along the Missouri River. A complex system of underground pipes carried crude oil to the refinery from as far away as Montana. The crude oil was processed into petroleum products and eventually fuels, such as gasoline and jet fuel. Operations included a wastewater treatment lagoon, sludge pond, sludge pit and leaded tank bottoms landfarm. Over the years, Standard Oil of Indiana merged and split with many companies. Amoco owned the refinery in 1982, when it decided to shut down the processing activities, before the Missouri Hazardous Waste Management Law and federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments existed. The product distribution terminal, offices and asphalt oil terminal remain in operation today.
Refinery documents dated as early as 1950 described tank and pipe leaks and petroleum product spills. Over several decades, millions of gallons of petroleum products had settled into the soil and contaminated the groundwater. Petroleum product was found in natural springs west of the refinery, leaking through a retaining wall that separated the city creek, also named Sugar Creek, from the refinery, and underneath a nearby residential area.
Cleanup Summary
Standard Oil built a recovery trench in 1967, to catch and stop more petroleum products from reaching the residential area. Amoco lengthened the trench several times along the southern border of the refinery. In 1982, Amoco set up a well system to recover oil floating on top of the groundwater. The department placed five separate disposal areas, totaling about 22 acres of the site, on the Registry of Confirmed Abandoned or Uncontrolled Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites in Missouri. The department and BP executed several Environmental Covenants in the chain-of-title for affected properties, which will notify in perpetuity, any potential purchaser of the environmental conditions of the properties. An Environmental Covenant was filed with the Jackson County Recorder of Deeds in 2009, and later amended in 2010, for several off-site areas. The amended Environmental Covenant restricts property use to green space and prohibits the construction of enclosed structures, disturbance of the soil and the drilling or use of shallow groundwater for drinking water. An Environmental Covenant for the on-site area was filed with the Jackson County Recorder of Deeds in 2011. This Environmental Covenant restricts the property to industrial use, prohibits disturbance of the soil and the drilling or use of shallow groundwater for drinking water, and requires a vapor barrier and venting system to be installed should any building(s) be constructed on the property.
Most structures, including tanks, processing equipment, and buildings, were demolished by 1989. The leaded tank bottom area was closed in 1988. Amoco performed most corrective action activities at the site under a 3008(h) Corrective Action Administrative Order on Consent with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), signed in June 1989. In December 1998, Amoco merged with British Petroleum (BP) and became BP Amoco Corp. The department and EPA worked with BP Amoco to complete other short-term cleanup measures, such as building a trench along the banks of Sugar Creek to catch petroleum products. The wastewater treatment lagoon, sludge pond and sludge pit were combined and closed as a single unit in August 1999. To allow the cleanup process to move faster, BP Amoco, the department and EPA agreed to perform future investigation and cleanup in a phased approach by dividing the site into smaller areas. Each area was being investigated under the EPA Order. When the final remedy for each area is approved by the department and EPA, a Corrective Action Abatement Order on Consent, signed by the department and BP in 2005, will regulate the implementation of the approved remedy. All areas have approved remedies. The EPA order was terminated Oct. 23, 2024.
