Sierra Club to sue plant in Kansas City for PCB contamination

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Sierra Club announced Monday it plans to sue the U.S. Department of Energy and contractor Honeywell for allegedly polluting soil and water near a plant that makes components for nuclear weapons.

The Sierra Club said potentially dangerous amounts of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, and other toxins from the U.S. Department of Energy's plant in southern Kansas City have polluted the adjacent Indian Creek and Blue River, along with soil and groundwater.

Federal law requires 60 days' notice prior to filing a lawsuit against the federal government.

The Sierra Club claims the facility has been polluting the environment since World War II when it began as a maker of aircraft engines. The plant has been operated in recent decades by Bendix-Allied Signal and now Honeywell, making non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons under a contract with the Department of Energy.

Tanya Snyder, a Honeywell spokeswoman, said the plant has a history of complying with state and federal regulations. The plant also has spent $16 million since the 1980s to clean up trace amounts of PCB left from the 1960s and 1970s, she said.

Though Missouri environmental regulators tend to agree that the plant is operating safely, Rob Morrison with the state's Department of Natural, told The Kansas City Star last week that the department was taking another look. The department is rerunning laboratory tests on new soil and water samples.

Jeanne Lopatto, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy, said Monday that the department has no comment on a lawsuit that it not only hasn't seen but hasn't been filed. Snyder also said she had not seen the notice and could not comment on it.

Scott Dye, the Sierra Club's water quality monitoring and enforcement director, said the environmental group wants to stop discharges and spills from the plants, and force the government and Morris Township, N.J.-based Honeywell to come up with a long-term plan for cleaning up pollution.

Unauthorized spills

The Sierra Club claims 14 unauthorized spills or discharges of contaminants including wastewater and caustics have occurred in the last five-years.

Another goal of the lawsuit, Dye said, is to alert the public that Indian Creek and Blue River are too contaminated with PCBs to use for recreation. Scientists have linked PCBs with a range of health problems, including cancer and birth defects, and the chemical was banned in the 1970s.

The Sierra Club posted signs at public access points last fall warning the community of the pollution after observing people fishing in the waterways.

But Dye said signs from the federal government would be more effective.