Lady Justice
SPRINGFIELD — Springfield and City Utilities of Springfield have filed a federal lawsuit against BNSF Railway Company and Burlington Northern Railroad Holdings Inc., seeking to recover environmental investigation and cleanup costs tied to a former manufactured gas plant site near downtown.
The complaint, filed Feb. 3 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, alleges that the railroad companies are responsible under federal environmental law for hazardous substances remaining at a property historically used to manufacture gas from coal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries .
The case centers on one of three former manufactured gas plant facilities once operated by the Springfield Gas and Electric Company, or its predecessors, between approximately 1875 and 1932, the complaint states.
The specific property at issue, identified as “Site 2” in court filings, is located at the southwest corner of North Main Avenue and West Mill Street.
That site is now part of a larger tract of land owned or operated by BNSF and Burlington Northern Railroad Holdings that stretches from Main Avenue to Grand Avenue and from the BNSF railroad tracks south to Jordan Creek .
The city and City Utilities brought the action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
The statute allows parties who have incurred cleanup costs related to hazardous substances to seek reimbursement from parties deemed legally responsible.
In addition to recovering past expenses, the plaintiffs are asking the court for a declaratory judgment establishing that the defendants are jointly and severally liable for future cleanup costs associated with the site .
Court filings state that manufactured gas production during that era typically generated waste by-products in liquid, solid, and gaseous forms.
Those by-products could include hazardous constituents such as trace heavy metals, including lead, arsenic and copper, as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) including benzene, xylene and benzo(a)pyrene.
The complaint alleges that at least some of these substances were released or disposed of at Site 2 during gas manufacturing operations and remain in or beneath the soil today.
The Springfield Gas and Electric Company is alleged to have ceased gas manufacturing operations at Site 2 around 1910 and conveyed the property the following year to the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, commonly known as the Frisco.
The Frisco later became a predecessor of BNSF, and after acquiring the property, the Frisco constructed and operated a train depot at the site, which was later operated by BNSF.
The lawsuit notes that a second manufactured gas plant operated nearby until 1932, when Springfield Gas and Electric fully converted its system to natural gas.
In the mid-1940s, Springfield acquired the company’s operating assets and City Utilities was subsequently created by statute and ordinance to manage those assets.
The city later transferred control of the former gas company assets to City Utilities.
The plaintiffs allege that the presence, disposal or threatened release of hazardous substances at the site has caused them to incur necessary response costs consistent with the national contingency plan, a requirement under CERCLA.
They argue that BNSF and Burlington Northern Railroad Holdings are liable as current owners or operators of property where hazardous substances were disposed of or remain located.
In their request for relief, the city and City Utilities ask the court to order the defendants to reimburse them for cleanup-related costs already incurred, plus interest and to issue a binding declaration that the defendants will be responsible for all future necessary response costs tied to Site 2. The plaintiffs are represented by Thomas J. Grever and Joseph T. Zaleski of Shook Hardy & Bacon.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Southern Division case number: 6:26-cv-03056
