Excerpt from The Journal Record. Read the full article here.
By Steve Metzer, October 13, 2020
A new phase is set to begin in the decades-long process of cleaning up a former Kerr-McGee refinery site in Cushing.
Use of the sprawling site by various companies can be traced back nearly to Oklahoma’s statehood, after impressive oil discoveries were recorded in the Cushing area. According to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), hundreds of refineries, some large and many small, were built across the state to process crude as production reached toward 278 million barrels pumped by 1927.
“Beginning back in the teens, the (Cushing) site was originally a tank farm, and from the teens into the mid-50s the site had multiple owners,” said Todd Downham, project manager at the DEQ. “Then, in 1956, Kerr-McGee acquired the property and its ownership lasted until the early ’70s.”
Refining operations ended in 1972, when parts of the facility started being torn down for salvage. Massive cleanup operations, envisioned to be accomplished in several stages, originated around 1990. Kerr-McGee eventually transferred the site, along with numerous other properties, to Tronox, a subsidiary. After Tronox filed for bankruptcy in 2009, Kerr-McGee entered into a consent order with the state to continue remediation. A public-private Multistate Environmental Response Trust was established to own, clean up and facilitate reuse not only of the Cushing site but also of numerous other former Tronox/Kerr-McGee sites across 31 states.