Where Is The Kerr McGee Settlement Money?

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – You probably have seen it or even smelled it.

Creosote is a black, tarry substance once used to treat railroad ties and telephone poles.

At the old Kerr McGee plant in the heart of Columbus, years and years of using the chemical meant it got in the ground, in the water, and in the air.

For 17 years, neighbors and community leaders fought to have the plant closed, the land and water cleaned and for a financial settlement.

It’s been nearly 4 years since Kerr McGee and attorneys for the people in this neighborhood reached a $5 billion dollar deal, but many of those people say they have yet to see a penny.

Here in the backyards of 27th Street North near the old Kerr McGee plant, memories linger like ghosts.

“My son died in 1996 with sarcoidosis. My baby, he was 28 years old and that’s one of the things that comes from this, okay? My mother died with cancer. My father died with lung cancer. My oldest brother died with lung cancer. Both of them worked at, it’s Kerr-McGee now, but it was Moss Tie, back then,” says Scherrel Sturdivant.

“My daughter and I use to walk used to come through here, walk-through here, going to Morningside when she was little. Now, at the age of 35, she’s passed with breast cancer,” says Eric Collins.

Collins grew up here.

He played here.

He says what they didn’t know then, is killing them now.

“Out here is where my brother, Tim and I used to come out here and play. There use to be some water out here. We use to come out here and wrestle, play and you know, have fun. Blackberries, we use to eat out here. We had plum trees on down some, we use to eat when we were little kids out here. They use to have little spots out there with a little water and we use to go out there and wrestle and play in it and have just a good time, didn’t know we was getting poisoned.”

One by one, Sturdivant has lost loved ones.

She believes the danger is still close by.

“You still can see the creosote on some of those poles. On the next street, there is a lady over there that’s got a pole right in front of her drive and the creosote comes out on it. The black creosote, okay and, it’s a lot of stuff going on right here, like when the water gets up back here, it has grease on top of it, like if it rains a lot.”

When the settlement was approved, Sturdivant says she did what the lawyers told her to do.

“Every time you called the 800 number, they sent me a paper to fill out. I filled it out and sent it back. That’s been over a year ago. You haven’t heard anything else from it. When I called that 800-number, they tell you it’s still pending, okay but, you haven’t heard anything from them. They denied my baby died with sarcoidosis. They’ve denied him three times.”

And, She still doesn’t have any money.

Neither does Collins.

“While they are up there, you know, with the golden parachute, we’re sitting around here dying and suffering with cancer and whatever and not getting a dime.”

Collins says the number of people making claims against the settlement is 25,000.

That’s 25,000 individuals that the attorneys for the fund say they must vet or approve before any pay outs can begin.

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