Amanda,

I was very pleased to see your article. Unfortunately, for use the residents of Neodesha, the national media has overlooked this small community. I have lived in Neodesha for 17 years, along with my wife and 6 kids and yes my home is in the BP plume area. I attend the trial once or twice a week. I am amazed with BP’s neglect in the past 20 plus years, to inform the
community of the vast concentrations of contamination that they knew encompass 75% of the
community.

In the pass BP along with the KDHE (Kansas Dept. Health and Environment) had told the City and residents of Neodesha that the contamination was manageable and was not migrating through the community. That was a lie. BP’s ability or lack of ability to remediate or control the contamination was nothing more than a cost effective way to sweep the problem under the rug.

The rug BP has chosen to sweep their polyaromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, arsenic, toluene, mercury, lead, etc. is our community. It would take approx. 5 years to remove the majority of the contaminates from which the migration has originated. In another 30 years BP’s contamination would be 95% gone. Understand that this is with us, “Neodesha” aggressively cleaning and removing the contaminates. I personally spoke with one of the gentlemen working at the old refinery site. Where BP is attempting a mock clean up. I asked him, how long
will it take to clean this mess up? His response was, “Not in your or your kids life time”.

People outside the community and some whom live in the community do not understand the implications of what this small community faces. These contaminates are under our schools which our kids have and continue to attend. It is also under our churches, municipal swimming pool, ball fields and yes the same yards that our kids play on every day. The Neodesha School District is already in the planning stages to bring in trailers. These would be used to house High school, Middle school and grade school class rooms behind Northlawn Elementary which is not presently in the plume area. Not to mention our property and resale values and not if but when the contamination reaches the rivers. What Then?

Although I continue to live in Neodesha and was aware of the contamination when I purchased
my home. I was assured as was the city of Neodesha that BP would doing everything possible to mediate the clean up. The clean up should not take BP a 1000 years or even a 100 years. This is a company that has the technology to pull oil and gas from any part of the planet. Out of BP’s own mouth. “BP is one of the world’s largest energy companies”. “ Turnover Profit $266 billion (year 2006), Replacement cost profit $22.5 billion (years 2006), with 97,000 employees, Proved reserves of 17.7 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent, with 24,600 service stations and 18
refineries in 26 active countries.” But because this process lends nothing to there billion dollar bottom line they have not the recourses?

This is a wonderful town with wonderful people. All we ask of BP is give us the opportunity to protect our families and clean up something they are unable to do in a timely manner.

Robert R. Lopez

Robert, thank you so much for your comment. It's a shame that mainstream media isn't paying much attention to what's going on in Neodesha, both because it's an injustice to the people who live there and because there's a lesson to be learned for the rest of us.

If you haven't already, you should consider submitting this as a letter to the editor of the Houston Chronicle. I'll do my best to keep Enviroblog readers appraised of the goings-on in Neodesha.

All I really want to say is that I'm so pissed. I would defiantly call Neodesha my home if not for all the pollution that BP caused. It is defiantly a beautiful town and had a lot of potential, but now there really is no hope for Neodesha or its residents.