Oil and water: Who will right the wrongs of an East Side gas station’s environmental negligence?

Tiara Taylor ducks out from behind the counter at Smaxx and slides into a booth. It’s just before 5 p.m. on a Thursday — not typically a busy food hour. But restaurants are scarce in the 18th & Vine District, and Smaxx has been doing brisk business since Taylor and her husband, Brandon Dixon, opened, six months ago. Paint-stained laborers jaw at one another over baskets of fried food. Framed black-and-white photos of Negro Leagues baseball games and old KC jazz legends dot the walls. A speaker system tuned to Hot 103 is blowing out bangers: Migos’ “Bad and Boujee,” Future’s “Mask Off.”

“We ended up in a historically black neighborhood that was really ready for a place like ours,” Taylor says. “People are like, Where you been? So it’s been beautiful. But it was a long way getting here. We got dragged through the mud on the way here.” 

In 2013, Taylor and Dixon bought a piece of property a few miles from 18th and Vine, at the northeast corner of 31st Street and Cleveland Avenue, with the intention of renovating it and opening Smaxx there. Taylor grew up not far away. She saw opportunity in the location. 

“It’s a prime spot,” Taylor says. “Thirty-first is a major street. Something like 25,000 cars roll by there every single day. And there’s nothing between Van Brunt and Prospect where you can get food. We were excited. We were going to bring good food, new life to that corner.”

Before long, though, hints emerged that the property wasn’t a simple fixer-upper. The day after the couple pulled out the floorboards to install a grease trap, they returned to find what Taylor calls a “chemical smell” in the air, and the grease trap was coated in a mysterious ooze. They asked a contractor working in the space if he knew what the substance was. He didn’t. They called the fire department. Taylor says the fire department told them to call the local branch of the Environmental Protection Agency. 

“The EPA guy tried to tell us that we probably had a disgruntled employee who dumped this sludgy ooze down into the grease trap,” Taylor says. “We were like, What? So we cleaned it out. But the next day it was back. The EPA came back again and said the same thing. We were like, We think this could be a problem. Do you think we should continue building this place out? And he told us not to worry. He said, ‘Finish your construction.’” 

So that’s what they did. They put the floorboards back down and, for a while, forgot about the ooze and the smell. They knocked out walls in the kitchen, installed new equipment and blacktopped the adjoining lot for parking. Then one day in November 2014, after a heavy rainfall, they arrived to find that an overwhelming odor permeated the building. 

“It was like toxic sewage mixed with gas,” Taylor says. “You couldn’t breathe in there. You couldn’t be in the building.” 

Taylor and Dixon started asking around about the smell. They soon learned what many residents of the area already knew: that petroleum contamination coming from Taylor and Dixon’s next-door neighbor had been quietly poisoning the neighborhood for years. 

Since at least 1967, and likely well before that, there has been a gas station operating at 3814 East 31st Street. Today, a vintage red-and-white pole still rises high into the air near the curb. In vertical lettering, it reads: “GAS 24 HRS.” The gas station operates under the name Inner City Oil, and a company called Zill LLC has owned it since 2003. 

Three years after Zill took ownership of this gas station, nearby residents like Beverly Cheadle, at 3023 Cleveland, began to complain of gas smells in their houses. Inner City Oil is located at the top of a small hill. It slopes north, and Cheadle’s home is downwind of it. She’s owned the home since 1956 and can’t recall a time when a gas station wasn’t operating at the top of the hill. But it was only in 2006 that the gasoline odor materialized in the home, says her son, Kevin Cheadle. 

“That’s when we first experienced this smell,” Kevin, who lived in the house from 1964 to 1982, says. “It was very new, very obvious. We called the fire department out, and then they got DNR involved.” 

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the Kansas City Fire Department, and Kansas City Water Services investigated the problem in April 2006. It was determined that a break in the sewer main had allowed a mixture of groundwater and petroleum to make its way into sewer lines that connected to nearby residences. Because of its proximity, Inner City Oil was considered the likely source of the contamination, but the investigation yielded no conclusive evidence tying the gas station to the problem. Repairs were made, and petroleum stopped flowing into the sewer main. The problem seemed to go away. 

As a result of the April 2006 activity, though, the MDNR referred the case to its “tanks section,” which regulates underground storage tanks. When you pump your gas at a gas station, it’s usually coming from a UST, which is a huge, cylindrical vat installed in the ground underneath the pumps. Until the 1980s, most USTs — which often hold 10,000 gallons of fuel or more — were made of steel. That turned out to be a bad idea. The steel corrodes, allowing the gas inside to seep into the nearby environment, contaminating soil and groundwater. 

In September 2006, Zill was ordered to replace the old steel tanks on its site with new ones made of fiberglass. Massive petroleum leakage was discovered during this removal process. As a subsequent MDNR report noted: “Although 805 tons of petroleum-impacted soil was removed from the site and properly disposed, Zill LLC was unable to remove all of the contamination.” 

Years passed. In 2011, Zill consented to a $23,000 judgment for failing to comply with the state’s UST laws. In 2013, the MDNR ordered Zill to conduct what’s called a “site characterization.” Complaints about gasoline odors had persisted in the neighborhood, and the state wanted to know the full extent of the contamination. The findings have not been encouraging. 

The area surrounding Inner City Oil is not a land of prosperity and opportunity. Both the median household income and median home value in its Census tract fall in the bottom 10 percent for the state of Missouri. A fifth of residents over the age of 25 never graduated high school. More than a quarter of the population lives in poverty. Ninety percent of residents are black. 

Hyperlocal cancer rates are a harder statistic to come by. Ask around, though, and cancer seems to be as present in this neighborhood as boarded-up windows and unemployed men. 

Charles Gines, owner of Gines Cleaners, a half-block down from Inner City Oil, has leukemia. 

“I think it’s from the water — I think there’s something in it,” says Gines’ daughter, Kessa Gines, from behind the cleaners’ counter. “I told my dad for years not to drink the water here. I only drink bottled water when I’m working here.”

Mary Johnson, 65, has lived at 3006 Mersington, downhill from the gas station, for 45 years. She doesn’t trust the tap water, either. Johnson says that, after showering, members of her family would often break out in hives and bumps that would later turn black. Her husband died of prostate cancer, and she’s battling breathing problems. These days, Johnson drinks bottled water and, to bathe, boils tap water before dumping it in the tub. 

“There’s been something wrong with the water for many years now,” she says. “A lot of people around here have headaches they can’t get rid of. My neighbor, Carol, is on a drip for pain from the headaches.”

I can’t find Carol, but a block over, up a porch lined with green putt-putt-course carpet and past a screen door, I meet Vivian Wade and her son, Ricardo. Vivian is 97 years old and has lived in her Cleveland Avenue house since the presidential administration of Harry S. Truman. Ricardo is 64 and was born in the house; he lives a few blocks away on Linwood now. 

Framed family photos line the walls of Vivian’s time-capsule living room. Most of the people are dead. Vivian’s husband (and Ricardo’s father) died of multiple myeloma while living in this home. Ricardo’s sister died of leukemia while living here. Vivian suffers from dementia and was recently diagnosed with colon cancer, Ricardo told me. He also said that, when he moved back into this house for a few years in 2005, he began to suffer constant and intense headaches. 

“And my mom was having the same thing,” Ricardo says. “And ever since then, she’s been deteriorating. That’s why I’m trying to get her out of this house. She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t understand that this house, this neighborhood — it’s no good for her anymore.”

When their place at 31st and Cleveland became too overtaken by fumes to finish construction, Tiara Taylor and Brandon Dixon locked it up for a month and prayed the vapors would pass. When the couple returned, they found traces of rust on their new equipment. A brickish-red film had settled on the stainless-steel products in the kitchen. 

“We had built our restaurant, basically,” Taylor says. “By that point, we were almost done. We were trying to get approval from the health department. But who’s going to pass your inspection when that’s what you’ve got going on in your restaurant? You couldn’t stand in there for two seconds because the smell was so strong. We were going to be a restaurant. We were going to have open flames in there. Ain’t nobody gonna pass your inspection when it seems like the whole place could blow up at any minute.”

Taylor and Dixon were not alone in finding themselves suddenly assaulted by petroleum vapors. Two months later, in January 2015, three properties down the hill from Inner City Oil reported similar concerns. Two of the properties were the same ones that had been affected back in 2006. Again it was determined that a broken sewer line was allowing petroleum to flow into the sewer main, causing vapors to migrate into five properties in the area. 

Zill, owner of Inner City Oil, had been paying a third-party entity to collect soil and groundwater samples in the area, per the MDNR’s 2013 order. But after the incidents of late 2014 and early 2015, the MDNR declared the situation an emergency. The state set up monitoring wells in the area, many of which were found to contain liquid petroleum. It ordered Zill to put together a work plan to immediately begin addressing all facets of the contamination. Zill was also required to pay for off-site lodging for those affected by the contamination. 

But Zill dragged its feet and failed to act on the order. (It has since begun complying.) So, in August 2015, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster sued Zill on behalf of the MDNR. A month later, Koster and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver stopped in for a visit at Taylor and Dixon’s would-be restaurant, TV camera crews in tow. 

“We’re asking the court to force this gas station to immediately begin and complete a remediation plan for the neighborhood,” Koster said at the time. “Or, in the alternative, we’re asking them to remove all the gas from their underground storage tanks and stop selling gas in this neighborhood. If they can’t be a good neighbor, we’re not going to let them continue to contaminate this area.” 

That was nearly two years ago. Today, the state’s lawsuit remains unresolved, Koster lost his run at the governorship, and Inner City Oil is still selling gas on 31st Street. 

What’s the holdup? Right now, the poured- syrup pace of the proceedings is the result of a maddeningly circular dispute between the state and a state-administered fund regarding how much money is available to clean up this mess. 

If the state — that is, the Missouri Attorney General’s office, acting on behalf of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources — is ever able to extract money from Zill, it will in all likelihood come from an obscure program called the Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund, or PSTIF. 

In Missouri, if you want to store gas in a tank system, as all gas stations must, you are required to be insured. Many gas stations opt to insure themselves against potential petroleum leaks through PSTIF. To participate in PSTIF, a gas station like the one owned by Zill pays a surcharge on all petroleum transported into MIssouri. That surcharge is collected by the Department of Revenue and deposited into the state treasury. When your petroleum tank malfunctions and an environmental crisis occurs, you call PSTIF, just as you would call your car insurance company if you rear-ended somebody. Assuming PSTIF decides your claim is valid, it will give you money to pay for cleanup and other third-party damages. 

Eleven trustees, all appointed by the governor, sit on PSTIF’s board. State statute mandates that three of those seats are occupied by members of certain departments. There’s a trustee who works for the Department of Agriculture, one from the Office of Administration, and one from the Department of Natural Resources. 

PSTIF’s quasi-governmental status presents several conflicts in a case like Zill’s. For example, will Katie Jo Wheeler — the PSTIF trustee who represents the MDNR — recuse herself because Zill is being sued on behalf of that entity? Wheeler declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. For insight into PSTIF’s unusual position in this litigation, Wheeler suggested I call Carol Eighmey, PSTIF’s board-appointed executive director. Eighmey said she preferred to let the court documents speak for themselves. 

Those documents don’t paint a pretty picture of what’s going on, though. According to a brief filed by the state, PSTIF and the state cannot agree on the amount of money that is still available from PSTIF to satisfy the claims against Zill. The disagreement stems from competing interpretations of state law and Zill’s participation agreement with PSTIF. The state seems to believe PSTIF’s liability is $4 million, while PSTIF is arguing that the liability is only $3 million. 

Additionally — and somewhat incredibly — PSTIF stated in those negotiations that its legal defense costs could draw down the amount of money available for cleanup and third-party damages. In other words, PSTIF argued (according to the state) that it could use Zill’s insurance policy to pay Zill’s attorney, and that whatever is left afterward is all that is available to the victims of this environmental disaster. 

As the attorney for Mary Johnson and other Cleveland Avenue residents who have recently filed suit against Zill over the gas leak, Brian Madden has had a front-row seat for this ongoing dispute. His case has been consolidated into the state’s case for the purposes of pretrial discovery. Madden, too, declined to comment, but directed me toward his court pleadings. 

Calling the situation “absurd,” Madden wrote in April: “There has been no cleanup or payment to the Missouri citizens who actually happen to live [in the area impacted by the Zill spill], yet PSTIF dollars are being spent on defense costs for Zill. … PSTIF is apparently taking the position it can spend all coverage dollars on defense costs and leave nothing for cleanup or compensation.”

Missouri Rep. Brandon Ellington doesn’t represent the affected neighborhood in the legislature — he’s one district over — but he has been more outspoken than any other local elected leader on this issue. (The state representative for the district in which Inner City Oil sits is Randy Dunn, who recently resigned to take a job in another state and did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Kiki Curls, its representative in the Missouri Senate.)

“It’s one of the cloudiest situations I’ve ever dealt with in terms of clear transparency,” Ellington says. “Zill pays into this fund. The fund is supposed to pay for the cleanup. I’ve been asking questions for two years now, and I got no good answer for you as to why PSTIF hasn’t paid up yet.” 

The attorney general’s office — now under the Republican leadership of Josh Hawley — is “taking all measures available to ensure cleanup occurs,” spokeswoman Loree Anne Paradise says. “We strongly believe PSTIF funds should be used to clean up this hazard and protect the people of the region — not to pay lawyers.” 

Nevertheless, there is no shortage of lawyers getting paid. 

When Taylor and Dixon filed their own lawsuit against Zill, in January 2016, they were surprised by the gas station’s response. Zill countersued them and several other third parties — including Kansas City, Missouri; the Land Bank of Kansas City; Kansas City Public Schools; and the previous owner of the gas station — alleging that all these entities had also utilized underground storage tanks in the area and thus could have been responsible for the widespread petroleum leaks at issue. 

Zill’s attorney, Brian Mouber, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but court documents show that Zill hired an expert to conduct a ground-penetrating radar study of the area around the gas station, and that an “anomaly” was found on the Smaxx property. Based on this, the court granted Zill permission to dig up Taylor and Dixon’s parking lot. 

“They were hoping maybe there was a gas station on our property a long time ago, and that there was still a tank under there, and that’s what the problem was,” Taylor says. “They tore up our parking lot and found nothing. After that, they had to settle with us.” 

The settlement was reached in April of this year; Taylor declined to comment on the amount. 

In August 2016, Zill reached another settlement, with Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, located a block down the hill from Inner City Oil. Whereas Taylor and Dixon took the money, ceded the property and opened their restaurant in a more stable part of town, the church is sticking around. After the second wave of petroleum leaked into the neighborhood, in late 2014, Pastor Kevin Smith held a meeting at the church and announced that he intended to essentially form a class action against Zill. He paid for a lawyer, who then hired experts to test the ground and water in the neighborhood. 

“Few if any of the people in this neighborhood have the means to hire a lawyer to pay for those things,” Smith says. “I told the neighborhood that the church would pay the legal costs.” 

In the end, Smith never filed the suit and received what he says is $300,000 from Zill, which was then distributed among the church and four neighboring homeowners. The church now owns those homes. It also recently picked up about 15 other homes in the neighborhood from the Land Bank for a price Smith calls “significantly below cost.” 

Smith has since formed a nonprofit, Urban Success Development, that seeks to revitalize the neighborhood north of Inner City Oil. Smith says USD is working with the EPA to begin the process of properly cleaning up the contamination. 

“I want to see this area thrive again,” Smith says. “My hope is that if the PSTIF money ever comes through, it will go toward making this a greenfield again, instead of a brownfield. That’s my hope. Reality tells me — I worked in a law firm for 25 years — that, as far as the state’s suit goes, a few lawyers will get paid, a couple of experts are going to get paid, a few palms will get greased, and people will mostly try to forget about this entire mess.” 

Two doors up from the church in the direction of the gas station, the Cheadles still own their home at 3023 Cleveland. Eleven years after first reporting the fumes, they have yet to receive any financial compensation. After the second petroleum release, in 2014, Kevin finally convinced his mother to move out of the home. 

“That second time, it was like somebody had walked through the house with a gas can and poured gas everywhere,” Cheadle says. “I couldn’t get the Health Department or DNR to go on record stating that the home was safe to live in. So that was enough for me.” 

Cheadle says he’s now paying $1,000 a month for his mother to live in a home in a different part of the city. When he moved her out, he was hopeful that money from the state would eventually be available to pay for those relocation costs. He’s still waiting. But on Cleveland Avenue these days, patience is very rarely rewarded. 

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